Tony Evans' Powerful Sermon, Surviving a Declining Culture, Preached on August 1, 2021

[Music] lord we are familiar with the tv program survivor where people have to survive the most difficult of circumstances as we speak this month each week through those who stand in this pulpit about surviving the various realities of life which reminds us we're more than conquerors in christ jesus who loved us and gave himself for us in jesus name amen i have said it before and i want to reiterate it again today that christians have lost home field advantage we're no longer the home team if you are a serious christian not just a church goer not just a religious person not just somebody who believes in god but somebody who believes god then you are part of the visiting team that means the crowd is not supporting you means the public is not in your favor there was a time when if you were a serious christian you were the home team you were supported in school you're supported at home you were supported in media you were supporting the culture even if they didn't agree with you they respected you enough to let your voice be heard but you are the visiting team now no longer do you live in a land that holds high the judeo-christian worldview and the more serious christian you are the more isolated you're liable to be so i don't want to paint the picture other than what reality says it is we are individually and collectively as a ministry your family your definition of life your definition of of marriage your definition of male female realities your definition of dignity your definition of of appropriateness your definition of of life itself from womb to tomb has made you part of the visiting team that that is where you are and as a result of that loss of home field advantage many christians have decided to become treasonous they've decided to be nicknamed benedict arnold because they want to be accepted by the culture they want to be affirmed by the culture they want to be embraced by the culture they want to be applauded by the culture at the expense of their commitment to christ and their commitment to god and their commitment to truth based on his word and the problem is that the benedict arnold still go to church that the benedict arnold still has a religious facade that makes them feel part of the home team so the question on the floor as our culture becomes continue continuously secularized humanized and functions in rebellion to god's truth while we pay the repercussions for it the question is how do we survive a decaying culture we get some hints at that in daniel chapter 1. and i want to say i'm glad to see some of the young people here today with their parents because daniel is a teenager in daniel chapter one and so it's very relevant for our young people and for the parents of those young people and even if you're not a parent those who are in your circle of influence to influence because one thing is true if you're the visiting team you're going to be booed when you try to score you're going to be booed when you don't go with the program that's the popular program on the field of play in 605 bc god's judgment was hurled out against israel for their rebellion against judah for their rebellion against god that rebelled against god they had wandered into idolatry and the judgment was to be captured by nebuchadnezzar and the nation of babylon and that is what has happened here and the saints of god's people were now living on living on foreign soil they were now transported from god's place to babylon a pagan environment an environment full of all manner of evil but that's where they had to live and that's the way it was their spiritual rebellion and it is our spiritual rebellion that has helped put us in this mess and so that's how the book of daniel opens daniel chapter 1 when nebuchadnezzar verse 1 besieges jerusalem it says the lord gave them over god said you don't want me i'll let you hang out with them they took the vessels of the house of god verse 2 brought them into the land of shinar to the house of his god and he brought the vessels into the territory of his god do you hear what he said he went and he took what belonged to the true god and offered it to the false god well if the saints weren't going to use it the idols would so everything is turned topsy-turvy he then says nebuchadnezzar king of babylon he talks to his official ashpenaz and he says in verse 3 i want you to get some of the sons of israel include some of the royal family of the nobles youth teenagers in whom there is no defect good-looking showing intelligence and every branch of wisdom endowed with understanding and discerning knowledge and who had ability for serving in the king's court and he ordered him to teach them the literature and the language of the chaldeans the babylonians the king appointed for them a daily ration from the king's choice food and from the wine which he drank and appointed that they should be educated three years and at the end of which they will have entered into the king's personal service now among them were the sons of judah daniel and anaya mitchell and azariah these are four boys from god's people who were caught up in the judgment that god brought they were caught up it wasn't that they contributed to it they just got caught up in it and so they find themselves in a secular society and the secular society began the process of brainwashing in case you don't know it our culture is trying to brainwash you they they trying to brain they're trying to brainwash you your mama and your children the culture is trying to brainwash you because that is the nature of the environment and how do you protect yourself your family from being brainwashed by nebby and his posse by the babylonians the secularists those who deny the true god and want to bring stuff into their god's house we're living in a day when all of the major institutions have become god denying institutions the media is a god-denying institution of communication now there are exceptions there are exceptions but i'm talking about what's become normal you have to look at stuff and hear stuff that your mama didn't have to look at in here even when you're watching commercials the media has decided to brainwash you and if you don't think you've been brainwashed look at how unoffended you are now to how offended you were when it first happened because you're being hit with it so much that it down rolls off you like a duck's back and one of the ways you know it's affecting us is your children have picked it up [Applause] because it's normal it's normal our education institutions have become pagan there are exceptions but i'm talking about what's being normalized what they are teaching in theory to deny divine facts how they are re-educating your children how they are trying to tell them certain kinds of identities certain kinds of orientations are normal and they should choose so let me say something before we get started here well i already got started but let me say something while we while we're in the middle of this you better make sure as early as possible you tell your kids who they are because if you don't your school teacher might [Applause] because we are in a decaying culture a culture in decline they went through a series of things to de-israelize them and pro-babylonize them to take away how they were raised and bring them into a new environment to think different act different walk different talk different and most importantly believe different first of all they were isolated they were removed from their spiritual roots they were taken from jerusalem and taken into babylon it's like a kid growing up in a christian home who now goes to a secular ivy league college they've been removed from the training they've been removed from mother and father they've been removed from their history and and and community and church background and now they're in an environment where the environment itself is seeking to reprogram them so they were isolated they now couldn't call mama they couldn't call daddy they they couldn't run to auntie they couldn't run to uncle because they had been transported to a different environment so there was isolation then there was a new identification notice verse seven then the commander of the officials assigned new names to them to daniel he assigned the name beltashasa to hananiah shadrach to michelle meshach and to azariah of indigo he changed their names your name is your identification i call you by your name you call me by my name that's how we identify ourselves change their name so let me tell you about the names because this tells us a little bit parents about mom and daddy because mom and daddy named them daniel e.l on the end of daniel is the name for god elohim it means god is judge so when baby boy came out of mama's womb they said every time your name is called you're going to be reminded god is your judge [Music] [Applause] every time we call your name uh by the way parents have you named your children i'm talking about have you given them a divine way of thinking in their name their parents want to make sure you can't get away from god because you can't get away from your name that was not only true of daniel's mom and daddy that was also true of michelle that's a god name but what about hananiah and azariah you see on the end of that i-a-h i-a-h is short for jehovah so the other two had a god name too one was elohim the other was jehovah so all of these parents made sure that these kids were raised with a divinely oriented way of thinking walking talking believing living and they couldn't get away from it because that was their name your job as a parent is to give your kid a divine identity to raise them in the fear of the lord the bible says so that they keep running into like a pinball machine god that's why you have family devotions that's why you don't give them a choice about whether they're coming to church i wish i would have thunk it you know the only way i got out of going to church was i had to lie and tell my daddy i was sick i was dying you know coughing and trying to make it sound real until he found out i was lying he said okay you're gonna stay home but you ain't going to like it in other words you want to make sure they keep running in the guard so that you put a bungee cord on them so that if they go left they have something to bounce back now we're going to do our part that's one of the things we're doing is mom we're working hard on our children's ministry we're upgrading our youth ministry we're working on all of that so that we give you and help you have a bungee cord but let me explain something the church can help you it can't replace you that's your responsibility particularly the fathers it's your responsibility to make sure that they're raised in the fear of god and that god's they can't get away from it so what did nebuchadnezzar do he changed their names he didn't want them thinking about god anymore guess what the names he changed them to the names of babylonian gods these are babylonian god names so you see changing your name is not just changing your nomenclature it's adjusting your belief system you got all kind of names out there today where people are being re-identified and re-classified by the environment and the culture and you got christians in the name of illegitimate sympathy i'm not talking about being mean but i'm talking about leaving the truth in the name of sympathy [Music] but we got to get back to the truth [Applause] and not be co-opted by the culture he changed their names because he wanted to change their identity he gave him a new id card they said i want to hear no more about daniel up in here you're not daniel anymore you don't live in that christian world anymore not only that he indoctrinated them verse 4 he says i want you to teach them he says i want you to teach them in the literature and the language of the chaldeans and i want you verse three sent them to college for three years average five educate them three years i want you to send them to babylonian school to get babylonian education to get babylonian indoctrination i want them no longer to think like an israelite i want them to think and believe like a babylonian forget all that stuff they were raised to believe that is what's happening to you and me and our offspring and our children and our grandchildren they are being taught to forget their christian foundation or to so make it out there that it doesn't mean anything and they are doing a great job because they're winning one of the reasons that they're winning it's because families have eroded families ever wrote it it is part of the playbook if we're going to destroy the culture and the world view we must dismantle the family we must dismantle the family let me be quite direct since i don't have to worry about you all the rest of august [Applause] you don't get to get divorced just because you're not happy you don't get the divorce just because you're not happy now i'm not talking about abuse i'm not talking about abuse that's a different story but you not happy okay you got to be starting with the men you got to have a little bit more man in you than that she ain't treating me right okay hey a lot of people ain't gonna treat you right you don't just get up and leave that's that's what punks do that's not what men don't leave no you double down you love harder you you be committed more you say oh wait well then you gonna have to go because i ain't going nowhere as for me and my house we will serve the lord up in here up in here [Applause] dismantling of the family we gotta we gotta we gotta break down this family so that we don't have two parents in the home raising these kids like it was meant to be and i praise god for the single mothers who have to and who are doing a bang-up job i praise god for you i thank god for you and we will do what we can to help and supplement but but what what you're seeing now with over 70 of children being raised with with one parent that that's not how the creator meant to be but that's how the culture needs it to be so what it did it came up with no fault divorce you don't have to have a reason you just don't want to be there anymore women have abandoned the home far too much nothing wrong with a woman working but not to the abandonment of the home christianity has been removed from our schools he says you educate him you educate them into evil you educate them into ungodliness you educate them into secular thinking not because it's all wrong but it's all been colored by humanism they they they sprinkle homocracy a man-centered world view well what was the motivation what were we going what well they not only gave them isolation and indoctrination and re-identification they offered them some gratification verse five he appointed them a daily ration of the king's choice food that's the good stuff and the wine which he drank and then he offered them a big job with a big salary oh the end of church 5 at the end of which they were to enter the king's personal service oh we're going to give you a good job you're going to make a lot of money you're going to be somebody cause you're gonna be working for the government that's what it says the king service that's the government you're gonna be you're gonna be a government employee we're gonna pay you and we're gonna let you you're gonna let you dine with the high with the big folk and you know you're gonna be part of the elite class and and so you adjust to your lifestyle if you want to keep this job if you want to keep making this salary you must adjust to the training we're giving you in our schools if you want if you want all this then you better adjust to us because we got your money we got your job we got your significance we own you if you name the name of jesus christ only one person owns you and it is not the secular culture you're owned by the lordship of jesus christ now of course you should do your best you should be your best you should get as much training in whatever field you're in as you can get but what you don't do you can't you can't change what other folk call you but you can sure change what you call yourself and guess what when they wrote the book of daniel they called him daniel because that's his god name if you are a kingdom disciple that means that you are willing to be known as a follower of jesus christ not just a believer in god it means you belong to jesus christ paul says i am not ashamed of the gospel it is the power of god unto salvation to all who believe we are people ain't ashamed of nothing else why are you going to be ashamed of jesus christ but the culture is stealing our families are stealing our kids suppose somebody broke into your house while you were asleep and stole your kid you would lose your mind well somebody has broken into your house and they're stealing your kids and you ought to be losing your mind you ought to tell the public school where you ought to be at the pta meetings you ought to review the books that they're being taught you ought to review who's teaching them you better you better you you you better find out what they're being taught or else they'll be stolen we have not abandoned the public schools that's why we've adopted all these public schools to try to bring as much christian influence but it's also why we've established our own christian school so that we can establish a biblical worldview so that people can have a kingdom-oriented understanding to truth and knowledge [Applause] because you are living in a post-christian world and no amount of uh tip-toeing through the tulips is going to dumb down on that so what god is looking for are not church members he's looking for kingdom disciples visible verbal full-time followers of christ [Applause] are you known by that on your job are you known as a full-time follower of jesus christ or do you just talk about where you go to church that that is meaningless what's meaningful is that you are known as a christ follower so he offers him notoriety significance in a foreign kingdom and you know this world can give you significance in the wrong kingdom let me give you a title it gives you a name gives you money and no those are not wrong in and of themselves don't get me wrong they're not illegitimate in and of themselves except when they want to reclassify you so what do you do to survive when you're in the visiting team verse 8 says but daniel made up in his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine which he drank so he saw permission from the count from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself okay so let me tell you what daniel did if you're gonna survive meaning god's gonna be with you i'll explain that in a minute he drew a line in the sand he did a popeye yeah i got all i can stand and i can't stand no more he drew a line in the sand he says i can go this far but i can't go there he made up in his mind he would not defile himself with the king's choice food now wait a minute he did go to the king's school yeah he went to the king's school he is going to take the king's job he is going to take the king's salary so he didn't he didn't go in some monastery and become some monk this his reality was he's in babylon now okay and you and i are in babylon now yeah so that's the reality so you got to go to your secular job or your secular school or live in your secular neighborhood so so okay but there comes a point where there's a line in the sand there comes a point where you say well now yeah i will do all that but what i'm not going to do is defile myself now what did he mean by that well daniel grew up at oak cliff bible fellowship and he learned that the bible is the truth and so when he read the bible and looked at the scriptures it became clear that the bible had said in exodus 34 and 14 and 15 to not eat the food that was offered to idols we already see that he brought the stuff into uh the house of the gods the false gods so they were offering food that had been offered to idols then in leviticus chapter 7 verses 23 to 26 27 it talks about food being unclean then in the old testament and so it was unclean he talks about it in leviticus chapter 11. so there were two problems the wrong food and they'd been offered to the wrong god you know what they were asking them to do get rid of your faith and we didn't already take it we already gave you a college scholarship but already uh you know pay for your career we didn't already offered you a job in advance for when you graduate yes we've already told you what we're gonna pay you yes now the only thing left for you to do is to bow your knee to our god yes yes because it was the food sacrificed to idols and that's where he drew the line i'm gonna go to your school but i ain't gonna give up my god i'll take your job but i ain't gonna give up my god i'll spend your money but i ain't gonna give up my god i'll be your friend but i ain't going to give up my god i i'll i'll do what i need to do but once you ask me to give up my god you have lost your mind made up in his mind he would not give away his faith in order to placate his culture uh have you drawn the line in the sand is it clear that you've drawn the line and said have you taught your children your teenagers to draw a line in the sand that's what girls have to do with guys hey there's a line here buddy yes yeah you see this line here you see do you see this you see that yeah don't don't don't don't cross that line this line that's like you say he says are you made up in his mind you ain't gonna take my faith now i'll give you my best i'll be your best worker but don't mess with my faith cause it's not for sale you want to survive in a secular culture i tell you how to survive draw a line draw a line you say but they may not like that they may not want me they may not employ me they may not give me a raise he may not marry me he may you know you could go on and on and on and on and on but the verse nine now god hello uh god did not intervene until daniel made a decision ah now god see a lot of us want to see god work before we make a decision god why don't you answer my prayer why aren't you blessing me why aren't you changing me why are you not giving me this raise why are you not promoting me why is my son not coming back home why why why why have you drawn the line yet god did not jump in until the line had been drawn it says he drew the line and he went to the captain of the army and says would you would you would you not ask me to defile myself and he wasn't mean he wasn't religious in fact he was very respectful i would appreciate it if you didn't ask me to defile myself to play to give up my faith i would really appreciate it wait a minute daniel you're going down there you've just gone from from the hood to highland park you'd gone from a volkswagen to benz i mean you have the opportunity to live large don't mess that up don't mess that up he says there's a line in the sand you've asked me to give up my faith i'll go to your school i'll do your job i'll work for the government i do all of that but i will not compromise my commitment to the lord don't ask me that one because that's not that's not available so you're lying in the sand now god granted daniel favor everybody wants favor i've been blessed in highland favor everybody wants favor let me tell you get favor let god see a line because if you don't see a lie that means he don't know he can trust you with favor everybody come to church to be blessed who don't want to be a blessing because there's no line you'll go back you're going to get blessed today and go back tomorrow and cuss like everybody else you'll go back the other day and steal like everybody else you're going to go back the other day and be secular like everybody you're gonna be like everybody else but you coming for your blessing he says no now god granted him favor and what was the favor god granted him the favor of an idea in favor of an idea because he says to him verse 12 please test your servants for 10 days and let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink and let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king's choice food always god gave him a b and i did see favor ain't just having money favors being able to think in your right mind okay so god gave him up an idea and what did god do verse 17 and for these four youths god gave them knowledge and intelligence and every branch of literature and wisdom daniel even understood the kinds of visions and dreams and at the end of the days when when they went to check them all out and he talked to them for these he they entered into his personal service verse 20 and for every uh matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them he found them ten times better than all the magicians and congress who were in the realm did you know that god decides who gets promoted [Applause] and how you get promoted even in a secular godless culture god can so favor you that even sinners can appreciate you because nebuchadnezzar is thinking to himself i don't believe in their god i don't like their faith but then people are going to make me some money let's go let's hire them and people go help me out see a lot of people think drawing a line in the sand you're going to lose no drawing a line in the same and god helps you to win so have you drawn that line is it clear not because we're perfect we're all imperfect we all sin that's why god calls us to repent but is the line clear because if the line is clear you won't even feel the need to repent because you didn't have a line to repent of your children need to be taught to draw a line in the sand every time they come home or on a regular basis you need to be deprogramming them okay what did they teach you today what did you learn today which means that they can't spend all of that time on social media or playing games and you can't spend all of your time in front of the television you got to be sitting down with them and say what did they teach you tell me who you playing with with your friends saying you want to find that out cause if you don't the culture will steal them [Applause] he made a decision based on scripture because he was tethered to the truth he maximized his presence he went way up the ladder but all throughout his life and the three hebrew boys life they were drawing lines in the same chapter three you remember the the three boys in the fiery furnace and and the government said bow to the government okay bow to the government nebuchadnezzar in chapter three he built this image he told he calls everybody to bow he tells them in verse 415 if you're ready now you can bow and i won't i won't uh i won't hurt you but but if you don't bow you will you'll be in the fire because you will be fired what do three hebrew boys say in verse 17. if it be so our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and he will deliver us out of your hand o government o king but even if he does not let it be known to you o king that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image with you have set up there is a line in the sand and if i got to go to fire i will be fired i know that's radical but i'm not talking about five because you do a bad job fire because you're dishonest i'm talking about because you're not willing to compromise your faith and bow to an evil system [Applause] but the good news of that story you remember god joined him in the fire he didn't keep him from the fire he just joined in the fire and the boss repented chapter six oh by the way chapter six daniel's like he started off with a teenager in chapter one in chapter six daniel's like um 85 years old so he's an old man guess what nebuchadnezzar dead babylon has been defeated by persia daniel doing fine man 85 years old now and he just rolling on everything changing around him because he took a stand so so they didn't like him in babylon they didn't like him in persia and what did they try to do they said in verse 5 of chapter 6 then these men said we will not found any ground of accusation against this daniel unless we find it against him with regard to the law of his god now if you read the verses leading up to that he was honest at work they they tried to find him cheating at work he wasn't cheating at work one stealing one robin wasn't wasn't doing what all the other folks were doing but they couldn't find anything wrong with his government employment he said so we got to get him away from his faith so they came up with a law that you can't pray to any god for 30 days that was the rule so the law was signed verse 10 okay because now we're dealing with religious freedom in america okay so this is religious freedom now when daniel knew that the document was signed he entered his house now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward jerusalem and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day praying and giving thanks before his god as he had been doing previously the law the law the government said you can't pray oh daniel said oh no oh no no oh y'all haven't lost your mind y'all are going crazy no no no i give you my stuff at work but you ain't gonna mess with my relationship with god so guess what he did verse 10 he went home and the author wants you to know he kept his windows open [Music] that's how they knew he was praying because they looking in his window he said well i ain't closed my windows all these years i ain't gonna start closing them now i ain't gonna be no secret agent christian now oh no all right then but he couldn't he still could have faked it he could have just pretended to walk around the house lord i just want to thank you you're such a good guard and i just want to thank you my boy hit his knees so you know what he's doing because he's not an apologetic christian he's not a cia representative he's not a covert operative it should be clear that you represent jesus christ in the marketplace in the public square should be clear that you take your stand imperfect as we are it should not be vague now time am i going to church the time by believing in god i'm talking about a commitment publicly to jesus the christ and so the world is trying to put you and me in the squeeze play you know baseball trying to put you in a squeeze please try to try to squeeze you they're trying to squeeze you they trying to squeeze us they trying to squeeze the church down this is this is coming fast and furious this issue of religious freedom is it's becoming a beast and some of you haven't but in my position position of of leaders around the country we we see it coming we see it coming down you know we have to deal with law firms that are defending religious freedoms and and stuff because now they want to they want to now control your life when you bring your faith into it okay they threatening tax exemptions for people who don't do it if you don't use your facilities for any kind of group now that that is uh that community can come in they'd say well now you're discriminating and so so so this thing is coming in so so let me be clear let me be clear okay we are not as long as tony evans is here gonna compromise this word to satisfy this culture we take our stand on god's word and on the lord jesus christ and we do it without apology because i want favor i want you to have favor i want you to have favor i want you to have favor i want you to have favor and there is no favor if you don't draw a line in the sand [Applause]

Channel: Tony Evans

Views: 494,812

Rating: 4.8057365 out of 5

Keywords: sermon, Tony Evans sermon, culture

Id: 6rwqJjfJ-HE

Length: 47min 26sec (2846 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021