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By Dr. Terry Jones - Posted on 25 June 2010
The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. Nehemiah 9:2
The descendants of Israel are also a rebellious people. They are still rebellious. They don’t even believe in Jesus. Now is getting heavy! Well, all the teaching today is heavy… but this is what you need to do. This will cause some trouble. But that is somehow just good. Look at Jesus. He caused nothing but trouble. People were so mad at Jesus they killed him. They crucified him. Jesus was innocent. Everywhere I have gone I have caused trouble. I am a nice, easy person, not hot tempered, but everywhere I go somehow I just cause trouble.
The first thing I said to my family when I got saved was you need to get saved. Do you know what happened? A couple of them got saved, most of them got mad. But some of them got saved. My Mom got saved, some other people got saved, and the rest mad. See? That’s our job. Either make them mad or saved. I mean they are unsaved anyway, so what difference does it make if they are mad or not mad? They are going to hell. You can go to hell mad just as well as you can go to hell happy. You are going to hell.
But we don’t do that because we don’t believe in hell. We don’t really believe in hell. If you really believe that your Mom, your Dad, they are going to hell, you would stand up. You would preach to them. Make them so spittin’ mad they would throw you out of the house or they would get saved, if you really believed in hell. They are going to hell. If they are not born again, saved, go to church, follow God obey God, they are going to hell. They are going straight to hell. Good person, bad person, they are going to go to hell. they are not going to pass GO, collect $200. They are to go to hell. We don’t really believe God.
They separated themselves. If we preach this they get mad, they call it a cult. I have always warned about getting involved with the wrong kind of people. Somehow they influence us more than we influence them. That’s why you have to separate. A foreigner is someone who is not a citizen. He is an alien. If you are a foreigner in America you are not a citizen. You are an American. If you are a foreigner in the Kingdom, you are not born again. You are not saved. You are not there.
So sooner or later you have to make a decision. You have to separate yourself. There has to be some type of separation, some type of line drawn. Does that mean I can never talk to them, never go there? Not necessarily. But there has to be really a clear line. It says here that they separated themselves.
What about your school friends? Have you got friends that are not saved and don’t come to church? Well actually you are only going to have them for a short period of time. And during that time they need to get saved, born again, come to church, or you need to drop them, get rid of them. That’s the way it goes. That’s what they Bible says. And it is actually only logical because the more you hang around them the more you will become like them. You will probably not deny God but you will become luke warm, your will begin to sympathize with them. You will begin to understand them. You will begin to see their point of view. And something will happen. You will begin to loose that radicalness. You will loose that cutting edge.
We have never, I believe, lost our cutting edge because we have not done. Never. We don’t go to Pastor breakfasts, we don’t hang around, we don’t waste our time, we don’t do this or that with relatives, with not relatives. You loose your cutting edge. Believe me, you may not loose your salvation but you will lose your cutting edge. You are no longer radical. We do not have a radical generation. People are not even close to being radical.
They stood and confessed the sins and iniquities of their fathers. Wow! I bet that made the relatives mad. Go and have Easter with your family, start confessing sins and confronting your relatives. The churches have lost that. If it is true. It may not be true. Even if it is a little bit true, we’ve got a long ways to go. According to the Westboro Baptist church, 600,000 churches in America do not preach the Gospel. I believe their estimates are not far off. They no longer preach, confront, or talk about sin. They no longer do that. They no longer talk about immorality, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, sin.
Even if it is grossly exaggerated. Even is it is some fanatical number, even if it is 100,000 churches. I mean, churches! Why did Jesus come? Jesus did not come for you to have a bigger house, a better car and more money. That can be a side effect and blessing, but that is not why he came. He came that you might get saved and forgiven, saved from hell! Saved from your sins! You cannot do that unless that type of message is preached.
The Pastor of one of the biggest churches in America, one of the most famous Pastors of all time, probably, said, “I have people in my church from all faiths.” Now, doesn’t that sound nice? Doesn’t that sound totally ridiculous, luke warm and liberal? You might have them for a little while, but not for very long. They will either get saved or leave.
Can you imagine us here? I mean, how luke warm would we have to be if here in the church we had Moslems and Buddhists, atheists, Christians, agnostics, Hindus, people of all faiths at Dove World Outreach Center! That can’t be! For a little while, until they get born again, they get saved, or until they leave.
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