Bible Session Notes - October 3rd

Stop Riding The Fence

Jeremiah: Jeremiah was a priest and a prophet.  Jeremiah saw his nation disintegrating morally from within and being destroyed militarily from without.  He saw many of the people of Jerusalem taken captive to foreign lands.  He spoke to Judah asking them to turn back to God.

God sent Jeremiah to warn the people that if they did not change their way of living, they would be sent into exile and destroyed.

As followers of Christ and believers in the one true God, we cannot act like the rest of the world.  We must be set apart.  People should be able to tell the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. 
Matthew 7:15-20.

In Jeremiah’s time, much like in our own time, many people are walking around with the label “believer” or “saved” or “Christian,” and yet almost nothing in their lives would indicate that they have received salvation and are living as redeemed people. 

The people of Jeremiah’s time would go to church and say their prayers to the one true God just like many of us today.  BUT THEN, they would go back home and they would sin against God!  They would thank nature for their crops, foreign gods for their wealth, they would have sex with whomever they wanted, they would kill innocent people, they would worship idols, and on and on and on, sinning against the God they just claimed was their savior, their salvation, the one true God.

I see some frightening similarities in our society today.  People claiming Christianity but sinning against God in so many ways like: watching pornography, worshipping rock stars and movie stars, having sex outside of marriage, worshipping “mother earth” instead of acknowledging God’s hand in everything, killing innocent lives through abortion, and on and on and on, sinning against the God they just sang about in church.

Jeremiah said that the people were running around doing whatever they wanted while shouting “I’m safe!  I’m saved!” Jeremiah 7:9-11

I beg you… Do not be like the Judeans shouting “I’m saved! I’m safe!” and then not living the life God has called you to live.  True salvation does not equal a simple belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for your sins.  Whether or not you go to heaven IS about the man who died on the cross.  This was His gift to you, and it is up to you whether or not you choose to accept that gift.  HOWEVER! True salvation comes from repentance.  Acts 3:19-20, Jeremiah 15:19, Matthew 4:17, Luke 13:3 

As with the people in Jeremiah’s day, you will suffer exile and destruction if you do not walk the walk for the God you are claiming is your savior.  Sin = consequences.  You cannot get around that.

In a message to the church of the Thessalonians regarding Christ’s return, God sends us a message.

I Thessalonians 5:1-11 

Stop living like the unsaved!

 In a message to the church in Laodicea, God sends us a message as well.

Revelation3:15-22

STOP RIDING THE FENCE!