Living at Peace in Troubled Times | The Truth of It Live

the question i want to answer for us all in this room or this theater tonight is what can we do that's the question what can we do you say well about what well about the pressing moral issues of our time the cultural shifts of our time and how they affect us especially as christians and i come armed this evening with something of an autopsy of western australia which may depress you a little bit but then i hope to inspire you by explaining what we can do in times like these you've already heard a number of things from peter so i'll try not to be i'll try not to rehearse too much of what he has already said but let me go to this area first something i have experience with some of you may not know that i was involved in the establishment of the human rights law alliance which is a law firm which is dedicated to helping people who get in trouble with the law for living out their faith most people screw their face up at that point and say surely that's not necessary the truth is it's actually a very busy firm it's a very busy practice and we've got a lot of cases even when i was running it it's actually now run by a west australian a guy called john steenhoff who's doing a great job and he is busy they helped us of course when the west australian state government said that we weren't welcome in their venues uh on the basis that our views don't accord with the views of the wa state government or with the vast majority of western australians it's an interesting point that you know i thought what is the mindset of somebody who writes that policy and thinks that's a good idea um you know it's never occurred to me that i would want to cancel events that disagree with me it's never occurred to me that i'd want to disrupt or cause trouble for an event that disagrees with me it's never occurred to me that i would want one monolithic view of the world only to ever be present in a society that mindset is not a democratic mindset that mindset is not a liberty mindset the mindset of the person who wrote that and thought it was a good idea is a totalitarian mindset and i think well people write that down i think it's a good idea such are the days in which we live but see we actually when we were designing this tour we said there will come a time when we have these difficulties uh we got through queensland and really well but we knew we would have difficulties we knew people would gum up our ticketing system we knew that all that sort of stuff would happen and it did and so we're ready for it because we've been dealing with a lot of this sort of thing in recent years um the alliance has helped a number of people who actually face some of these challenges and worse and when i go through these sorts of cases a lot of people turn around to me and they say oh now you're just trying to play the victim because there is i think in the cultural climate in which we live a lot of currency in becoming a victim and saying we're a victim therefore well no i just want to say to every christian in the room christians are never victims never they can't be victims because jesus died for us and so there is not one single thing of ultimate meaning and lasting value that we've been denied we're going to talk a bit about job this evening believe it or not in a context that will surprise you it's all right we're not going to go too far down into the depths but you know with job he lost everything and he said at the start the lord gives and the lord has taken away blessed be the name of the lord but see what he actually also said in job 19 was that actually he had lost nothing what had god really taken away from him only the temporal and the material because he said i know my redeemer lives and he shall stand on the earth in the last day and even though my skin will be destroyed so even though i'm going to die yet in my flesh i'll see god there's a lot of new testament theology in that jesus rose and he'll raise all of us back to new life there is another world there is another life job knew he'd lost nothing and that's true for every christian we are never victims and we must never have a victim mentality in fact the problem jesus actually became the victim for us and so i make that proviso before i start to just talk about some true stories let's not go into a victim mindset but let's appreciate the true stories the first one relates to a couple here in wa and i'm only going to use wa cases the couple in wa is byron and kira is their names and they applied to become foster parents through the foster parenting system and they applied to be respite carers for children under the age of five years um you know on weekends and things when they're between foster care situations and byron and kyra passed every single criteria with flying colors i've read all of the documentation man they did well until they had to fill out a survey a questionnaire on what their convictions were around issues of sexual orientation and gender identity now these folk are christians and they filled that out faithfully of course what is the christian view on the subject well it is that human beings have many desires human beings have many things that they come up with in by their mind and how they feel and that come from within that come from even their identity which define how they want to behave in certain ways around sexuality gender identity everything but actually ever since the creation of the world god has simply designed the world such that there is a male and there's a female ever since creation and that the male and the female are meant for each other and they're to marry to the exclusion of all others for life and the christian believe that that's god's will and that is god's will for our good and we follow it each of us has to make that decision in our lives now that's the view that they have but of course byron and kira not only sort of made that clear they said at the same time we've asked to be respite carers for children under the age of five it's not relevant surely and it's short term and by the way in foster care there is a system in place whereby the suitability of a home is assessed before a child is placed and so of course if there was an issue there then of course they wouldn't be deemed suitable and so that child wouldn't be placed with them interestingly right after they filled out that survey they were told that they were not permitted to become foster parents because their home was not safe for children that's not the only case of that kind that's in wa another case is one of a a guy ian is his name is a school teacher he lives in wa and ian posted on a facebook community notice board this was actually back when the same-sex marriage debate was happening a lot of people were posting on there explaining why they were voting in favor of that policy change and he posted on there in a very reasonable way there was no nastiness to what he said but he posted on there uh why he was going to be voting no and he was reported to the education authorities and he was stood down under disciplinary action by the education department he also the local abc radio drummed up some stories on him and got some of his former pupils on there to bad mouth him and then they came after his status as a foster carer and he had foster children and so ian went through that not once but twice because when he got legal help and he got through it then they came back and had another bite at the cherry that often happens unfortunately another story is that of jason he's a perth-based photographer and a old friend of his got in touch with him through facebook and said i see you're a photographer would you take photos for me in the course of his dealings with his old friend he was telling his old friend about his christian faith and he told his friend about his christian faith and the issue of her lesbian identity came up and he explained to her what his beliefs around that were much in the same fashion as i kind of did just before but then he you know made it very clear that this was not an issue uh that he's very happy to take photos he's very happy to you know be employed be on contract with her but nonetheless she did take jason to the uh equal opportunity commission because she said that because of the way he expressed himself he had put a condition on the provision of that service in such a way that it that it was a detriment to her on the basis of her sexual orientation now that case was dropped when it came out with much publicity at the state administrative tribunal but those are the sorts of things that are going on a lot now and it is always on these hot button contested cultural issues of our time um and we're seeing people losing professional accreditations we've seen the medical board in a very activist way pursue a lot of people uh we are seeing people uh we saw a guy drummed out of his university uh we're seeing people under workplace discipline hr departments all this kind of stuff this is the work of hrla this is sort of our world the thing is this is well i say it's part of our world i've actually the subject of a complaint as well at the moment so i'm off to the queensland human rights commission um later in september because some people have been watching the truth of it and have lodged complaints against me and so i'm under legal process um anyway that's a whole other story so this is sort of situation normal very much and it's very very real for me at the moment the legal mechanisms that enable this are actually getting stronger not weaker peter told you about the conversion therapy legislation dreadful name because as soon as the reason it's named that frankly is so that people can't oppose it because it sounds so horrible to say well i'm opposing legislation that's banning conversion therapy well let's be clear conversion therapy is wrong that kind of thing isn't happening in churches in this state and in fact it's actually a bit of a dog whistle uh where people get the idea that christians would do that of course they wouldn't do that of course it hasn't happened for decades um however that legislation goes so far that we've got to draw a line somewhere and peter took you through some of those scenarios it reaches into the family home it reaches into well you know a lot of doctors these days if a child for example has gender dysphoria there's not one correct way to treat a child with gender dysphoria they can't be you've got to get to the cause of the gender dysphoria first and find out whether or not you go down the hormones path and then further on or whether you take a different avenue of course that's just good medicine but no doctor or counsellor in victoria is going to be foolish enough to not affirm the stated identity and feelings of a patient because it is legally fraught and peter did say 10 years in jail the reality is that there's two there's two possibilities five years or 10 years and it's not over the top to say that that jail term could fall say on a parent i mean actually their neighbor could dub them in there is a reporting mechanism where the neighbor could dub them in but it's not fanciful to say that that could fall on a parent because what needs to be established is harm and that could be temporary mental discomfort and someone could allege that later on and so the legislation goes way too far and it is more scaffolding on which these complaints can be lodged and of course we deal with it very often there's also some social policy issues that christians can't increasingly can't opt out of on conscientious grounds there's a story of a guy in victoria and he had a couple come to him and they were seeking as a doctor they were seeking a late-term abortion so a viable child that could be born and could live a late term abortion because the child was a female and he actually rang the medical board to say that this had happened to him and said you know surely this is wrong surely this has got to be somehow against the law and they actually didn't go after the couple that wanted the abortion because the child was a girl they went after him because he had declined to provide the abortion and he had declined to refer the couple to someone who definitely would provide the abortion which the law requires and of course it doesn't really get anyone out on conscientious grounds the conscience is simply not respected it's the same in wa here you've just had the euthanasia law pass and there's a lot of christian doctors and there are christian like catholic medical institutions and stuff who say well i can't kill someone i just can't do it and it's the same with the medical institutions they say well we can't provide killing on our premises that is not i mean you can't just in case anyone needs clarification it is wrong to do that uh to assist somebody to commit suicide it is wrong you just can't you do everything you can to alleviate suffering and pain and that can be done through palliative processes and all these health institutions will do that but they won't kill but of course the euthanasia legislation says no no you have to give the information package to the individual so that they can get the service well you know it's not that far away you know you still you still have to be complicit the conscience is not respected now i say all of that and it's almost my specialty a bit to get people a bit depressed uh about the state of things and you will you will notice that it's funny i actually did that once in an audience and i said i said but there's hope and there's poor bloke on the front row goes oh but now that you're there i actually want to take us back to the those were basically all wa examples too which i was careful to give now that you're there i just want to take us back to this question what can we do what can we do okay we've got to answer that and the answer is at first it depends to some degree because there's two kinds of problems and they demand two kinds of answers one kind of problem is the kind of problem that you can actually do something about all right we can actually respond and you can action in the face of it take action in the face of it there's another kind of problem which you can do nothing about and you need to distinguish between those two because if you vex your soul over the things which you can do nothing about and you let them dominate you and weigh them down weigh you down you will lose your peace you will lose your joy you'll be defeated and you'll be a ball of misery and anxiety do you know we need to keep those things in perspective and i do think that one of the big issues at the moment actually is the uh covert thing in that regard there is something big and here in geraldton in wa i appreciate it's not the same i have a lot of staff living in lockdown at the moment and you can tell on the phone to them that they're in lockdown i actually had a friend recently confessed to me i never would have imagined this blew me away but because of the whole covert stuff he actually was one of the people that rang lifeline because he became suicidal uh and he says never never anything like that happened to him before in fact lifeline got 3345 calls in a single day last week from people on the east coast and people ring lifeline because they're suicidal this is very much locked down induced now people get very stressed about the virus and the lethality of the virus that's a big issue and people are afraid and i do think that's why the premiers can do whatever they want because people are afraid can i say christians should lead the way in not being afraid um that's that's something that's just been on my mind lately you know fear of death is a condition from which christ has freed us um hebrews 2 15 right that he might free those who all their lives were subject to the slavery of the fear of death i actually read an incredible story from 180 a.d written by the bishop of carthage and in 188 it was the close of the antonine plague in rome one of two plagues in rome and during the antonine plague things got so bad that the chief physician of the roman empire a guy called galen had fled to his country estate to sort of just keep staying you know be like we fled to wa to sort of hide out while it was going on it was a lot more serious back then i mean people were dying and getting sick in droves and what happened typically to the dying were that they would be thrown out of their homes or they would be deserted because the plague was so bad so the likelihood of death was so high but the bishop of carthage wrote that the christians in that era were moving into the cities and seeking out those who had been abandoned and who were dying and he said that actually not only here's one of the things about medical science at the time they thought that if you went in to minister to someone and help them and they lived but you got the plague and died they believed that you had transferred the plague to yourself you'd sucked it out of them and it had come on to you and you died in their stead so they believed they were all going to be martyrs and they said better that we die because we know where we're going we know our destiny then for them to die and so they weren't ministered to people and the bishop of carthage said this plague has been he said it's been terrible in so many ways but he said in this respect it has been very good it has taught us not to fear death and i looked at that and i looked it today and i went something doesn't add up something doesn't add up we should lead the way in not fearing but there is also the fear of the response a lot of people are afraid of the government afraid of the restrictions afraid of the level of enforcement uh afraid of the vaccine and these kinds of things i appreciate i honestly appreciate all that i'm not degrading any of it what i want to say is there's something about the covert situation that's big that's global and it's out of our control and it will go for as long as it goes and it's things like that that fall into the category of things that you can do nothing about i also think that in the short term and probably the medium term there's very little we can do about the broad cultural trend of our time that kind of totalitarian control trend is very very strong right now in a lot of areas rod dreyer has written a great book called live not by lies which which documents this and basically he points out how that in the name of harm reduction and safety there is totalitarian power being exercised on every hand all things are being brought under all things are being being prohibited in the name of whatever it takes to preserve safety you see that in the conversion therapy legislation someone could be harmed by what you say so preacher you can't speak in the pulpit family home you can't look after your kids in the way you want to blah blah blah blah why harm reduction safety you see it also in so-called hate speech laws i did a segment on that in albany which will come out hate and speech they're two different things by the way hate's in the heart it's a motive speech is something different speech is called disagreement it's called the beginning of a debate let's talk about it and convince each other but of course they say no no free speech is risky speech right if you're free to speak you can say things that make people feel bad and therefore totalitarian control shut it down end it and do what it takes to take people to human rights commissions that's where i'm going for saying things like i'm saying tonight um it's they call it therapeutic totalitarianism it's a very interesting trend but anyway i go on that that's the fact is these are things we cannot control in a very key respect and so we need to understand how to react to those firstly i think job helps us to understand how to react to those and think about those things believe it or not because he was a man who had a lot of things happen to him that were outside of his control in a big way now they weren't just threatening things they weren't just things that were upsetting him and concerning him they were things that affected him deeply and personally in a remarkable way and in job's case uh you see where there's this meeting of satan and god in heaven it's quite a strange opening chapter and satan says god says have you seen my servant job he's righteous and blameless he's the greatest of all the men in the east and then satan says to god ah he says but you put a hedge around him you've made him prosper he says just take it away and he says to god he says he will certainly curse you to your face and so satan is given permission to do as he pleases to job but god puts a limit on him and says but don't touch his life and so he can't do that and then there's that terrible passage where a servant comes into job while he's mining his business one day he says you know your oxen and your female donkeys were plowing and your servants were there and the sabians mounted a raid killed them all took away the oxen and the donkeys and i alone have escaped to tell you and then while he's still speaking another servant shows up and says well actually uh he says there was a great fire from heaven that came down and it killed all of your camels and all of the servants and i alone have escaped to tell you and then another guy comes while he's still speaking he says well actually the chaldeans formed three units and they mounted a raid and took away all your sheep killed all the servants and i alone have escaped to tell you and while he's still speaking another guy that shows up and says well actually there's this great cyclone that just suddenly blew across the plain knocked down the house of your oldest son and now all your ten kids are dead and i alone have escaped to tell you and here's the interesting thing job faced all of that when he wasn't in control who was in control though if job wasn't in control joe behind job's calamity with the chaldeans the serbians the cyclone and the fire and behind the chaldeans the serbians the cyclone of the fire was who satan right do you know there's a lesson here in that satan does in fact have great power the forces of evil are real and they are very great even on a national even on a global scale now a lot of people turn around at this point and say well you just said satan and evil you're a kook uh i actually got there's a tweet while i was on q a saying that because this i used the word evil and someone said this is the language of a terrorist um but here's the here's the simple reality we all believe this i mean why is it that so much of the uh the secular progressive mantra at the moment is systemic oppression systemic racism systemic well because they believe in systems of evil right simple now it's the wrong system uh and also they underestimate human evil and our own capacity for evil and that's the thing that's the revelation the christian has is that their own heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it well thankfully jesus is here you know that systemic problem that reality is is a real thing and it is all through the bible the warnings in first john 5 19 it says the whole world lies in the evil one in other words there is unseen supernatural power that fights for control that fights for control ephesians 6 and 12 says for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the powers against the world forces of this darkness against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places i was in shanghai a while ago about 10 years ago it's interesting by the way in shanghai i'm not just a tall man i'm the giant straight out of the fairy tale and it was a very interesting experience but uh um i was in a i was in a clothing store in shanghai and i was there just killing time and i was just walking around and i saw a bloke come out from between the clothes just sort of emerge and walk off and i thought to myself oh there must be a back room in this clothing store because in that part of the world there is always a back room with the good stuff right and if you do something like you pick up the handbag and you just start testing the zip they'll stop you and say come out the back let's have a look at the good stuff that's a tip by the way you're welcome anyway i decided to barge my way through and i walked out the back and i realized i wasn't in the clothing store store anymore um and i was let's say i was in an establishment of ill repute and um lucky i wasn't the md of the acl and no one was there with a camera at the time uh that could have gone very bad but anyway i did i hightailed it out of there i thought this is not where i want to be and i i left but it was interesting i realized that that clothing store was a front for something else and we're familiar with the concept of a front you may have a business that's actually a front for some kind of money laundering process that happens sometimes there's always the mystery as to how it survives well money laundering and so on and that's why we have organized crime people and all the rest of it to sort out that stuff it's true you know often the powers of this world are a front for the powers of evil you know i knew that when i first moved to canberra seven years ago uh canberra is a kind a certain kind of place it's the most irreligious city in the country it can't be a mistake also it all bubbled to the surface the trouble they have in parliament with the girl that was raped in the minister's office and that came out of the national press and then all this other stuff started bubble to the surface all the dark underbelly of parliament house and what happens there i tell you we all have known for a long time it's not just true it's barely scratching the surface and there is a fight there is always a grappling at the level of power for control and we see that in job's story but here's the thing whilst behind job's fire cyclone sabians chaldeans is satan who's behind satan hey quick answer i like that uh in bunbury they were they were waiting for ages you guys are sharp up here um [Laughter] and that at first by the way i don't know if i've tapped into any sort of rivalries but anyway by the way that is at first confronting but actually it brings peace for the christian because if that is true remember god said to satan you can't go any further than x and he could not end a story he was only allowed to do what he was permitted to do genesis 50 20 is remarkable on this joseph at the end of his life after all the suffering he went through after being carried off into slavery into egypt what did joseph say he said to his brothers what you meant for evil selling me into slavery what you meant for evil god used for good in other words evil will never serve evil's ends it will always be brought into submission it will always be brought to heal to serve god's ends i mean the ultimate example of this as i said in perth is actually that the darkest moment of human history as we christians know it is the crucifixion of christ and that was the the moment in which the forces of evil appeared to have the greatest victory of all and yet it was actually the moment in which god himself generated the greatest blessing that the cosmos has ever known now that is the sort of god we trust in in the face of challenging times good will come good will come and if this is being allowed to happen these things that challenge us and perplexed us there's a reason they are being allowed to happen right we believe that because we pray right and so we've got our eyes closed praying we believe that but some people open their eyes and forget it he's in control and you say well why is it happening what is the reason well i haven't got a clue and that's okay because you know what job didn't have a clue either do you know how the book opens and we get this sort of behind the curtain peek at what's going on job never got it read the book he never figured it out he just had to deal with what happened and he sort of said in the pit of his despair why in the world is this happening to me of course the correct answer to job's question is no it's the wrong question because the reason wasn't even in this world the reason was in another realm jesus said before he ascended he said it is not given to you to know the times or the seasons that the father has set by his own authority there's things we can't know and don't know they're in another realm it's according to another plan and job was in that situation and a lot of people get very angry about that i did a segment recently on the truth of it about d converters uh you know people who were christians and then decide they're not christians and give the reasons why and in each case one of the key themes was god doesn't do it my way god doesn't tell me what i want to know what's the origin of evil well that's the fact we're not told are we i think deliberately not told i mean what makes us think we understand the answer because we're not god we didn't exist humans weren't even made when evil came into the world i mean the serpent showed up right he was already there we don't know how that happened i mean people say well why doesn't god cure all the cancer in the world well i don't know i'm not god all i know is the cancer in the world will be cured in good time it's promised it'll be cured and actually all the bad that happens now will be brought into submission to good one day and praise god as a christian we'll get to see it you know i don't know the mysteries i don't know and every single person christian or not lives with mysteries and unknowns and wise everyone says why in the world the reality is the christian understands why because there are mysteries because there's something that's above us we're off the dust we're creatures and you say well then in job's case if he didn't know and he couldn't know what ultimately was the answer well actually in job's case the answer came when he didn't want the answer anymore it's not interesting he gets the end of his life he gets the end of his he's praying and crying out to god for chapters and then god shows up which is no small thing it doesn't happen very often he shows up i mean literally happened in that way 77 questions he throws at job 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 and job cannot answer any one of them can't have a hope of answering any one of them because god is saying to him i'm god do you know this do you know that were you there when i laid the foundations of the world were you there when this do you understand this and job finishes by putting his hand on his mouth and saying i have no questions anymore he doesn't want his questions answered why because he realizes that his trust is not misplaced he says though he slay me i will trust him that's an incredible statement because he sees who has the power he sees who has the wisdom and he sees who's got the plan and he says my trust is not misplaced but there was a point to job you know good did come the book of job for a start how many people is that blessed throughout the ages what an incredible tool has that been in the arsenal of god for people who are struggling with faith and all the rest of it how many people have read job 19 i know my redeemer lives and he shall stand and i will meet him and my eyes will behold him and not another i mean that's new testament theology how many people have read that and been converted a lot i actually know a guy now a lot of people did job see that no he didn't but it was done good came good cane but here's the other thing here's the point i want to make job's resolution came when he was at peace when he was at peace and the first thing we need to understand is that for these things that are out of our control we must have and we can have peace in the face of them it's a lot of people i don't know if you've been on facebook lately it's pretty tense in there you know there's a lot of a lot of it is covered uh but there's a lot of argumentation there's a lot of uncertainty there's a lot of unrest and i i work in politics and i meet a lot of people who don't laugh anymore i always say to people if i stop laughing tell me because i'll quit it's time to go it's defeated me but here's the reality right why are these things happening well i know that behind it all is the permission of god and it can only go so far and it only ever does go so far by the way you see the world go almost to the brink you saw that in like the world wars and stuff it goes to the brink and then it comes back it goes to the brink and then it comes back all the time god's behind it all so we trust it and even though we don't know the answer we know that there is an answer and we know that our trust is not misplaced now that gives you greater hope that gives you great peace here's the other thing it'll do for us not just give us peace in the face of those things but secondly it will make us pray it will help us not to get too big for our boots and think we can control more than we can rather we will realize that there is somebody who is in control and for whatever reason this is another mystery he prescribes prayer as a means of changing things i don't know why but he does i don't know why he even bothers to need us but he does he says pray and things will change you know that verse that everyone talks about if my people will humble themselves and pray you know i will hear from heaven i will heal their land what's the key word if if you know i look at what's going on in the world at the moment i think if that doesn't drive the people of god to prayer nothing will nothing there you go that's as for emphasis nothing well uh a providential mic drop um you know i often say in my talks i say the story of the bible is actually the world going to custard and god picking someone to raise up and fix it you see that just time and again it's always someone who walks before him blameless who's of good condition of heart who we can use someone is available but what i miss out sometimes is that very often it's preceded by a prayer if you think of someone like nehemiah looking at the the the ruins of of of jerusalem and the state of the temple of god he prayed took a while but god answered his prayer and you know blow me down sometimes he does and you can see things you prayed for years ago happen and you go there you go i've seen that so much of that sometimes you can pray for something i've prayed for things mid-meeting and you watch it you watch the person in front of you it's incredible god does answer prayer uh and we would be more prayerful people you look at someone like hannah in the bible samuel raised up to deliver god's people how the prayer of his mom incredible stuff we should be people who pray and we should be people who are at peace with those things we cannot control let me much more briefly for there will be no time for q a otherwise we did start late didn't we that's my excuse um i want to quickly make just a few comments about things we can control things we can do i mean there are things we can do already but there's a little bit more and i want to make this particularly in relation to issues where i'm going to say issues where there's an issue of righteousness in your personal life if i could put it that way what do i mean well think of the christian parent who is facing the conversion therapy law in victoria what are they going to do think of the pastor who is preaching and he hits romans 1. what's he going to do jump to romans 2 you know there's something to be said there or what about the christian citizen who faces the state in a range of areas like we just described what about the christian employee facing hr and my goodness we get we basically got a hotline for people like that ringing up saying help i've just said something in the lunchroom and hr's onto me um what about those people what you know jesus thought about this before you did and he said something you know when i finished that opening thing we joked about how sad we were what did jesus say blessed are the persecutor for righteousness sake in other words he said there's a blessing here chin up there's a blessing here and it doesn't say psych yourself up and you might find a blessing he says there is a blessing and he says rejoice and be glad for so for for great is your reward in heaven i want to say first and foremost your decision in these crisis moments it must be defined not by the day on which it happens but it must be defined by the next life that's where your anchor post should be that's where your decision-making paradigm needs to be it needs to be in the next life the well-done good and faithful servant life there that not treasures on earth treasures in heaven life what jesus said about treasures on earth they're a lot of fun to build up right but the moths eat them the rust rusts them the thieves break in and steal them and then they're all gone when you die anyway and he says well treasure in heaven lasts now that should be our decision-making paradigm a lot of people they they cop out a lot of people fold you know we're going to have to get tough as christians we really are a good spoonful of concrete and harden up because it's not getting any easier right and uh that's something you know i was going to say pray for courage but i did make the mistake of doing that once and uh unfortunately if you pray for courage that might be a prayer that gets answered because it doesn't come by magic that's the hint we need to be tough and we need to make sure that that is our frame of reference and i find it sad to see so many christians with a frame of reference that's too close to the here and now that's driving their decisions some people say martin persecution that's over by ecking it don't be ridiculous no one's getting fit with the lions i appreciate that but jesus does go on to say blessed are you when you're reviled when people are angrily disgusted with you when they insult you and they speak evil against you for my name's sake i think he is thinking about these things i mean homophobe bigot hater i mean the reason these things vex us is because they're just so not true and you make the mistake sometimes of sitting down and going well is it true and you sort of worry about it and you really it's not true it's just not true well i think jesus is thinking about these sorts of things that's what people will think of you because they don't see the truth about you it is a feature not a bug in the christian life jesus thought this would be situation normal it's very clear in john's gospel in particular a lot of young people come to our download program and the thing pressing on their mind is what university if i if i say what i believe people don't like me uh if you know i come out as a christian in this workplace it's really challenging i mean that is the paradigm under which they're living because they're just going out into the world 18 to 25 year olds and they just face it and realize how tough it is and they say well you know how can i say things how can i act in a way that people will like in a way that people will be endeared to i got to say ultimately it's a losing battle ultimately it will be for righteousness sake someone will still always be upset don't be a jerk be nice but someone will always be upset it's not how you say it it's what you're saying it's a feature not a bug in the christian life two things to do the first one is salt that's how he goes on you're the soul of the earth he says you're the light of the world the salt that is something he says don't lose your taste what's that mean salt that loses its taste is salt for which the moisture has got into it in other words the environment that it's sitting in has compromised it don't let your environment compromise you that begins with making the right decision on the right day daniel did that daniel didn't think he could plan his life in his future better than god could he decided he would do the right thing today and let god take care of the rest we need to live like that more and more he didn't compromise even in babylon when the standards and pressures of babylon were on him he was an amazing example in fact daniel's a more and more relevant book because we don't we're living in a less and less christian society so we need to look we're living more babylonian society we need to look at his life he didn't compromise the other point i'll make is it doesn't just relate to your external actions it relates to your internal christianity we need to be people who are serious about holiness serious about modeling jesus christ serious about getting sin out of our lives i think often our standards get sloppy because you know salt preserves the putrefying stuff and the world is a bit putrid sometimes you know the things that are on our screens in our lounge rooms things that are broadcasting through our televisions the stuff we're getting used to the stuff we're allowing to change our approach and our outlook and our thinking we need to get serious about that you know revival and judgment begin in god's house and if we want to change the world we need to be salty we can't be compromised and if we want that salt to shine light which is the next thing well it's got to be it's going to have integrity and it begins in the heart begins in the heart and if you are salty if your mere existence is a preserving effect on this world because you're a non-compromised christian then you can also be light and the point of the light is don't hide it under the basket it should be visible i'll say one thing about our lgbt friends outside which they've absolutely nailed brilliantly visibility right visibility everybody has a friend from the lgbt community but you know when you do the surveys people think they don't have friends in the christian community and they do there's a lot of christians in this country a lot you know visibility find ways to be visible i heard a pastor the other day so you should introduce yourself as a christian i don't mean an awkward stupid way like a man and i'm a christian straight up but i mean it should it should well you could i mean try it sometime who knows you just don't know you got to create opportunities sometimes i'm serious pray for them make them um but you know it should be something about you that's immediately obvious you shouldn't be in a workplace where you're not known for your faith you shouldn't be in a university where you're not known for your faith it'll help you when you get trouble down the line by the way because you'll have the relationship built on the right basis but also if people see the light they can be drawn to the light the challenge of course is if the light is on if you're seen you need to back it up with action so a great quote actually out of 99 out of 100 people 99 will read the bible so one will read the bible 99 will read the christian you know that's who we've got to be and then this whole section finishes with this conclusion jesus says people will see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven in other words you were under pressure weren't you persecuted for righteousness sake now who's under pressure all of a sudden the light is on the salt is salty the persecution didn't do the job and what you're doing now is you're visible and people are seeing your good works and glorifying god let me make this point very often the anger and the opposition will be very loud very often we can be deceived into thinking that's all there is and it discourages us now i've been there my office got car bombed a few years ago you know very often the anger in the opposition is very loud and in your face and you think well it's not working what's the point but you know if you persevere long enough you just find out that actually god does use these things usually in a quiet way in a subtle way and going around the country for this truth of a live tour has been amazing because i've met so many people who say my life has been changed through the content because i've been converted because i first encountered a truth of the video uh who you know and you look at the impact and the effect over time quietly in the background you say praise god he is at work in the world and praise god the light does work and the salt does work of course it does jesus promised that it would and that's got to be our final destination in all that we do we must never forget that ultimately we're drawing people to christ and we're seeking to glorify god you know we are in politics we are in workplaces but ultimately the final destination that god wills for every human being is christ and his salvation unless they always have that in the back of our mind whenever we act ladies and gentlemen i'm over time but i'm mark niles that was the truth of it also i forgot to do this [Applause]

Channel: ACL – Australian Christian Lobby

Views: 23,210

Rating: 4.9441538 out of 5

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Id: 8UsxsBmepmg

Length: 44min 35sec (2675 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 20 2021