Ye Have Done Unto Me

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

This is the subject I will attempt to preach about in the very near future at our little country church if all goes well. If not and I freeze up while trying to deliver it, its happened to the best of em! I, as most Christians probably didn’t take this verse all to seriously, I always kinda knew it, but in all reality never lived it at all. The last few years I was more worried about spreading the Word, but it hit me like a ton of bricks the other day, what good is spreading the Word if a person ain’t living the Word? And I will testify, in light of these verses, I am not living the Word, simple as that. It seems I’m much more into this modern American, or Western society than I ever dreamed. And I don’t like it!

What good does anything do if a person is living the modern me, me way, living a perfectly normal life of modern Christianity, and in the end find out that it was an utter failure? In this culture, and in the church, it is basically me, me and that’s about it. By the church I mean what the mainstream is preaching. In just about every church though there are the Matthew twenty five Christians that do live the way Jesus wants us to live. A person can;t tell it by their clothes or jobs or anything like that. And they probably can’t tell it by their preaching and things like that. In fact its the most unnoticed thing in the Christian walk. Its a lonely ministry where there is no glory at all many times on this earth. In fact there’s more than likely allot of sacrifice and very little recognition, even from other church folks.

Keeping to the subject of the old circuit riders, which I enjoy doing, one of the most overlooked things about them in this day and age was the fact that they did so much one on one work with every kind of folk they came across. They helped the old and crippled, the slow of mind, they had patience with them. Recognizing that these were the future rulers in heaven just like the Bible says. And the Bible does say that! The poor, the helpless, the scoffed at. The ones society doesn’t take the time to glance at, those shunned by their own families. Yes, this was a very large part of the old circuit riders ministry. Nowadays we like to think that setting the world on fire with the Gospel is what they did. Well, in fact they did, by example! I’ve been pondering this allot lately, very much, and true Christianity is not represented all to well by the modern American “industrialized” churches. By that I mean there’s all sorts of groups nowadays. You have prophetic groups, repentance groups, prayer groups and the list goes on. This is a rather modern development because the way I read my Bible, the local church was what one could call a full service church. All the gifts flowed in the local  church. But man, in his wisdom has industrialized the church, molding it into mans industrial image of himself and in my humble opinion its a far cry from Biblical Christianity.  In fact much of these movements I would call a down right abomination. There, that should make me popular with the folks who pull the strings.

I had a vision a while back, clear as a bell about these movement, no matter how well intentioned they are, this vision showed me a reality that stunned me. It was at a Civil War field hospital and it was under a tree where they were amputating arms and legs and what not from the badly wounded soldiers. The soldiers were the local church bodies and the deceiver had himself an old rusty saw and was cutting the arms and legs off, throwing them on a pile to the side. They were flopping around useless, kept on flopping too, and the badly wounded soldiers were in severe pain and sometimes didn’t even survive. The flopping arms and legs were the modern movements, cut off from the church bodies and they were trying to do what they figured they should do, feeling they could do a better job than when they were connected to the bodies, but ended up a rotting mess in the end. These movements had very little interest in the church body, they felt the were a more efficient way to minister the Gospel, sometimes their small bits and pieces Gospels. But the bodies that were so badly damaged became almost useless if they even survived at all. The lucky bodies that barely even survived ended up begging on the street corners.

Nowadays we have folks chasing the gifts of the Spirit, wanting the power, but denying the reason the power is given. The power will still flow, but many, many with the gifts are heading to eternal damnation because of ignoring the reason for the gifts. One of the main reasons for the gifts is so we can do what is required of true believers as stated in the verses above. The Bible says to judge these folks by their fruit and I must testify there’s very, very little fruit being produced, not because of bum luck but because so many are chasing the gift and not the reason for the gift. And I’m looking at myself in all of this and don’t like what I see and it has me in a rage.

The average person walking the walk and talking the talk can and will produce more fruit than the majority of church pastors today do in their own churches. Boy, am I ever out on a limb tonight! But its true and in reality no one could even dare deny it. And if it ever comes to the point where the church would implement a program, (I hate that word but I have a mind blank and can’t come up with another one right now), a program somewhat like the circuit riders of old one of the most critical things to burn into their hearts is the desire to walk the walk as in Matthew 24. This would be the living and walking Gospel and nothing, and I mean nothing could stop it from spreading everywhere. It was extremely successful in years gone by and basically fell apart because of the influx of humanism in the higher ups of the church. On the bottom level, out in the countryside it was so successful that it will forever be remembered by multitudes of folks now and into the future.

I hope to continue this very soon.