This is a first for me, where I am posting twice in the same day. But this is so very important that I just could not allow it to rest for another day. This study is dealing with the warning against our being Impenitent. Now before I get to it I will again tap into e-sword for the teaching by Pastor Hoekstra and his meditation of Jesus. And again I will make use of the ESV translation.
"More on Walking with Jesus the Way We Received Him"
"As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the LORD, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." (Colossians 2:6-7)
"The manner in which we received the LORD is the very same manner in which we are to walk in Him. "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the LORD, so walk in Him." We received Him by Grace, we must walk by Grace. We were born again by the Spirit, we must walk by the Spirit. Furthermore, when we first received Christ, He was our only hope. Now, we are to walk with Him in the same way.
It is good to recall how Jesus was the comprehensive focus of our beginning with Him. When we received Him and His forgiveness, we knew He had to provide all that was needed for our Salvation. We agreed with the word of GOD that there was no other hope than Jesus. "Jesus said to him, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me' . . . Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (John 14:6 and Acts 4:12). We knew that we could supply nothing ourselves. We were spiritually dead (separated from GOD), having no righteousness at all: "dead in trespasses and sins ... . all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (Ephesians 2:1 and Isaiah 64:6). We had entered the blessed condition of being convicted of our own spiritual bankruptcy. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). Jesus was our comprehensive focus, our only hope.
This is how we are to walk in Him today. We need the LORD Christ Jesus as much now for living the Christian life, as we needed Him at the beginning to be born again (redeemed) in order to enter Him. For growth and victory and fruitfulness, He is the One we must focus upon. "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the LORD, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in His Faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." We need to be rooted in Him, having our faith reaching out to Him for nutrition and strength, even as the roots of a tree reach into the soil. We need to be built up in Him, having our lives developed by His work in us. We need to be established in the Faith, allowing Him to stabilize us through the study of His word. This will lead to lives of overflowing appreciation, grateful that "Christ is All and in all" (Colossians 3:11). Truly, we need the LORD Christ Jesus as much now for living the Christian life, as we needed Him at the beginning to be born again into Him."
Warning against Impenitence:
Leviticus 26:21-22, 23-26, 27-33 "Then if you walk contrary to Me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.
"And if by this discipline you are not turned to Me but walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
"But if in spite of this you will not listen to Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I Myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and My soul will abhor you. And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. And I Myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste."
Proverbs 1:20-33 "Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: "How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at My reproof, behold, I will pour out My spirit into you; I will make My words known to you. Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out My hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all My counsel and would have none of My reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon Me, but I will not answer; they will seek Me diligently but will not find Me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of My counsel and despised all My reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but whoever listens to Me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster."
Ecclesiastes 8:10-13 "I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear GOD, because they fear before Him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before GOD."
Jeremiah 7:8-11, 12-15, 16-20 "Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, 'We are delivered!'—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I Myself have seen it, declares the LORD.
Go now to My place that was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of My people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by My name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. I will cast you out of My sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.
"As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me, for I will not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke Me to anger. Is it I Whom they provoke? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves, to their own shame? Therefore thus says the LORD GOD: Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched."
Hosea 7:8-16 "Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not. The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the LORD their GOD, nor seek Him, for all this. Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria. As they go, I will spread over them My net; I will bring them down like birds of the heavens; I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation. Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against Me! I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me. They do not cry to Me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against Me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against Me. They return, but not upward; they are like a treacherous bow; their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt."
Amos 4:4-5, 6-9 "Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!" declares the LORD GOD.
"I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to Me," declares the LORD. "I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to Me," declares the LORD. "I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to Me," declares the LORD."
Haggai 2:10-19 "On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, "Thus says the LORD of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: 'If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?'" The priests answered and said, "No." Then Haggai said, "If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?" The priests answered and said, "It does become unclean." Then Haggai answered and said, "So is it with this people, and with this nation before Me, declares the LORD, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean. Now then, consider from this day onward. Before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the LORD, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to Me, declares the LORD. Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid, consider: Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you."
Matthew 11:20-24 "Then Jesus began to denounce the cities where most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you."
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