Our main goal as Christians according to Jesus is for us to:
“Strive to enter through the narrow door [force aside unbelief and the attractions of sin]; for many, I tell you, will try to enter [by their own works] and will not be able.”
Luke 13:24 AMP
The world is increasingly getting more and more dangerous to live in. Jesus is coming back again for those who are getting themselves ready for Him. That was why He forewarned us about the danger of trying to get into God’s Kingdom through the wide gate. He wants us “to strive to enter through the narrow door” or gate into the Kingdom of God.
Anyone striving to enter through the narrow gate into the Kingdom of God, needs to be going after the perfection which can only be attained in Christ Jesus, and not through their own works for God’s Kingdom in this life.
Many have abandoned the narrow gate for the wide gate which is being used by the devil to destroy them. They have abandoned the narrow gate because they are not striving to be perfect, but they have fallen into unbelief through the deception of the devil.
But we do know from the scriptures that, as long as we have our eyes on Jesus, what is not perfect in our lives will eventually become redeemed back into the bosom of the Father. Jesus is able to make all things possible for all men who are looking up to Him. He will bring His perfection into the lives of all those whose eyes are on Him.
That’s why the scripture says:
“Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,”
Hebrews 6:1 NKJV
The multitude that is going through the wide gate into the Kingdom of God are only interested in the elementary principles of Christ. They are not interested to go on into the things that can make them perfect.
However, they are thinking that by just holding on to the elementary principles of Christ, they will be able to attain perfection. But that’s what the enemy is doing to deceive them and eventually lead them into their own destruction.
The scripture says:
“For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.”
Hebrews 5:13 NKJV
A Christian who is unskilled in the word of righteousness is still a baby Christian. He may be several years old in the Lord, but because he is still feeding on the spiritual milk of the word of God (the elementary principles of Christ), he cannot go through the narrow gate into the presence of the Father in Heaven.
The ability to go after perfection is within him, but he is not interested in applying it to his Christian life, so as to get through the narrow gate into Heaven. This is why the enemy finds him as an easy target to be enticed through the wide gate, because of the lack of desire in him for the perfection in Christ Jesus.
And many have actually backslidden away from following the Lord, to be living solely for the pleasures of the world; instead of the Kingdom of God.
The scriptures continue by saying:
“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put Him to an open shame.”
Hebrews 6:4-6 NKJV
The devil is always there to make sure that every backslidden Christian gets stronger and stronger, in the decision to follow in the ways of the world, and to gradually begin to antagonize the doctrines of Christ.
Shamefully enough there are many who are doing this these days. They have been entrapped and ensnared by the enemy.
And as long as anyone of them is against any of the doctrines of Christ, the enemy knows that the anointing to save, to heal and to deliver will be rendered powerless through the life of such a person.
And this is exactly what he is doing in many nations of the earth today, so as to weaken the Body of Christ in those nations, in order for him to hinder the salvation of souls into God’s Kingdom with miracles, signs and wonders.
He is not using those who are yet to taste of the goodness of God to persecute Christians; but he has found the backslidden brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, more useable to him in achieving his goal against Christians.
This explains why no Christian need to be arguing about what the scriptures says with anyone. Whatever the scriptures say about anything is always final.
It is therefore not open for any discussion or contrary opinion. The world may not agree with it, but they always have the choice to either accept or reject it.
However, their rejection of whatever God’s word says is exactly what they will eventually be judged with on the day of judgement:
“For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Matthew 12:37 NKJV
And also:
“Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?”
I Corinthians 6:2-3 NKJV
We are the saints of God on this earth. We are His ambassadors to all nations. We have been set apart for His glory, to judge the world with the testimony of Jesus on our lips.
Jesus sent us out to the end of the earth to preach the gospel and to make disciples of all nations, and not to be holding discussions about what God’s word says with the world. We don’t have time for such nonsense. Time is running out. Our Redeemer is coming back soon!
Jesus commissioned us to preach and to be teaching the Bible. It’s not our job as believers in Christ Jesus to convince people about what we are preaching and teaching.
That’s what the Holy Spirit does for us, so as to convince the sinners of their sins and unrighteousness (John 16:8).
But it’s up to each person who hears the gospel being preached or taught, to decide what he wants to do about what is heard or seen through our preachings and teachings.
Jesus said:
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
Matthew 24:14 NKJV
The deceiver is still at large.
Satan is the one who is doing everything possible through the life of the backslidden Christian, to hinder the spread of the gospel as a witness to all the nations in these last days. He is using the backsliders to go after the anointing of Christ Jesus in the lives of God’s people all over the world.
He uses these backsliders to persecute those in leadership positions most especially, more than he often uses them against committed Church members. Those who are in leadership positions within any Church or Christian Ministry are often doing spiritual warfare against Satan. They are more dangerous to him, because they are the carriers of God’s vision on the earth.
But whether he likes it or not the gospel will be preached and taught to all the nations, before his judgment finally comes upon him. He is only trying to postpone the inevitable with his tactic.
His major tactic is to keep that backslidden Christian away from God’s written word, thereby making it impossible for him to be able to return back to the Lord in his backslidden state. He knows that any backslidden Christian that returns back to the Lord will be restored back into the Lord’s sheepfold.
The moment a backslider is no longer reading, studying or meditating on God’s promises to him, he will gradually begin to drift away from the lifestyle of faith. He will thereafter start becoming more and more critical of the teachings of the scriptures, as a result of the deception of the enemy.
The devil and his tactic in this way was well described while he was still in the garden of Eden. The Scripture says:
“Now the serpent was more crafty (subtle, skilled in deceit) than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made. And the serpent (Satan) said to the woman, “Can it really be that God has said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
Genesis 3:1 AMP
He is crafty, subtle and skilled with his deceit than anyone else on the earth. And he is well versed in the scriptures as well, just as we saw him show this during his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.
He however uses his skill with his deceit so as to distort and manipulate the scriptures, while deceiving those Christians who are gullible at heart. He has never changed in his way of operation.
The same skill that he had used in deceiving Adam and Eve through the serpent, by questioning the command of the Lord God to them in the garden of Eden, is still being used by him today in deceiving many from following the Lord, while leading them through the wide gate to their own destruction.
And a lot of these people don’t even know when they are being deceived by the devil. His deception is subtle. That’s why there are multitudes who are going through the wide gate with this deception. However, they are being led into their own destruction by him, because they have no place for God’s word in their lives. They believe what the world is telling them, more than they do believe the Bible.
The only way to stop the devil in what he is doing is by putting God’s word within our eyes, ears and the heart every day. He will find it very difficult to get you, if he sees that you are committed to the Lord in this way.
You don’t have to be agnostic!
Do you know that the very source of wickedness in the world today doesn’t primarily come from the world itself? It comes from those who profess to be living for God, but who are not living in accordance with the standard of His Word (the Bible). They are the ones who are being used by the devil in spreading wickedness in these last days.
They had once tasted of the goodness of the Lord God, but they have decided to turn their backs against Him by denying Him. It’s the Christian who is constantly compromising his faith so as to please the world, that is the root cause of most wickedness on the earth in these last days, while we’re waiting for the return of the Lord for His Bride (the Church).
And they are increasing more and more as we are drawing closer and closer to the end times. Jesus had warned us about this before when He said:
“And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”
Matthew 24:10-12 NKJV
These ones had tasted of the goodness of the Lord God before, but now their love and passion for the Lord has gone cold. They had experienced the power of God before but have now backslidden away from walking in the way of the Lord God, to start antagonizing the very gospel that saved them.
They are the ones who are helping the devil in spreading his lies and deception around the world, against the doctrines of Christ and against the people of God.
We are reminded of the Israelites after the Lord God had delivered them with many mighty works of miracles, signs and wonders from the captivity of Egypt. He had brought them to Himself in the wilderness, so that they might know Him more intimately.
God had spoken directly to them in an audible voice. His voice shook the ground and the mountains around them. They could hear Him clearly and audibly:
“Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
Exodus 20:19 NKJV
There was nothing to deny their encounter with the Living God. They had however been mistaken about hearing the voice of the Lord God. God doesn’t kill anyone. Not even if they have heard His voice.
The devil is the killer; but he surely can’t kill those who do belong to God. A Christian determines the time of his own departure from the earth, based on his satisfaction with the type of life that he has lived on this earth. The devil has no right to take the life of any child of God.
However, just because he doesn’t have that right, doesn’t necessarily mean that certain Christians who are ignorant about their God’s given right to live long life on the earth, are not giving him the permission to destroy them (Psalms 91:16).
But for the Israelites in the wilderness, it was because of their lack of reference for the Lord God by embracing His voice while putting their faith in Him, which had resulted in their death while in the wilderness. And there are certain people who do fear the devil, more than they are referencing God in their lives today. The enemy is killing them because of the fear of death in their lives.
It was as a result of such a situation whereby the Israelites were so fearful of God’s voice, that the Lord God had decided to give them a high priest. Moses became the intermediary between them and God, while Aaron became their high priest. And for the rest of the believers all over the world, Jesus has become our High Priest eternally.
Aaron was anointed by God to intervene on behalf of the people before God, since the people were afraid of hearing God’s voice speaking directly to them.
Aaron had been used before by the Lord God while they were in Egypt, to perform many miracles before Pharaoh. But hardly had Moses disappeared from their midst into the mountain, so as to receive more instructions and directions for them from the Lord God, that they had decided to turn their backs against God Himself.
And it amazes me personally to see that the man who was anointed by God, to be intervening on their behalf before the Lord God as their high priest, became the chief architect of their rebellion against God.
Aaron knew better not to had succumbed to the rebellion of the people. He however decided to act like some anointed Ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ today are doing, when they are putting the voices and opinions of their people above the voice of the Lord God directly to them.
They are not different from Aaron for doing this. Aaron decided to yield to the voice of the people, rather than yielding to the leading of the anointing oil of the Lord God that was upon him.
Aaron in his own words to Moses said:
“ .. Do not let the anger of my Lord become hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods that shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them break it off.’ So, they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out.”
Exodus 32:22-24 NKJV
This is how certain Church leaders who are putting the voice of their people above the voice of God to them personally, are often led to start worshiping men instead of God.
Isn’t it ridiculous that the same Aaron who had seen God doing great and amazing miracles with his eyes, would turn around in leading the people of God to violate the very commandment, that God had just delivered to them a few days before this incident?
The Lord God had given them these commandments in an audible voice. It was not written by Moses yet. They heard the voice of the Lord God directly commanding them that:
“You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,”
Exodus 20:3-5 NKJV
The very people who had tasted of the goodness of the Lord God turned their backs against Him. God’s anointing oil was on Aaron’s head, who was their high priest. He was the one who was supposed to be teaching them, how to obey these commandments from the Lord God.
But he ended up being the one who led them in disobedience to the very commandments, that he was supposed to be teaching them to follow.
It would have been disastrous if God had done something at that time with him. The Lord God wanted to destroy them all; but Moses had intervened on their behalf and the Lord God thereafter changed his mind about destroying them:
“So, the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people.”
Exodus 32:14 NLT
If the Lord God could change His mind about anything, because one man (Moses) intervened on behalf of His people at that time; there is nothing wrong about any backslider changing his mind in returning back to the Lord God, since another Man (Christ Jesus) had intervened on our behalf.
We have our Redeemer – Christ Jesus who had intervened once and for all of us, in order to reconcile us back to God:
“Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,”
II Corinthians 5:18 NKJV
God’s chosen people (Israel) rebelled against Him in the wilderness, because they wanted to start living like their neighbors (the unsaved world). And over the centuries this same desire to be like the people of the world, had been destroying the faith of many followers of Jesus Christ.
But it is time to be reconciled back to God. Why does anyone have to be destroyed by going through the wide gate, when it’s possible to change your mind and come back home to the Father together with Jesus?
Aaron became a disappointment before God. But just because he disappointed God once, does not mean that God had rejected him. God is the God of a second chance. He will always give the backsliders a second chance to come back home.
Aaron was not perfect in any way. The perfection that is accessible to us today in Christ Jesus was not available for him at the time. There is no excuse for anyone to be making the mistake of Aaron today. Christ has been made our perfection.
Even though the world has not changed in doing the same thing that they did in the wilderness against God. However, the presence the Holy Spirit and the washing of the word of God is able to make anyone, who believes in the name of Jesus to live beyond and above the reproach of the devil.
The Prophet Malachi said:
“For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth; For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”
Malachi 2:7 NKJV
The mistake of Aaron reminds us of our frailty in the flesh, when we are not being mindful of the presence of the Lord God with us all the time. It is possible and so easy to forget that you are carrying God’s anointing within you, especially while being surrounded by the crowd everywhere. Aaron forgot that the Lord’s hand was upon him, and he was deceived to follow the voice of the people, instead of God’s voice.
Anyone with the consciousness of God within him can fall easily into the deception of the evil of this world. It doesn’t have to be you or anyone else that you do know.
God’s Spirit will not strive within us when temptation comes. He is gentle in the way that He works in our lives. He had said from the beginning in the rebellion since the earth was created:
“And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
Genesis 6:3 NKJV
The Lord God will never strive with us in our flesh, because He is Spirit. The flesh has to die for the Lord God to be glorified through it, as the vessel of honor to Him.
Do you know that God’s original plan was for Adam and Eve to live eternally on the earth? But the constant striving with His Spirit by men made Him to change His plan. His desire was for us to live eternally on this earth. It was the serpent who brought sin and death to separate us from God.
But in order to rescue us from the law of sin and death, God decided to become a Man like us, so that He could be able to identify with us in the flesh and save us from the evil of this world. Jesus came to the earth for that purpose. He was God on the earth in human flesh.
Jesus became the High Priest of our confession of faith. He had to go through the same types of temptation and sins, that we are constantly putting up with on the earth.
But He did it without falling into any one of the temptations itself. However, He was frail in the flesh like us, even though He was God on the earth.
He suffered like us on the earth and became the perfect example, for us to follow in our Christian suffering with evil. And as a result of what He did, we are able to become partakers with Him in glory.
The Bible says:
“For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.”
Hebrews 5:1-4 NKJV
The mistake that Aaron made was corrected with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross at Calvary for us. He made all impossibilities possible for us.
God is calling the backsliders to come back home now, before it’s too late. The devil should not have to swallow you up in hell. That’s what he is doing by taking the multitudes through the wide gate with him.
Always remember that there are Christians who are committed to standing before the Father God on your behalf, until your turnaround comes. They won’t let the enemy take you down with him into his destruction.
Why not make up your mind to join us at the Wedding Banquets of Heaven, that all of the angels are making preparations for right now.
The invitation is still open for you. You can give yourself a turn around by making that decision to go back to the Father. He will receive you back home with a big hug.
You are invited to come through the narrow gate of prayer and intercession, so that you can dine together with us on that Day. We’ll like to see you at the table together with us and Jesus.
What are you waiting for? Come back home! Jesus is waiting for you! https://biblevisionintministries.org/in-need-of-jesus/
