You Ought Not to Have Left These Things Undone — Dan Biser

Good evening. Let's take your Bibles and follow along with me on this most important two passages of Scripture that have, for the last weeks, months I should say, last two months, has been a weight on me.

And most of the time when that happens that these burdens come, verses come out of Bible readings or devotions or somewhere that I'm directed. I've got to come back to it. And I've got to either preach it, I've got to discern it, the Lord, the Spirit's trying to say something to me, something to the church, and so I know what it has said to me.

Hearing What the Spirit Says to the Church

But as I present this to you tonight, it's one of those things that the Spirit's saying to us. And we come back to this so often in Revelation 2 and 3, we have that same verse, that same address that's found many times, we'll address it again here in opening of our verses, and he that has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying.

And that's what we want to deal with tonight. What is the Spirit saying to the bride? So as we get into the Scriptures, there's two verses that I'm going to have to deal with tonight, and they are painful verses.

So as we deal with these two verses here, I'm going to kind of chop up the phrases that are here for us to identify and target, and as well as for us to pinpoint in our own lives things that the Spirit might be revealing to us on this.

The Two Warnings in Luke 11 and Hebrews 2

So I'm going to ask of you to, first of all, take your Bibles and go ahead and open up to this passage of Scripture, Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 1, we have a passage here of instruction, and then I'm going to ask you to take your Bibles and hold your finger there and go over and find Luke chapter 11.

These are the words of Christ in Luke 11, and it's a woe. We're going to identify that right off the bat. He's speaking to the Pharisees. So I'm going to read Luke chapter 11 first, and then Hebrews follows that, and then we'll go to prayer over this.

So in Luke chapter 11, you go down through this passage of Scripture, there's dialogue going on as Christ was speaking to the Pharisees. Verse 37, it starts with that, this interaction going on, and as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him, and he went in and he sat down to meet.

And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, now in the Lord, there's very few passages of Scripture commonly with this, is that he addresses not just Jesus or Christ, but Lord.

And the Lord said unto him, now do you Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. You foals did not he that made that which is without make that which was is within also, but rather give alms of such things as you have, and behold all things are clean unto you, but woe unto you Pharisees.

Now this is the verse 42, but woe unto you Pharisees, for you tithe the mint in the room, and you pass over judgment, and the love of God. These ought you not to have done, and not these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

And he goes on in the following verse 43 and verse 44 to do two more woes after that. Anytime you see this in passage of Scripture, woe, a three-letter word, it ought to automatically captivate your attention and your thought there on this.

Woe unto you, and again he says woe unto you Pharisees, these religious folk, and I think it's the same message that goes to the church today on that. Now turning with that verse 42, that last phrase in this passage of Scripture, verse 42, these ought you to have done, and not to leave the others undone.

We're going to look at that and scrutinize that here this evening. Now the second verse over in Hebrews chapter 2, you could almost say mirrors that. Here's the words and the warnings of Christ, woe, and then over in Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews, which for many they like to debate that, but we'll simply go to Paul writes it.

As a matter of fact, in my Thompson chain, it says here the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Hebrews, and so we have the writer of Hebrews stating this in verse 1, therefore having proceeded from what was declared about Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior, the Son of God, the Messiah, the mediator, all the attributes, and all the description of his high priestly role that is declared in chapter 1, therefore because of that which has been pronounced in chapter 1, therefore because of that we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

Let us go to prayer. Blessed Father, we thank you now that as upon reading your word is that you wish and desire for us to have ears to hear what the Spirit would say to the church. Now Father, it is as that as we've congregated, it is to give our ears to attention to you and to the Holy Spirit as he reveals and speaks.

There are things that have slipped, there are things that are left undone in our midst and in our time. Father, we come to you that we would seek of you for your favor, we would seek of you for your help, we would ask of you Lord that you would empower us that nothing else slips, nothing else is left undone, but that enfold us, that we would complete all that you have required of us tonight.

We ask of you that you as your Spirit does, you know the very intent of our hearts and our attitudes. Father, we would be pure and undefiled before you tonight, that as you speak we would listen, as you command we would obey, and that we would surrender all.

Oh Holy Spirit, come and do thy best work in the midst of us here. Bring honor and glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, and be glorified in this place. Be glorified in your work. Accomplish exactly what you intend for it to do here in the midst of us.

Lord, we are yielding to you. Now, Father, let the Spirit glow upon us. May we be the vessels that you would have of honor for your kingdom's sake. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we pray.

Amen. Now again, I want to take the two verses and kind of combine them because they're both kind of saying the same thing to us here tonight, and there are things that need to be identified. Now the first thing is, is that in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 1, that is a verse that I've committed to memory a long time ago.

I can't get through my Bible readings and that verse not jumping out and speaking to me. Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard. Now that is the identifying process right there.

Give earnest heed to the things we have heard. And we must stop right there and ask the question, one, what is it that we have heard? Again, I already identified in Revelation 2 and 3, he that has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying.

So often we have prophecy in Isaiah. We have eyes to see, but we can't see. We have ears to hear, but we can't hear. Christ comes along and he says the same thing about the Jews, about the Pharisees. He gives warning to them.

You got those things on the side of your head, but you're not using them. You've got these eyes to see the marvels, the wonders of the miracles, but you can't see. So he says, now we ought to give earnest heed.

Earnest is a word, a description, an adjective there that is implying is that it cannot just be listen or hear. There has to be an attention of our passion that goes with it. It's like that scripture over in the book of James where so often many people like to quote where they say the fervent prayer of a righteous man, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, and everybody always centers in the righteous man praying.

But the effectualness of that, the effectiveness and the fervency of that as the adjectives that describe the righteous man's prayer are left normally undone or untouched. But it is that if you're just saying the righteous prayer, the righteous man saying prayers, there are many righteous men saying prayers, but it's not with effectiveness and it's not with fervency.

And when you leave those two kinds of things out of a prayer is that you've just got a modernized prayer. When you add those two things, it is the prayer that moves mountains. It is the prayer that prevails in that.

Now it's the same adjective, the description of the declaration here for us. Give earnest heed. Sit up, pay attention, take note here. God's speaking and we've got a listening problem. We've got a listening problem in the church today.

We've got a listening problem in our hearts today. How often it will be revealed in eternity when we get home that God will say, do you realize how often I sent my Holy Spirit to speak to you, but you would not hear.

Isaiah 59 1 tells us is that the Lord's ear is not deaf that he cannot hear, but it cannot be said the same thing about the church today. It cannot be said the same thing about our walk with the Lord today because so often he's touched us on the shoulder.

So often he's spoken to us in the word. So often he's spoken in a church service. I've seen that struggle. I've seen that battle go on when I'm preaching the word of God. I'm sitting and talking with somebody about eternity, about their soul, about their walk with God and they're listening to me and there's a battle going on because Satan is trying to silence me.

Satan is trying to deafen them. He doesn't want them to give earnest heed to those things and that's exactly what he does to the church today. And because of that, because of this listening program, you did not give earnest heed to the things that you heard.

Because of that, we have gone decades now in the church and the things that we have been instructed and the things that we have heard from the gospel. We have had all kinds of saints come and declare great preachers, wonderful preachers, powerful preachers, spiritual preachers that declared the word of God.

We heard. We are without excuse. It's the same thing that he said to the Pharisees, woe unto you. These are the things that you should have done and not left the other things undone. You realize how much today in our atmosphere of religion, our atmosphere of church, those things that have been left undone.

The First Pillar: Judgment and Obedience

Woe unto the church in North America today. It is an awful thought when you start looking at these two verses and putting it down and the spirit begins to reveal to us just how much we fall. Now, I want to identify a couple of these things.

There is no possible way that I can possibly identify all these things that we ought to give earnest heed to and that we should be doing to him that knows to do good. It does not do it to him in his sin.

James 4 17 and he speaks here to the Pharisees. These are the things that you should have done. Now, he had just got done saying there do judgment and love the Lord God. Now, it is that command that we come and we start going down through the scriptures and we start identifying just what it is that he's saying to us about our priorities.

What is it that a Christian is to do? Now, we know is that as a Christian we are to be Christ-like. We have that marvelous miracle over Colossians that tells us Christ in you. The hope, that's our power there.

That's our dying to self and living to him. It's no longer I that lives, as Paul said in Galatians, but it is Christ who lives in me. And so, therefore, we are to be Christ-like. Do it. Do what Christ did.

And you start to mirror that and you start to examine that. In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John we have the Gospels and in the Gospels they tell us the accounts of Christ. What did Christ do? And when you start looking at that and you start examining that and then you start mirroring that in the church today, is it that we've done it or is it that we've left it undone?

Now, the first thing that he marks there, Passover judgment. Judgments that need to be spoken and declared. These things are wrong. There is a balance and when the balance is set forth, we have that in the book of Daniel that the king of Babylon that night when the hand, the mystery hand of God, come out and wrote on the wall and he said, Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting and tonight thy soul shall be required of you.

We are weighed in the balances and judgment has been set forth. What is the judgment upon the church? What is the judgment upon this nation? What is the judgment upon our homes? What is the judgment upon my own personal walk?

Is that not a fearful thought? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, the scripture tells us, and it is that any one of those four areas of our life, our nation, the church, our families, or our personal lives, when we fall into the hands of the living God, he's going to judge us.

He's going to judge us for the things that we did do and he's going to judge us for the things that we did not do. He's going to judge us for the things that we heard and he's going to judge us for the things that we let slip.

And I don't know about you, but when I started examining my life and when I start looking at the church today and I start categorizing the things in the church today, it's woe unto us. You ought not to have left these things undone.

There are four pillars that I've always gleaned upon. We go back to the book of Jeremiah and it tells us these are the old paths and you start looking at saints and you start looking at Christ. It is the intimacy with the father.

It is the intimacy with our savior. You go back to the song of Solomon, he reached forth his hand through the hole of the door and my bowels were moved, my soul cried out. It is my beloved has come. You can't find a whole lot of Christians anymore.

That their inwards get moved because Christ has come. That they can go days and weeks without the presence of God. They can go days and weeks without reading his word. They can be out of prayer. They can be out of fellowship and they have no remorse about it.

You ought not to have left these things undone. You let them slip and now all the byproducts that comes for our broken intimacy with Christ is because of these things of mourning. Woe unto you because you let these things happen.

You start looking at Christ. He ministered to the crowds. He had compassion on the crowd. He told them the truth. I have the way of the truth and the life. He healed their sicknesses. He delivered them from their captivity of demonic possessions.

He spoke to declare who he was and what he was about. He gave to them the words of eternal life. I am the way. I am the door. I am the shepherd. They would not hear and you have people like Judas who heard but he didn't give earnest heed.

Art thou, art thou the son of God? Art thou Christ? Thou sayest it but they didn't give earnest heed to it. They tore themselves and they said crucify him, crucify him. They didn't want to hear it and even from the cross.

Father forgive them they know not what they do. My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? And even an old Roman sitting over to the side recording and documenting all these things as he watched and beheld saying truly this was the son of God but not the Pharisees.

You see they heard it but they didn't give earnest heed to it. The old past, the old standards, the old ways that the saints taught us and the scriptures have mimicked it that you go back to Genesis and Adam walked in the garden with God and Enoch the seventh from God walked with God and he said come on home with me and it says and he was not because God took him and you got Noah and he walked with God and you got Abraham and he walked with God and you got David and he he was the friend of God he was the the apple of God's eye and you have those saints that declared it in the New Testament that they love the Lord and they spent time with God and it's in those those ways these things ought you to do and not to leave the leave them undone.

Fellowship and the Church's Gathering

Preached and declared it that there are four pillars in the church of these things that ought to be done. Fellowship of the ball. Not to leave these things. I've left this remember when the apple butter on it and you and you enjoy it well you leave those rolls for a couple days and automatically the bottom's unturned it starts to decay.

Open a bag of bread growing up as a kid even up to the last couple years and I would open that bag from the store and I'd leave it there as that mean you only got a couple days and then the mold's going to set in and it's going to start to be contaminated and it's going to be ruined unless you like to eat that stuff with penicillin but that's what I remember.

I've been marveled the last couple years is that we can buy bread we can buy hot dog buns hamburger buns and open them up and they can sit for a week for a week and still nothing. I said something's not right here same stuff and there is no misunderstanding when I say this among true saints today not the same stuff as the saints of old are.

We are not the same as the new testament church. Now we look across in other nations and we see fire burning we see the Chinese growing by leaps and bounds. We see in Africa that there are swarms of people coming to Christ.

We see that there is a real salvation taking place that men are not only willing to live for Christ but they're also willing to die for Christ. You can't find that here in the United States. You can't find it in the local assemblies.

You can't find it among many of my baptism on Sunday and the rest of the Sunday the Lord's day is theirs. No bible no prayer no fellowship. They can come to church one time a month and not have any remorse that they missed the other three Sunday.

I like those that miss the church service on a on a weekly basis that when we have three or four hours of church services on Sunday in the middle of the week and they miss and they'll say my day didn't go the same.

My week didn't go the same because I was out of church because they were sick or they couldn't be there or they was on vacation. And then they miss church. These things ought you to have done and not leave them undone.

Giving Earnest Heed to the Word of God

Now I'm going to dissect these quickly because my time here on this that I want to give regards to but the word of God how precious is this book. I cannot express to you why I can't grasp it. I just know how thankful I am that God put a love of the word in my soul to show yourself approved unto God and work with truth.

And here comes Paul telling to Timothy the the parchments the letters the instructions the gospels the law the Psalms North Koreans just a couple weeks ago that they stood them up and it says is that out of those 80 that there was a multitude of them.

I never got a clear number on how many of them that was shot and killed because they had a Bible. Because they read it. Not because they studied it. Not because they knew it. Not because they believed in it.

Because they had it. I don't know all the details about it'll be revealed in eternity. I just know they got shot because they possessed a book. You realize how many North American supposedly Christians religious Pharisees that have the book and they haven't touched it all week.

You know that you've sat with the Bible on your countertop in your car. You've sat all week long and you've not opened the book. You've not studied to show yourself approved. They gave their lives for it.

We won't give a second to it. You ought not to have let these things undone. Let one little old scrawny contrary cantankerous atheist woman stand up down there in Baltimore back in the 60s and say I don't want my children to hear the word of God.

It's an infringement on my freedoms to do it in the public schools. And so they took the Bible out. You tell me what have we reaped. What have we reaped in the public school system. What have we reaped in the two generations that have proceeded since 1963 when the Supreme Court ordered that the Bible be removed from the schools.

You tell me what things did we not give earnest heed to the things that we let slip and what it's cost us in our generation. You tell me where the evidence and the proof is of the drug culture and the sex problems and the issues of our young people now which are middle-aged adults now to the teenage years and the next generation coming up and every generation after that.

They don't know what to do. And they don't know what to not not do according to the scriptures because they have not given earnest heed to the things that they have heard. They don't sit in the Sunday school classes.

They don't sit in a Bible school. They don't sit in the church. They don't have parents that open the book and teach them or train them. They don't tell. They don't know those verses about that word have a hit in my heart that I might not sit against God.

They don't know any of those things. The word of God is being removed from our society. And that's understandable when you're talking about heathens. Why in the world would a heathen want the Bible. Why in the world would the heathen want the scriptures.

Whether they want the word of God to be preached and proclaimed. But what if this. How awful is it when the church doesn't want it. How awful is it when the Christians don't want it. Well unto you. You want not to have left these things undone.

But you should have been doing them doing what. Studying to show yourself approved reading the word of God rehearsing the word of God knowing the word of God. Because there is no other way to know God other than what he has revealed about himself in the word of God.

You ought not to have left these things undone. Give earnest in these things and not leave them undone. The second one is you know my heart. You know my desire to give. I said with brokenness. How did God stop and say.

Prayer as the Foundation of Revival

Is that there was a man of prayer a woman of prayer. They could say with song the Psalms. There I give myself unto prayer in a prayer. This is what you. And you ought not to have left it undone. Do you realize do you realize that it is.

Is that because the church the Christian nor Christians in North America who have been so sinful so neglectful that they heard they heard the prayers brought revival. They heard that it was prayers that brought them into the kingdom.

They heard that it was prayers that moved mountains and made the forces of hell to shake and to quake and to tremble and to retreat. They knew these things but they did not do these things. You ought not to have left these things.

Why would we ever let this. Why would we let prayer become a religious duty. I grew up that way to pray at the dinner table. I learned to listen to him pray over the offering in the church. They opened in prayer.

They closed in prayer. I listened on Wednesday night the sick list the organ recital that some people talk about. I listened to all that I was an observer. I saw it I heard it. It's stored away in my mind.

I didn't see mountains. I didn't see miracles. God started feeding me living biography. It's a short time. He was in his 20s before he went out into the mission those places he only had a short years of ministry that he preached.

But what did he see. What did his life diary in his journal that he wrote to the missionary council that he had to report to when you put his diary in that journal together and you read it this way I did it.

I would copy it off print it off and I would read the diary in the journal and I would go a couple day pages a days and I read through that short account of that life of his mild with an impact. But it was prayer was prayer that did it.

All I would read about Charles Finney in his prayer and I would read about uh the two the intercessors that he would have that would go and pray before him. And then I read the biography of John Hyde praying John Hyde and I and I read about Bertha Smith and how the Shantung Revival how Marie Munson prayed with them and things changed.

The reason I say Bertha Smith is because that circle of people that God that I started looking for that was still alive that could that could agree with this. These are the things that you ought to be doing.

Don't leave these things undone and God put them in my life. They all prayed with Bertha Smith. They all knew about Bertha Smith and they was forever changed by it. And that's exactly what we need today.

Those that realize the two truths that are here give earnest heed to the things that you have heard and don't let them slip. If prayer is a key to the very foundation of the endowment of the power of the holy spirit if the word of God is a pillar to our foundation and our walk in our Christ that it is then do it and don't leave it undone.

Confession, Repentance, and Submission

But you know the reality you know the reality so many of you have confessed it I have had to confess it is that when the altar call is given and when the invitation is brought and when a moment of reflection is upon us is that we must cry out.

Woe is me. I'm undone. I have left these things slip. I haven't been faithful in the word. I haven't been faithful into prayer. It is our neglect. It is our unfaithfulness forsake not the assembling of your souls together.

It is those the church that it was the church that came together. And it was the church that it is is that is continually promoted throughout the new testament. When that brethren's come together paul said have my letters to be read at the church when they come together have make sure that that these things are declared.

I'm getting ready to come to you at Corinth. I'm getting ready to come to you in in Rome. I'm getting ready to stop by and visit the church. We have structures we have steeples we have buildings we have store fronts we have school cafeterias and auditoriums.

We have personal private homes. It is in so many different fashions. But come together. A church body who doesn't like to come. They don't want to submit to authority. They don't want to submit to the word of God.

They've got their own theology. They've got their own doctrine. They've got their own ideology about what they're going to do. But you better give earnest heed and don't let this slip. Christ died for the church.

Christ started the church. Peter upon you. I will build the church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. What did he build upon Peter. And that 120 that were in the upper room. He built the church.

And it is in that body when they come together. Oh well their doctrines are wrong. Oh well I don't like the way of worship. Oh I don't like their times their service time. It doesn't matter what you like.

You ought not to leave these things undone. And that has been one of the culprits in North American church today is that you've got people trying to tell God I don't need the church. I don't have to go to the church.

I don't have to surrender. I don't have to submit. And you my brother my brothers and my sisters that have that mentality of unfaithfulness and neglect have let these things slip. And it has been a reflection on the next generation that children was raised when they saw a parent skip a church.

I can remember as a teenager those that would not come back Sunday night. Those that would not come Wednesday night. Their children were swept out into the world their own lives were in havoc. They went through the divorces they went through the sorrows they went through the trials and the tribulations because they did not give earnest heed to the things that they have heard where it said be faithful at all times in all seasons in all ways.

These things you want not to have left undone. And now read what you've sung church. And the fourth one about the word of God. How dear how sweet sweet hour of prayer forsake. Not the assembling the body of Christ.

It is it is that which glorifies Christ is that which he comes. And it is in revival that it is always that he shows up in the church. In the assembling of the body he comes and he is glorified in the midst of them.

Sharing the Gospel with Those Far from Christ

But the fourth one is the sharing of the gospel. It is the proclaiming of the name Jesus to those that are in darkness. Do you remember. Do you remember the soul that came to you and ask. Can I talk to you about your eternity.

Can I talk to you about your relationship with Christ. Can I talk to you about that thing inside of you called a soul. Precious. Precious are all those in my life taught me and said. I have to say. I want to send them your way.

You realize that in eternity will know all those that prayed for us. All those that wept over us all those that took time for us all those that interceded for us. All those that presented the gospel to us so often and would stop with someone.

And I'll say to them. Can you tell me one person in your life that was concerned enough about you to talk to you about your soul. Because I want to start there. I want to start on first base that someone took time to ask them about what they know about Christ.

Those ones that look back 40 years old 60 years old. And I have not personally dealt with it. But I know the people that in their 80s no one ever told me about eternity. We sing the old song in our hymn book.

I love to tell the story. Nobody's telling them the story. So often I'll ask among you so often I'll ask in my prayer groups. I ask this almost in a shameful way. Woe unto you. These are the things that you should have done and not let them undone.

These are the things that you should have given earnest heed to and not let them slip. Who was the last person. When was the last time somebody stopped you and asked you about your soul in eternity. And I say for a month like this in December at the close of the year 12 months have passed.

Has one soul asked you in 12 months. And also often you have answered. I answered. Nobody has given me a track. Nobody has given me the gospel. Nobody has stopped me on the street. Nobody has come to my house.

Nobody has done anything to say. I need to know that is a shameful thing. Woe unto you. Woe unto us. Because then I flip it and I ask that same question back. Who was the last person that I talked to.

Who was the last person that you talked to. And woe unto you. Woe unto me. If we got to go back and say it's been 12 months since I talked to anybody about their self as as responsible as we must be to study to show ourselves approved daily to be in prayer daily to be continually in prayer.

To be in the church every time the doors are open. We ought to be just as intended that we are taking the gospel every day every week to souls near and far those that we love those that we know and those that are complete strangers.

Woe unto you. These are the things that you ought to have done. Those are the pillars that I declare that these are the things that we ought to be doing and not left them undone. Because exactly what's happening today in this nation in our families in the church is because we're guilty.