Lest Ye Be Entangled
By W. C. Moore
The great electromagnet will catch up all sorts of steel as it is operated around the metal piles. Loose steel scraps, nails, spikes, big chunks and slabs of iron and steel, rusty steel, oily steel, steel splinters, large pieces and small pieces are snatched up together. But there is one kind of steel that does not rise to meet the magnet. Do you know what kind it is? It is real steel, too – the genuine steel article.
It is that piece of steel, large or small, or whatever shape, that is entangled with something that holds it down. For instance, a finely tempered steel nail is driven into a board. The wood holds it tightly clasped. It cannot respond to that mighty urge within that would send it flying through the air to meet the magnet. It is entangled; it is bound. If the board should catch on fire and burn away – then the steel nail would be released and respond to the magnet’s pull.
So those who are all wrapped up with earthly things, either cares or pleasures – will not be willing or able to "let go" quickly enough to be caught away when Jesus comes.
"If There Be First a Willing Mind"
The steel has no choice – but we do. It’s up to us each one, individually, to choose whether or not we will be ready when Jesus comes. There is no respect of persons with God (1 Pet. 1:17). Unto every one that hath shall be given (Mark 4:25). "As thy days, so shall thy strength be" (Deut. 33:25). "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not" (2 Cor. 8:12).
God is just (Zech. 9:9). "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you" (Jas. 4:8). Start sincerely and wholeheartedly toward God and He runs to meet you, just as the father whom Jesus tells about ran to meet his erring son when that weak and wicked young man really started back home (Luke 15:20).
Come unto Jesus and He will give you rest (Matt. 11:28-30). The only reason that you do not have rest and peace and victory is simply because you do not come with all your heart to Jesus and take time and make time to get His peace and victory and rest into your soul. "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). This is an unbreakable truth of God.
"And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth" (Luke 21:34-35).
Here Jesus is speaking to His own disciples, implying that if they did not take warning and put their hearts into the doing of what He told them, they would be taken in the snare which would surprise the world of sinners and "that day" of Judgment would come upon them when they least expected it. "In such an hour as ye (disciples) think not the Son of man cometh" (Matt. 24:44).
"Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown" (Rev. 3:11).