Dear Friend: Disciple or Multitude?

Dear friend, I am so excited to meet you today and more excited when you said you are a Christian or a member of a church. It is needful for me to write and direct your attention to the meaning of the title of this tract: “Are you a disciple or multitude in the church”? Perhaps there may be things in your life that may dash your hope of eternity and end your life in hell fire, which I am persuaded it is not the will of God for your life. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). There are many people that have been deceived today by the devil who has given them a Christian name with a false hope of going to heaven. He knows that, in the end, they will be his permanent companion in Hell if they continue in their ways. Those are the people the Bible referred to as ‘multitude.’ I would like to show you a few Bible passages and strongly encourage you to urgently repent and turn to Jesus truly and wholly if your lifestyle right now is equal to that of the multitude. “And seeing the multitudes, He [Jesus] went up into a mountain: and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him” (Matthew 5:1). Why do you think these multitudes stayed behind and refused to go up to Jesus? Physically when you want to climb a mountain, you will need to remove every load and weight that can draw you back, so that you can become lighter and not fall behind when you are climbing the mountain. This is one of the likely reasons that could keep these multitudes at the bottom of the mountain. These multitudes are not ready to remove and put down their loads so that they can go up freely. That load could be the loads of money you have embezzled and stolen. You knew you must drop these things if you had to go with Jesus, so you choose to just stay in the church these many years and never come to Jesus. The load could be the fornication you are committng as an unmarried lady or your adultery as a married man. You knew this could not climb the mountain with you, so you preferred to continue in that immorality rather than to be with Christ. The Bible says in Psalm 24:3-6: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek Him, that seek Thy face, O Jacob.” Dear friend, as you can see from that scripture, the first condition to fulfill in order to go up is clean hands. Please can I ask you, is your hand clean? Are you receiving benefits that do not belong to you? Is your hand clean when touching a woman that is not your wife? Is your hand clean from innocent blood, blood you have shed through abortion? The next condition is a pure heart, a heart that is not defiled by the toys of this world. For clarity, when you are talking about purity, you are talking about something that has only one substance. For example if you want a pure water, a drop of milk inside that water will make it impure. As a Christian only God should be the content of your heart. My friend, is your heart pure? Is your heart polluted with pornography? If there is any anger or malice in your heart as you read, it is a clear indication that your heart is not pure. What makes your heart impure could be the lack of forgiveness you have been nurturing against your friend these many years. My friend, please let no one deceive you. This uncleanness and impurity will make it impossible for you to climb up to meet the Savior unless you drop them by genuine repentance. Only the generation of the clean and pure can seek Him. Could you imagine! Those multitudes waited at the bottom of the mountain for Jesus to finish all His messages. That is another mark of the multitudes; they love to follow Jesus for miracles and wonders but are not ready to depart from their sin. “When He [Jesus] was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him” (Matthew 8:1). They remained with their company and were not ready to be separated and instead be with Jesus. They had the patience to wait until Jesus finished those sermons in Matthew chapter 5 to chapter 7, as long as their waiting would not separate them from their company. In the same way, multitudes are thronging the church today on Sundays, often for healing and miracle services. They have patience to wait for three hours and some overnight, but are not ready to come to Jesus. They prefer to be at the bottom with their company: a company of drunkards, a company of liars, a company of party people, a company of pornography watchers. They want Jesus to take their sickness away, but want to remain with their sins. They were at the mountain, but not on the mountain. Everyone thought that they were with Jesus, but they were on their own at the bottom of the mountain, just like you may likely be now—in the church, but not in Christ. Everyone that sees you going to church will think you are with Christ, not knowing you are just in the church and not with Christ. It is Christ that changes men, the church cannot change a man. The Bible says: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Only a person that is in Christ can be a new creature. If you are not in Him, you are just a multitude and not His disciple. Only the disciples came to Him. It was the disciples that were ready to learn of Him. They were the only ones that were ready to exchange their poverty of spirit for the riches of His Spirit; ready to mourn for their sins and follow all the teachings Christ highlighted for them. Multitudes love to support Christ with their resources alone and not with their life. Matthew 21:8-9 opens our eyes to this truth. “And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” As Jesus entered Jerusalem, a great multitude came to support Jesus. They heard that Jesus was in town and they came. Like the crowd on that palm Sunday, great numbers of supporters of Christ are trooping to church only on special occasions like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. They are event-driven and they constantly need to be moved to church by something that will get them excited. They have the form of godliness but deny the power (2 Timothy 3:5). Just one week after this, in Matthew 27, Pilate asked the crowd who they wanted between Jesus and Barabbas. They choose Barabbas (a notorious thief) and asked him to crucify Jesus. “But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let Him be crucified” (Matthew 27:20-22). It was the same multitude that shouted, “Hosanna to Jesus” that shouted “Crucify Jesus.” That was the life of the multitude. They preferred a notorious thief to Jesus. They cast their votes for thief. Is this not the same with you dear friend? Are you event-driven to attend church? You only go during festivals? You prefer to tell lies to get more money? You choose pre-marital sex instead of godly marriage and still continue in it even until now? With this choice, you are crucifying Jesus to the cross again and you are telling the world that Jesus means nothing to you and that His words are not worthy to be followed. Dear friend, it is not too late to be a disciple, if you are ready to repent and forsake your sins. Isaiah 59:1-8 says: “Surely the Lord’s power is enough to save you. He can hear you when you ask Him for help. It is your evil that has separated you from your God. Your sins cause him to turn away from you, so He does not hear you ... The things they do are evil, and they use their hands to hurt others. They eagerly run to do evil, and they are always ready to kill innocent people. They think evil thoughts. Everywhere they go they cause ruin and destruction. They don’t know how to live in peace, and there is no fairness in their lives. They are dishonest. Anyone who lives as they live will never have peace.” (NCV) Now, my friend, can you say that you are a disciple? Have you mourned for your sins? Have you really repented and departed from them? Or just confessed but are still neck-deep in them? God said in the book of Isaiah that anyone who continues in sin “shall not know peace” (Isaiah 59:8). Anyone that continues to tread in that ungodly path cannot know peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. If you decide to continue in your sins and you call yourself a Christian, you cannot know peace and you cannot end peacefully. This is the time to change; you must drop all of your loads of sin at the bottom of the mountain and be ready to climb up to be with Him. If you come to Jesus, He will not cast you away. He will wash you clean and give you the power to live a life of purity for Him. My friend, I don’t know what your sin is. You know and God knows. But I want you to think about it, God can never be happy with you until you have dealt with it, and put it away. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Psalm 66:18). Let God search your heart and reveal the hindrance. To move from being a multitude to a disciple, sin must be confessed and put away. This is the time to change, you must be ready to drop all of your load of sin. Please drop it now before the fire of God’s anger falls on you. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).