Dear old Pastor Ryle used to emulate this sentiment. The let us of the book of Hebrews. "Let us therefore fear..."
Often saying let us as the exhortation to greater conformity.
I think...
Hebrews 4
Let us therefore fear!means...
Lest we miss out on a promise of God that is essential for salvation. He didn't say. Let us rest in the laurels of salvations completion on our behalf, on account of the grace which is magnificent in Christ. Which is true. He has completed that great salvation. But we will not overcome the "minions of hell" by our testimony alone, or by letting go and allowing Christ to drift us in. He stated that it is by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimonies. Constant undertaking to consider our souls and see where our salvation and trust lies. We might have salvation and not have a sense of its confirmation in our souls, or we might think that we have achieved or received salvation by grace through faith and be deceived because our deeds are in complete antithesis to this. God is the judge. If the righteous be scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear. We are of our father the devil, if we do not stop deceiving ourselves and live the life of faith. Entering into His rest is the goal. The rest of sins forgiven by the blood of Christ. This consideration is agonizing, at best.
The considerations of the New Testament era are the song of a soul set free. The struggle is from using the scriptures as a shackle to antagonize and dictate and take men captive to our own whims and imagination to free them into the usefulness which God intended. All of the nations being useful in the Global spiritual economy. Seeing the image of God growing into a perfect man through the providence of God.
I had the gospel first, we say and therefore God meant for me to impose my cultural mores on the rest of the world through intimidation. I have been there as an oldest sister. I came down the shoot first and that means that I am the standard. That mentality is condemned. Let the man of high estate humble himself. Jesus gave us the example of the how. Jesus taught us what we are supposed to be doing. Not making new laws like circumcision by which we judge our brother cultures conformity to Christ. We each want to cut the other culture down to where we are with regards to our relationship with God.
The Church's one foundation, is Jesus. In the book of Revelation there were every tribe and tongue and nation conforming and worshipping the Lord and they were discernably different from one another. How could they be one and different? We cannot imagine this because essentially we are Afrocentric or Eurocentric and believe that God is going to make everyone come to the unity of the culture that we are in and not to the unity of the Faith. If we all come to the unity of the culture of Europe or Asia or Africa, we are not coming to the unity of Christ. We will all cast our crowns before Him. We will all submit what has been made to glorify Him and in His image under His own dominion and we will also all share in the judgements upon the earth for sin, prior to entering into His rest.
We have all been made in the image of God and impressed with the image of Nebuchadnezzar. When we are emptying ourselves and doing the humble work we are imitating God and when we are tyranically expecting cultural submission we are Nebby.
God will be entreated on our behalf. I bring my tyranny before You, my God. I cast all of my insubordination and my heart pride before You. To us belongs the pride of life and the lusts of the flesh and the lust of the eye and to You belongs the humility and the mercy and the order.
Christ's church is raptured by His image and impressing His image upon themselves and making His image the goal and the consideration. Not the image of self and self's culture. This is complicated, in our New Testament time. Hitler showed us what it looks like to try to stamp your own image on the world. It would have anhialated Christ Himself from the world, if that could have been done. Now we anhialate the babies in the womb and in our selfishness and self centered activity we take authority over the image of God the Father and seek to anhialate Him from our world. Feminizing and talking about the rights of choice when it is the rights to murder. God help us cleanse ourselves from our Nebuchadnezzaran murderous spirit.
God stated If they should enter into my rest. If means if. If we don't enter it will be because of unbelief. It will be because of the exaltation of self and self rule. If we don't attempt to see the glory of God in the different people groups around us, we will be as guilty as Nebby of using the godly Daniel to forward our own agenda to the people of God. 4/2/2009
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