Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?
Proverbs 24:11,12 (NIV)
We can see clearly from the account of the two thieves on the cross, that the FEAR of God makes the difference between trusting in Christ Jesus for salvation, or going to eternal damnation.
We can see clearly from the account of God meeting the people on Mt Sinai (the beginning of the Old Covenant people), and the account of God killing Ananias and Sapphira (the beginning of the New Covenant people) that the FEAR of God has a sanctifying result in the lives of God’s children.
But do we realize the truth that Paul shares in 2 Corinthians 5:11, that the FEAR of the Lord is what compels him to work at persuading others to trust in Jesus for salvation? This passage is the clearest passage on what we call the bema seat of Christ. Bema is the Greek word translated judgement seat in verse 10. The truth that is being taught, is that Paul took the Gospel to the world because he believed that he would be held to account by Christ Jesus for what he did to change the eternal destinies of those unsaved people around him.
There is much discussion about this truth, with arguments as to whether this is a place of reward and punishment or just a place of various levels of rewards. We don’t know for sure either way, but we do know that Paul described his attitude towards meeting the Lord at this place of judgement, as an attitude of FEAR. Jesus is Lord! He is the master that distributes the talents and then summons His servants for an accounting (Matt 25:14-30). Solomon knew about this judgement seat, and amazingly used it in a Gospel context, in the book of Proverbs.
We have been given a task of RESCUE, a task of HOLDING people back from destruction! Think of your family, your classmates, your neighbours, your fellow workers - what is their eternal destiny? If you say, “well I knew nothing about it”, will not the Lord who knows everything hold us to account? Yes He will! So let us FEAR the Lord and persuade those around us to trust in Jesus for their salvation.
No comments:
Post a Comment