Reimar A.C. Schultze

Past Issues of the Call To Obedience

"Let's Go On"

By Pastor Reimar Schultze

“For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat...Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection,” (Hebrews 5:12; 6:1).

“And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord’s passover” (Exodus 12:11).

In these Hebraic passages, we find the doctrine of the absolute necessity of going on.

That this doctrine is not preached is evident from the poor state of Christianity today.  Most Christians never darken the church door for a prayer meeting.  Most do not witness for Jesus, nor have ever won a soul to Christ.  Most lack the fruit of the Spirit, and most do not walk with God.  Most are more fascinated with sports, hobbies, television, and the things of the world.

In short, if the church was as sick physically as she is spiritually, she would be in an intensive care unit of a hospital, fed intravenously with milk as Paul says, unable to walk, to fight, nor to accomplish any good thing.  And it is only by preachers attempting to combine holiness with Hollywood, gospel words with rock music, and the declaration of God’s Word with worldly methods that the church is able to hold on to millions who are not willing to give more than their left-over time, energy, devotion, and finance to her service.  Surveys have shown that pilfering, complaining, divorce and remarriage are almost as common among church people as they are outside the church.

A godly mother in Florida told me that she refuses to let her nearly-grown sons go to church because she does not want them to look at the nakedness of born-again young women swaying their bodies in praise to the Lord in Sunday morning religious calisthenics. 

It took only one look over the wall with David, and disaster struck in his moral life, and things were never the same since.  It is one thing when we bump into sin or temptation, or into imodestly dressed women accidentally—it is another thing when we are habitually seeking out such places where lustful temptations are served us on a silver platter over and over again.

Many former drug addicts and bartenders who have been gloriously saved will tell you, with great shock, that the music they hear in many church sanctuaries is no different from what they have heard in the bars in the years of their sinful lives.

The prophet Isaiah did not speak in historical isolation when he said concerning God’s covenant people, “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.  From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores” (1:5–6). 

It is only because of a small remnant in the kingdom of God that our Sodoms and Gomorrahs have not yet been destroyed.

Now, the whole problem of the sickness, of the weakness, of the worldliness of the church can be traced to this one mighty false doctrine:

That Christians, Once Converted, Do Not Have To Go On in Order to Go to Heaven.

Our logic tells us that the devil likes this doctrine of not going on to perfection.  That fact should alarm us enough to attack it on every side with all our might.  And today, we shall make our attack from Israel ’s first Passover meal as we see it explained in Exodus 12:11.

The moment Israel took the first bite of that Passover lamb, she was to be girded with shoes on her feet and a staff in her hand.  If anything in the Bible comes close to a drive-in or a drive-by fast-food restaurant, this is it.  “Eat it in haste,” God said, “it is the Lord’s passover.”  Eat it in haste and go on, eat it in haste and forever leave the place where you ate it.  Don’t put shoes on your feet or a staff in your hand after you eat, but have them on while you are eating.  And once you have used your free hand to take the last bite, the next act of that free hand should be for the door knob, and out and away you go.  That is the picture, my friend.  And that is the doctrine of “let us go on” lest we perish.

The Israelites had the lamb’s blood sprinkled on the door posts and lintel.  They had the meat of the Passover lamb in their bellies.  But if they had not moved on “in haste,” they would have perished in Egypt .  They would have died in the same spot in which they were born of God.

God told them to sprinkle the blood, eat the lamb, and get out!  THIS HAS NOT CHANGED!  The force of this doctrine is repeated by Paul, the expert, Christian theologian, with whom we had better not quarrel.  He said, “Leaving the principles ...let us go on unto perfection” !

We can have the blood sprinkled on our souls, we can have tasted of the heavenly gift, but if we don’t go on, we shall perish.  This was the problem with the Corinthian Christians who were “yet” carnal (1 Cor. 3:3), and Paul tells us in Romans 8:6 that “to be carnally minded is death.”  What then was the future of these Corinthian Christians if they were to continue in their carnality?  Carnality leads to lukewarmness, and Jesus said that the lukewarm will be spat out of his mouth.

The Israelites Were Only Served One Meal in Egypt .

God would not provide a second meal for Israel in Egypt .  There would be no breakfast in the morning, no lunch nor supper the next day, nor forever for them in Goshen , the place of their residence.  Israel had two choices: either to stay and eat what the Egyptians ate or to get the Red Sea behind them and live on heavenly manna.  God did not serve manna to his people in Egypt .  There is no manna in Egypt !  There is no cloud by day nor pillar of fire for you in Egypt .  There is no water out of the rock for you in Egypt .

All you can hope for in Egypt is their food, and you can try to live on the memories of your glorious passover (conversion experience). Paul speaks of such Egyptian Christians in Hebrews, saying “they were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost...seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh.” (6:4, 6).

Such believers refuse to forsake all and go on, and although they have tasted of Jesus, have received the Holy Ghost, and have “tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come” (v. 5), they have adapted to the lifestyle, the fashion, the music, the entertainment, the food, and the gods of Egypt.  Oh, yes, once in a while, they testify of their passover experience.  They distinctly remember it, for it was the greatest day of their lives.  And they assume, because their names were written that day in the book of life, it will never be removed.  Yet, Jesus himself said that if we don’t overcome, if we don’t live victoriously, he will blot out our name out of the book of life (Rev. 3:5).

Jesus has an eraser.  Our life insurance policy can only be cashed in if we are spiritually alive, overcomers by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony, out of Egypt and on our way to Canaan .  Let us leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ (the salvation message), and let us go on unto perfection.

Going On Means Walking with God.

Have your loins girded: tuck in the loose ends of your life, get rid of sloppiness, abandon the take-it-easy attitude, get rid of the things that can and do trip you up.  Are you doing it?  Have you done it?  Give no place to the devil.

Have shoes on your feet.  In the Middle East in those days, and much so today, it was the custom for people to take their shoes off indoors.  Putting shoes on means we are going somewhere.  Where are we going?  We are going with Moses.  We are going with Jesus.  We are going to follow him wherever he leads.  We will not make excuses like, “Let me first bury my father,” or “Let me first say farewell to my family,” or “Let me first try my oxen or see my land or have my honeymoon” (Luke 9:59, 61; Luke 14:18–20).  We are going immediately, we are going with haste because, unless we do, we are not his disciples.  Jesus said, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).

What is “all”?  Is “all”—all?  What is not included in the all?  Forsaking everything means that we have to get out of Egypt—the old life, the old habits, the old ways of doing things, the self-life—we have to get these things out of our hearts.  We do that through the inner cross, for Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). 

Paul said, “I die daily” (1 Cor. 15:31).  I die to what?  I die to my will to do his will always.  Without self-denial, I cannot be Jesus’ disciple, for self-will is an enemy of Christ.

All the Israelites who did not follow Moses died of spiritual starvation.  Friend, there is no spiritual food, even in the finest of Egypt ’s dainties—not even one calorie.  There is no spiritual food in most television programs, nor in most Christian music!  Yet, Christians are glued to their TV sets or Christian radio dials.  No wonder many churches cannot have a soul-searching, burden-lifting, Holy Ghost-anointed prayer meeting.  Untold millions are dying untold, and most who have been told, watch television, and are involved in other things that do not enhance the expansion of the kingdom of God , and most of our young people are dressing to attract the opposite sex rather than to please Jesus.

We need to leave Egypt .  We need to leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ and go on to perfection.  Are you going on?  If not, when are you going to start?

We are born again to walk with God.  Walking with God means following Jesus.  How many times do the gospels speak of being born again?  Only once in John 3.  How many times do we find Jesus’ words, “follow me” in the same gospels?  Eighteen times.  Where is this doctrine of follow me?  What happened to it?  Where is this doctrine, “Let us go on unto perfection”?

Oh, my dear friend, will you pray with me that this great teaching will soon be moved out of the lost and found department into the center stage of the Christian arena?  The world is suffering because the church is not going on.