PRÉCIS ON ENCOURAGEMENT FOR THE LAST TIMES: FOUR PRACTICAE THAT LEAD TO LIFE & HONOR

SCRIPTURE. “We [earnestly] ‘urge’ you, believers, admonish those who are out of line [the undisciplined, the unruly, the disorderly], encourage the timid [who lack spiritual courage], help the [spiritually] weak, be very patient with everyone [always controlling your temper].” – 1 THESSALONIANS 5:14, AMP

KEY TERM: “URGE.” ‘Parakaleó’ [παρακαλέω]: “From basic root terms meaning ‘to call near, invoke [God] for imploration or consolation;’ to beseech, to comfort, entreat of pray; to aid or help; to require someone to do something; admonish or advocate; to beg or address in order to strengthen.”

QUOTATION. “No surrender; I’m on the narrow way! ‘Living the dangerous life in Christ!’ Invincible through Christ; I’ve got a reason to fight and that’s because your soul is of high value to God!” ― JOHN M. SHEEHAN, Purgatory; A Place of Pruning Book 1: Shaylee Escapes Hell, 2020; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘Now we exhort you, brethren.’ Some think the Apostle now turns his speech to their teachers, whom he here calls ‘brethren’ in a more peculiar sense, and because the duties here enjoined do more properly belong to the ministry. But others more truly judge he continues his discourse to the whole Church, and the several members of it. The same duties are to be performed by both, though under a different obligation: As in the civil state all are to seek the good of the commonwealth, though the magistrates and the governors are more specially obliged by office.

(1) ‘Warn them that are unruly.’Or ‘admonish’ [concerning evil practices], as the same word is rendered in the former verse, here meant of brotherly, there of ministerial, admonition; wherein great prudence is to be used, as to time, place, persons, manner: And the ‘unruly’ are such as keep not their place, alluding to soldiers that keep not their rank and station, and they are called in the margin ‘disorderly [insubordinate, disobedient]’ …

(2) ‘Comfort the feeble-minded.’The pusillanimous, ‘men of little souls,’ asthe word imports, such as dare not venture upon hazardous duties, or faint under the fears or feeling of afflictions, or are dejected under the sense of sin, and their own unworthiness, or fears of God’s wrath, and assaulted by temptations which endanger their falling.

(3)‘Support the weak.’An allusion to such as lift at one end of the burden, to help to bear it, answering to the word ‘sunantilambanetai,’ Romans 8:26: ‘The Spirit helpeth our infirmities:’ And the weak are either the weak in knowledge, weak in faith, that understand not their own liberty in the Gospel, Romans 14:1 1 Corinthians 8:9; and hereupon cannot practise as others do; their conscience is weak, 1 Corinthians 8:12; and so were in bondage to some ceremonial rites, when those that were strong stood fast in their liberty …

(4) ‘Be patient toward all men.’ This duty is universal; the former concerned only the saints. The word signifies longanimity, or long-suffering, and is often attributed to God, Exodus 34:6 Romans 9:22. It consisteth in the deferring or moderating of anger, to wait without anger when men delay us, and to suffer without undue anger infidels, the strong or the weak, ministers or people.” – CHARLES ELLICOTT, An Old and New Testament Commentary, 1878, 1897; edited

DK. Here I stand under the Judgment of the Word of God for not approaching this grave obligation with grace, gentleness, and much patience. In some defense, I have labored for eight years not to “Admonish” (‘warn or reprimand someone firmly’). Too many times I have failed by lapsing into anger, however righteous, toward Church leaders who have abandoned their posts to indeed warn their people of the dangers described herein.

And most especially those awaiting us in the months and years ahead.

Yet I conclude that the serious, literally Life or Death Point here, is that we do all we can to RESCUE those headed for The Flame by their weakness, by their rebellion, by their ignorance, or by their feebleness of mind.

‘The manner of the Rescue,’ however, is to be prescribed the Holy Ghost, beloved. And we cannot rely any longer on fairy tales that have been prescribed by 10,000 preachers who tell us to ‘always love, but never rebuke’!

BELOVED: ‘These are not mutually exclusive choices!’