JESUS LAST COMMAND

What was Jesus last command before he ascended into heaven?

Convert people to Christianity?

Build the church?

Feed the poor?

Go to Bible College?

Study the bible?

Build churches?

Keep Christians happy?

Get people to recite the sinner’s prayer?

The answer is no to all the above. The last command of Jesus, and please note it is a command, not a request, was as follows…

Because ALL power (authority) is given to me, you are to go and teach (make pupils of or disciple) all nations (ethnic groups), baptising them (making them fully wet) in the name (authority) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Judging by what happened as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, that name was Jesus as they baptised everyone in the name of Jesus.

This command means that we as the church have a responsibility and a commission to go and make disciples of those outside the kingdom of God. Part of that is to baptise them by immersion as in “fully wet.” We are not called to bless each other with a few “hail Marys” or the handshake of peace.

Disciples can only be made by people who have been discipled. If we as yet have to come to grips with what Jesus teaches in the scriptures, it is very unlikely that we will be able to disciple others.

Come to think of it, perhaps the reason that there are so few converts today in western churches is the fact that the people filling them don’t believe what Jesus taught in the Bible.

I asked the leadership of all the churches in one town “how many new converts have you all produced in the last 12 months?” A quick count (that is all it required) revealed a total of three. Eight ministers that cost probably a combined total of $400,000 in salary and their churches which probably cost another $400,000 for maintenance, and all they could produce was three converts.

In the New Testament converts were added daily. Don’t you think that we should be asking some pertinent questions such as “why are we such a miserable failure considering that ALL authority has been given to Jesus?”