Hebrews 4:1

"Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it."

In the modern day film, 'The Boy In The Striped Pajamas', the main character, a young boy the son of a German concentration camp commander, befriends a similar aged inmate with barbed wire between them. Wanting to play together he digs under the fence and dons the 'striped pajama' uniform and explores the confines of the prison. Together they sublimely and innocently enter the shower-house with other Jews in much need of a long overdue cleansing. Instead of water, they were doused with cyanide. Asphyxiated they die and lie lifeless among the mass.

Unquestionably one of the more profound and moving movies I've seen in years, I held back tears in awe of the wickedness of mankind and the awful heartache of those who fall prey to it. The boys were trapped and they didn't even know it. Their unjust death sentence awaited them at the hands of evildoers; life cut short with an atrocity no man should ever forget.

I think I know what's worse; thinking you're safe and secure amid comfort and peace over wondering from time to time whether you're in peril and looking over your shoulder to see if you're being stalked. I'm confident my salvation in Jesus is secure, but that shouldn't cause me to passively enter His rest. Working out my salvation with "fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12) is a necessity of every man and woman who call themselves Christians. But to those who call themselves Christians because they think they've entered His rest but have not, O' what a perilous plight they're in. Someone must warn them that danger is imminent, that their death awaits them at the hands of their captors which they view as friends. Comfort, luxury, the good and moral life, all among those in America that call themselves 'Christians' is the greatest snare our culture has crafted. I'm here and live in the midst of it, and I even and often fall subject myself.

So how shall they know unless they hear? (cf. Romans 10:14) I shall tell them. This is my battle cry today. I shall seek and find one and warn them of the trap the enemy has set with the hope they'll see and run from their master. Turning 180 degrees, I pray they'll walk into the arms of another Master. Unlike the boy in the striped pajamas, man does have a choice, and I believe this with all my heart in spite of my strong convictions about the doctrines of election and the providences of God.