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by Sandy Shaw
When we come to Matthew Chapter 9 verses 1 to 9, we are reading of the healing of the paralysed man. Jesus Christ has just calmed a storm on the Lake of Galilee, and demonic storms in the lives of men. This phase of ministry continues, because the religious leaders were spiritually sick, and Jesus so wanted to heal them, but at this specific point He said and did very little. That was soon to change.
In these passages, Jesus is healing people, or on His Way to heal people or He is coming from healing someone, but as we have seen, Jesus also loved to teach. However, did anything sink in?
“You cannot teach the unborn!” That is a truth we have to come to terms with and accept.
No matter how any father might want to teach his child, that cannot be done until the child is born. There is an important spiritual parallel. Spiritual truths and lessons cannot be taught and imparted and understood by those who have never been born again of the Spirit of God.
And, from the Scriptures, and especially in the book of Acts we see how that happened. When a man came to believe in Jesus Christ and when that man repented of his sin, he was baptised in water and he received the Holy Spirit. When you read the occasions of how people came into the Church of Jesus Christ these elements were always present.
I know of no other way whereby a person can come into the Church of Jesus Christ – do you?
This is why it is crucial that we see people fully and adequately ‘born again’ according to the teaching and example and pattern of the New Testament. Here is an area in which we have compromised and altered, and we have almost become unaware of the spiritual dangers of such spiritual and theological and ecclesiastical ‘liberalism’. Is it not the case that people’s salvation depends upon these essential words of Jesus Christ that we must be ‘born again’?
A close and careful study of the book of Acts clarifies this foundational truth and Jesus has much to say about foundations. We looked at that a few weeks ago. If we introduce different foundations we will soon find ourselves on shaky unstable ground. Is that not the present situation in many places in the visible physical church, with a small “c”? Jesus Christ would have us be fully ‘born again’ thereby ensuring that we have become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Never be satisfied with that which is less than what Jesus taught and what God has had written down in His Holy Word for our learning and encouragement and understanding and salvation.
You cannot teach the unborn! Perhaps that is why we currently face such a massive problem in the worldwide, global, physical and visible church. This is an immensely important issue.
Alexander 'Sandy' Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness - on the Moray Firth Coast - not far from the Loch Ness Monster!
Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word.
Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40am, New Orleans time, at wsho.com.
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