CONTINUES FROM NEXT WEEK
The Bible is telling us here that we should continue in things which you have heard, the things you have learned in the Church till now, continue in them. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving” (Col 2:6-7). Be not deceived by any wind of doctrine, any man, any woman. Do we not see people like Phebe? What about women like Mary and others who were deaconesses?
Another heresy has emerged saying the believers should not pay tithe again. These are erroneous teachings going on in the world today filling the media wave. Be not deceived, continue in what you have heard, you have learnt from us, from me. That is what will make you to stand. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col 2:8).
Total obedience is also very essential to our waiting for His second coming. Obedience to the voice of God. Jesus said in John 10, “My sheep heareth my voice”. If you are a sheep of Jesus Christ you must hear His voice, not deceiving spirit, not voice of strange familiar spirit. Not voices from the water, or from the wilderness. People are going from mountain to mountain, valley to valley, place to place, church to church burial ground to burial ground, looking for power, and they come out and speak nonsense to us in the public.You must be very careful, do not be carried away, know where you have started and where you are going. The Lord will help us. Total obedience to God is demanded. Jesus said, if you love me you will keep my commandments. And that is what God had ordered the Israelites right from the beginning (Deut. 6:4-9). If you want God to make you a precious, blessed child, man or woman, you must obey the voice of God.
Ex.19:1-5 says: “if you will obey me indeed, endeavour not to depart from faith”. Not just the starting but the end of your faith matters. A man of God said it some years back that “I have reached a place of no turning back”. You must have a decision like that about your faith and not falling away from it before anyone, even if it’s your son, even if it’s your husband or it’s your wife: what the Lord has given you as the sound doctrine you must never turn away from it. Be steadfast in the apostles’ doctrine to the end (Act 2:42). God is telling us that we are glorious children, peculiar children. You must decide that “I have walked with the Lord and have reached a place of no turning back”.Jesus said anyone holding the plow looking back is not fit again for the Kingdom of heaven (Luke 9:62; I Tim 4:1).
DANGERS OF NOT WATCHING
But when one is not watching, he runs into the danger of loss of earthly blessing. You lose many blessings of the Lord when you are not watching for the Lord’s coming again. Matthew 25:24-30 makes this clear. But in verses 28-29 the scripture warns us concerning the danger of losing the blessing of God: “Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath”.
Talent is the gift God has given you to work with; so when you are not steadfast in faith, waiting for Jesus’ Second Coming, then you will lose earthly blessings. That’s why it was taken from that man in the parable of the Talents. He didn’t use the talent, he was living in foolery full of excuses: saying well I know you are stubborn, always looking for gain where you have not sowed.
Another danger risked by those who are not watching for the Lord’s return is hellfire. God forbids that for you and I. In Matthew 24:48-51, the scripture says; “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, my Lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Beware.
REWARDS FOR WAITING FOR JESUS SECOND COMING
Reward for those that are watchful however shall include earthly blessings of prosperity, rest of mind, increase, sound health, security, etc. As you are watching all these will be given to you as grace. Anything we have from God is by grace we are not better than the people who have gone. He has promised it, “the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). That God is still there, He has not changed. Wait and watch till the end.
Another reward awaiting those that watch for the Lord is to inherit the Kingdom of God. You must be a candidate to inherit the Kingdom of God if you are watching.
A word is enough for the wise. Uphold the hope till the end. Do you hope that Jesus will come one day? Yes. And this hope you have, uphold it till the end. It is essential to continue in the hope.
“Looking for that blessed and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
Also, Hebrew 3:6 enjoins: “But Christ as a son over His own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
In Colossian 1:27, the Spirit of the Lord declares unto us, “Christ in you the hope of Glory”. Those who have Christ in them have the hope of glory at the end of their earthly sojourn. But when grudges, murmuring and bitterness are in your heart then Christ is not there again. Allow Christ to be in you so that you have the hope of His coming and when He comes you enter into the glory with Him. Because the Lord wants us to maintain that hope to the end. By coming to church, to teaching, prayer meetings, bible study are meant to ginger and to encourage the hope more and more.
It is written in I Peter 1:13; “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”.
After all we have been labouring, speaking, teaching and you have been hearing all these years, what the Lord needs from you is to“gird your loins, be sober and hope to the end”. The Lord will help us. And what becomes of those who have this hope, according to I John 3:3; “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure”. You have to purify yourself, you have to wash yourself clean. We have been given the blood of Jesus for purification. Therefore, you wash every time, you wash every day to be pure.
Please we are waiting for the coming of Jesus Christ for the second time. As we are waiting, this is what the Lord wants from you, because He has promised and He will never fail. It shall be a glorious happy day for us on that day when He shall appear in the sky. The Lord will help you. Amen.
TO BE CONTINUED
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