The reformation of the narrow gate.

I don’t get many comments here, but sometimes they are brilliant. Hearthrose[1] commented yesterday on how we should be motivated by Revelations, and she humbled me. She weeps for the lost, and my eyes are dry. Dry they should not be.

I agree about the over interpretation of the seasons and times. I got into that for a few years, and then thrown out for not being quite as intense about it (err.. cans do math, not four horsemen yet). But the POINT of watching the sky is if you see the dust cloud on the horizon, you make preparations. You don’t just stand there, you do something. In my case, that’s been more intense prayer for conversion and general friend-pestering, and taking my Christian witness extremely seriously. Should I think that we have another 50 years for my friends to get around to converting? What if my hypocritical moment turns them away from the truth? Will they have time to get right again? Things that keep me up at night. If you only had six months to live….

Agree about Fourth Turning too – if we don’t see Jesus, we’re gonna see something. I’d rather see Jesus.

Agree also that it’s not going to be Baptists without everyone else – IMO it’s about relationship with Christ, being real, being tight, being true to Him. Most professing will be “left behind”, which is, again, something to stay up at night weeping over.

I’m writing this on the day after the US election. But the point that Hearthrose makes is correct. In the passage for today we are told to enter by the narrow gate: that the way of Christ is hard. Most of us will opt for ease and laziness, believe the pretty lies and go to perdition.

And they will be angry when we warn them against this. Hearthie weeps: I do not. I have to warn people all too often “if you continue to drink/drug you WILL get psychotic again (or your memory impairment will worsen. You need to accept help now.” [2] But people get angry, demand patient advocates support them in choosing their own path to physical destruction.

He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”

And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”

He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

(Luke 13:18-30 ESV)

What we have now is a time where we can repent. Something most of us have to do every day: to turn from our vices and to righteousness. Again and again. Victory is something won moment by moment: Defeat takes but an instant.

And we need to listen to the spirit of God here. For the end will arrive of our life, and that door will disappear, leaving us either living in a hell of our own making or rescued from it.

Perhaps the USA will reform. Or perhaps not. What matters more is that we reform ourselves.
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1. Yes I know Hearthrose is not her real name, does it matter?
2. Chronic alcohol abuse leading to nutritional cognitive deficits (the Wernicke/Korsakoff syndrome on one hand, and THC analogues leading directly to psychotic breaks on the other.