Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copied and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
NEGLECT OF THE GOSPEL
Hebrews 2:1-3, "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;"
If there is one message that needs to be preached in the world today, it is the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the great salvation that He offers to all mankind. That is the greatest message that man could ever receive and yet, it appears as though it is the least heard message of all.
I thank God for each of you who have heard the gospel and have responded to the call of God upon your life. It is a wonderful thing to know Jesus as the Lord and Savior of your life. I am afraid though, that most of the church world has begun to let that message slip away without realizing it.
In churches all across our land today, there will be bells ringing, priests and ministers who will stand in the pulpit or the lectionary of each of their various churches to bring forth the message of the gospel to those whom God has entrusted into their care.
But what kind of message will these ministers and priests bring? I fear that most of these messages will not be a true message of the gospel but messages that will only tickle the ear of the hearers so that they will not lose their congregation.
It is becoming more rare all the time that a preacher will stand up and really preach the truth. May God help the preacher who will not stand and deliver that which God says the people must hear!
It isn’t hard to find preachers of love! The message of the love of God is wonderful and there is a great need for man to know the love of God. God’s love reaches out to us and because of the Love of God, we have the gospel because Jesus gave His life for our sin. Love is necessary. Love is great. Love should be preached. But, there is more to the message of the gospel than the message of Love.
If all we ever hear is “God is Love”, then we will get a one-sided and distorted view of who God really is and what He expects of us. The message of love can be misleading because people will come to believe that God’s love will never allow God’s righteousness and holiness to condemn anyone to eternal punishment. Certainly God is love but the message we must preach is more than Love itself.
It isn’t hard to find a preacher of faith and prosperity! The prosperity “gospel” is sweeping our nation today. Every Sunday there are preachers who will stand in the pulpit and bring forth the message of the “name and claim it faith”. In fact, many of these same preachers will tell you that if you aren’t living in prosperity that your faith is weak and you may not get to heaven if you don’t become prosperous. (What a perversion of the gospel this is!) Twice in the 4 gospels of the New Testament Jesus says these words:
Matthew 8:20, "And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."
Luke 9:58, "And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."
Does that sound like Jesus was preaching a prosperity gospel to you? Three different times in the gospels we read of the account of the Rich Young Ruler, who came to Jesus to seek the way to heaven. In all three accounts Jesus told him to sell all that he had, take up the cross of Christ and follow Jesus. That doesn’t sound like Jesus was concerned with the earthly prosperity of the Rich Young Ruler.
It’s not hard to find those who preach on relationships, financial understanding, leadership principles, self-Improvement or a host of other “ear tickling” topics. There are times and circumstances where any and all of these topics are good and useful but none of these carry any significance at all when it comes to the saving power of a good old Holy Ghost anointed preaching of the gospel to lost souls.
I don’t care how much you try to improve yourself. I don’t care how wealthy you become by the world’s standards. I don’t care how good your understanding of people and your relationships with other people become, none of these things can save your soul. It is only the power of the gospel through the Lord Jesus Christ and His death on the cross that can save and nothing else.
Yes, you can go to a lot of churches and hear a lot of messages – but I wonder just how many will bring forth the real message of salvation to the lost of their congregations?
I am disturbed when “so-called Christians” can go into a “so-called Spirit filled Church”, sit under a “so-called anointed message on how to make your kids quit acting like kids” and then walk out living like the world and still claim to be saved.
How many of our churches are simply hiding places for hypocrites? How many people go to church on Sunday morning, sing and shout and dance about, and then hit the dance hall on the Friday night? How many “weak kneed, spineless Pastors” are afraid to preach the truth for fear that they would lose their base of support and have to go out and get a real job instead of playing on the golf course or enjoying a life of ease at the expense of those who they are supposed to be pastoring? I wonder how many of these same pastors are going to end up in the eternal flames of hell while every one of their misled church members come by one by one to point a finger of hatred and condemnation at them for not preaching the truth.
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Hebrews the words of our scripture passage for this sermon, he spoke to our generation and the present-day church world.
“Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip…”
The message of the gospel has slipped from our churches today! What is even more disturbing is that I fear that the gospel message has begun to slip from so many of our Spirit filled, Pentecostal churches and that there are some even in our own church who have allowed the message to slip from them!
HOW TO WE LET THE GOSPEL SLIP AWAY? HOW CAN WE LOSE OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST AND PLACE OUR SOUL IN JEOPARDY?
We do so through neglect! We neglect to pray. We neglect to study the Bible. We neglect to assemble ourselves together. We neglect to give in tithes and offerings. We neglect to sanctify and clean our selves from habitual sins that drag us down.
It’s so easy to forget that God is not just the God of Love but that He is the God of Holiness, Righteousness and Judgment too!
We tend to forget that God dealt harshly with the Children of Israel for their sin. We forget so easily that God has not changed since the days of Moses. God is still the same and He expects holiness and righteousness from His people.
Hebrews 12:14, "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:"
2 Corinthians 7:1, "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."
1 Thessalonians 4:7, "For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness."
The message of the gospel is one of living a life of holiness. WE cannot and must not live like the world because the world isn’t going to the same place that we are. You won’t hear much holiness preached anymore because it isn’t a popular message that tickles the ear of the hearer.
We all want to live according to our own desires instead of God’s desires. We all want to talk, dress, and act according to our own desires instead of according to the standards of holiness and righteousness.
You will never have the biggest church in town if you preach the gospel message in its purity and holiness. People don’t want to be told how they should live, what they should wear, where they should go and what they should do. WE PENTECOSTALS HAVE BECOME SO AFRAID OF LEGALISM THAT WE THREW OUT THE STANDARDS OF HOLINESS ALTOGETHER AND NOW WE ALLOW ALMOST ANYTHING IN OUR CHURCHES!
I want you to know that we will tolerate a lot from someone who doesn’t understand the ways of the Lord. We will gently lead you and guide you and allow you to make your mistakes and to let the Holy Spirit lead you into righteousness. At the same time, I must say that we expect you to begin to listen and to hear what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to you about the things in your life that need to change.
If change doesn’t begin – if your manner of speech doesn’t improve – if your manner of dress doesn’t get more modest – if your desires for the holy life doesn’t get stronger – if your respect and awe for the House of God and the sacred things of God doesn’t get better – if your attitudes don’t change for the better – you need to get down and repent again and let Jesus be the Lord of Your Life!
We might tolerate your loud boisterous mouth when you are a newborn babe in Christ. No one gets angry at a baby if they begin to cry in church – but when that baby grows up and gets to be old enough to behave and they start crying in the service and disrupting the move of the Spirit – then everyone gets angry. We have to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.
There will come a time when I will have to call you aside and tell you that its’ time to quit acting like a baby and learn to act like a mature Christian.
Israel has continued to fail God time and again and each time God has had to bring them to the place of correction and chastisement. They received the revelation of God through many means and yet they did not retain their knowledge of God. In the end, they lost their way and have only recently begun to acknowledge God again.
Christians, we cannot neglect our salvation. If God didn’t spare Israel, He will not spare us from suffering for our neglect. Every failure of Israel to fulfill the Law of Moses was met with suffering and punishment. What makes us think that we will escape if we neglect the salvation and the gospel message that God has given to us!
We have a greater responsibility to hear and obey the gospel than Israel did!
They received the message for themselves alone but we must carry the gospel to the whole world.
Israel could only know Jesus through the types and shadows of the tabernacle but we can know Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior!
Israel could experience the presence of God through outward manifestations and they could only be cleansed by outward ceremonial washing of the flesh while we can know Jesus and have Him live within our heart and His blood can cleanse us from the inside out!
Israel was promised an earthly home in Canaan but we are promised an eternal home in Heaven!
How much greater is our opportunity than that of Israel? How much more should we be careful to hear what Jesus is saying and be careful to obey what the Word of God instructs us to do?
How can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation as has been offered to us by Jesus Christ?
I want to tell you this morning that we must not neglect the gospel message that has been given to each of us. We should wake up every morning praising God for what He has done for us. We should praise Him all the time for providing us with the way of salvation! We should worship God without stopping for the promise of our Heavenly home! We should give glory to God for the Living Word of God that He has given to us!
We must not neglect what Jesus has given to us!
If you are here this morning, hearing this message, Jesus is talking to you right now through the Holy Spirit! If you know Him as your Lord and Savior then He is reminding you of all the blessings He has given and prompting you to never forget or neglect those blessings.
If you do not know Him yet as your Lord and Savior, then He is calling to you to come to Him. Jesus died for you. He bought your salvation and He has authored the message of the gospel for you so that you too can make Heaven your home. Will you come to Him this morning? Will you stop running and give your heart and life to Him? Will you allow Jesus to come into your heart and surrender to Him right now?
Jesus is waiting for your answer.
