"The Days Are Evil" - Men's Bible Study - Live - August 26, 2020

welcome in to the wednesday bible study here from the written bubba broadcast plaza and teleport so thankful that you have taken time to be with us and and i will tell you this um uh we're getting excited about some things that that are coming up and um and and i want to make you aware of those right out of the gate uh first of all if you're watching this uh and uh and this is you know the week of the 26th like today is august 26th for you uh then coming up on this sunday night uh it's 6 p.m central time and that's seven o'clock eastern of course uh we actually will show you a a men's service uh that it that is part of the manchurch.com and you know we talked about the man church.com where we're a hub where we can help you implement implement a men's discipleship strategy and part of that is is quarterly these gatherings of men services done by men for men and then they go out of those services and they go into the small group discipleship you know the the services are high equipping then we go into the small group i mean services are high challenge then we go into the small group of high equipping and you know our discipleship strategy gives you high equipping along with high challenge in a never-ending discipleship strategy in a circle and the men never leave discipleship so if you'd like to see what one of the gatherings looks like you know the high challenge and watch how then we put you into the high equipping there'll actually be one that you can watch online this sunday night on the on august the 30th you just simply go to shades s-h-a-d-e-s shades dot org slash live and you can watch it and i also want to remind you something else is important at the end of the actual message it'll be our very own andy blanks from themanchurch.com he'll be talking about what is the application of this call for men to be spiritual leaders what does that look like in our everyday life and what it is and what it isn't and he'll talk about that but then there's an opportunity i'll come back onto the screen and i'll give you a chance to plug into some small groups for for the high equipping for your discipleship and these small groups many of them i think all but maybe two offer a zoom option meaning no matter where you're watching this no matter where you are you could plug into those classes one of them is helmsie from the rick and bubba show he's teaching the manchurch.com curriculum called the pursuit now he's not quite halfway but almost halfway through it so you could join that in progress and you can because each five-week group has its own topic or there'll be two other men that will give you an opportunity to do the pursuit curriculum via zoom starting at the very beginning also we'll have some other classes that you might be interested in that offer zoom options as well so if you'd like to be part of that no matter where you are just from your easy chair you can enjoy it coming up sunday night august 30th just go to shades.org live also you can check on upcoming events there at burgessministries.com about other places and things that are going on where i'll have the opportunity to speak and and kick off some of the men's discipleship strategy and churches all over this country you can always find those opportunities there including saturday night i'll be at a sportsman's banquet there in west columbia south carolina and if you would like to be part of that you can go to burgessministries.com or rickombubba.com check all the details for that to see if there's still an opportunity for you to join us for that if you are watching this or listening to this in that region coming up this saturday night okay so we this is a standalone bible study today we're gonna we're gonna go to the lord right now and and ask that please let your holy spirit intervene that we walk through this uh and you know with it with the correct guidance of the holy spirit uh let's prepare prepare to to receive what we're gonna hear i've been preparing to teach this this is a standalone bible study today we'll start our new series next wednesday and that'll be a walk through first in second peter today the title of our standalone bible study the days are evil let's pray lord jesus we now submit to your authority completely lord we repent of all sin in our life help us lord to hear from you today through your perfect word in the name of jesus we pray amen all right so the days are evil this is this starts from ephesians chapter five if you have your bible or something with your bible on it turn with me to ephesians chapter five and and i want to jump down uh to verse 15 through 17. uh we're gonna talk about you know i had a lot of people that were sending me hey man if you're going to another stand-alone if you missed last week's stand-along the question was why do we suffer and we walked through the scriptures and and we looked at those multiple answers of why do we suffer and what scripture actually has to say about it we're going to do the same thing of walking through scriptures talking about being aware of the times that you're living in and and our feature part of the bible verses is going to come from ephesians chapter 5 looking at at verse 15 through 17 and listen to what paul's saying as he writes this letter to the church at ephesus he says look carefully then how you walk not as unwise but is wise making the best use of the time because the days are evil listen to this therefore do not be foolish but understand what is the will of the lord to understand what is the will of the lord so first of all let's listen to the very straightforward honest part this is paul reminding those of us that have been redeemed by jesus and we claim we're followers of jesus he's telling us you need to be real careful about how you walk and and he says so when you're thinking about how you're going to walk you want to walk as the wise not as the unwise so what makes us wise well scripture tell us what's what makes anyone wise is first of all fear of god he said you don't walk around like these people that you're seeing in the society that you're living in that appear to be unwise meaning they have no fear of god and we see this everywhere right now we see this everywhere there is a lack of fear of god now there's fear of everything other than what we should fear uh there's fear the pandemic there's fear of lost enforcement there's fear of the resistance to law enforcement uh we're we're we're promoting lawlessness uh we we we do not have a fear of god and so we fear the things we shouldn't fear but we don't fear the very thing that we do now that would be the unwise the wise we fear god we're much more concerned about being on the wrong side of god than of on the wrong side of the world and and so he says look carefully think about that look carefully how you walk and and i want to ask you the question as i was studying this and preparing i asked myself am i watching carefully how i walk am i paying attention to every move i make and every action that i take could possibly you know be misconstrued or maybe it could be sending the wrong message now more than ever in this country for those of you that are watching this in the united states of america in this country right now this world our society is in chaos and i'm telling you they're they're focusing their eyes and they're looking to those of us that claim that we have the hope and the peace that that defies all understanding uh by the faith that we've been claiming and right now they're looking to us to see if it's real so don't walk as the unwise walk as the wise making the best use of your time making the best use of your time so i started thinking about that line the best use of my use of my time and you know last week and look i'm just going to say this like it is this is not me promoting reckless behavior this is not me saying that you shouldn't be uh you know concerned about other people you certainly don't want to put other people in unnecessary danger but you know this thing we had the gridiron men's conference and this saturday night i'll have an opportunity to go speak to another group of men and this is starting to to happen again and there there certainly were a lot of people uh that were saying you know where really should you be doing this and rick you're 55 years old or are you concerned about you know going to a place where there'll be men gathering now normally it would have been 6 000 men and it was only 1 500 they did the spacing and and certainly everybody tried to wear the mask and we didn't interact with each other like we normally would have but there was a thought that hit my mind so making the best use of my time when i was standing there and i saw these men that had been listening to the gospel of jesus christ and at the end of listening to all these messages and all the praise and worship that was going on i got to see men and and do i know how many of them are truly sincere in their heart i don't know but i know that that some if not all were i watched at the end of this men standing up publicly in front of other men saying i want to repent of my sin i want to follow jesus i submit to his authority and i'm doing that publicly in front of all these other men today's my day well so should i have coward at home and not gone there should i not have delivered the message that god said to deliver was that not a wise use of time or rick what if you'd covet so what what if it had killed you so the last one the last things i would have said is you know i went preach the gospel and doggone it god allowed me to catch covid and it looks like that's how god had designed me to die when he woke me together in my wife's womb i mean sorry in my mother's womb uh and he'll know the day of all the children that he wove together in my wife's womb same thing psalms 139 13-16 why shouldn't i be going now see to me it was the perfect balance were we reckless about it no uh were did we do the best we could yes is it guaranteed that that wouldn't put us at risk no was was were people's eternity at stake yes so was that the best use of my time yes it was uh i don't regret it i don't regret it even if i get sick now i hope i don't affect anybody else if that was to happen but my my my deciding point wasn't i'll only go preach the gospel if i can get in a situation where i'm guaranteed that nothing bad ever happened to me you know that kind of thinking just like these people that that that may never go back to church again that you'll look and see they're heading off to all these places but they're choosing going back to church as being too dangerous but they didn't say it too dangerous to go to the lake they didn't see it too dangerous to do this or they certainly aren't going to find it too dangerous to go to a ball game but then i don't go to church because you know people are kind of getting together there uh no no he says be sure that you walk as the wise not as the unwise making the best use of your time why because the days are evil i don't know when all this is going to end i don't know when jesus is going to return i really don't but i know that i'm closer to my earthly death and jesus's return today i'm closer today than i was yesterday but jesus said we may not know the the exact time that he's coming back but we will begin to look around and notice when we are in the end days and we'll talk about that a little bit too but let's focus now on the the last part of this when it says do not be foolish but understand what the will of the lord is okay well that really waves a flag for me because i also know that we studied during the last series the unsaved christian and we've talked about it numerous times in wednesday bible studies is that matthew 7 statement you know where jesus talks about the narrow gate he talks about the wide road to destruction he talks about a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit we talked about that uh as well and then he talked then he's talking about that many people will say my name and and then you get to the bottom and to to many of them i say you're workers of lawlessness uh i never knew you but right in the middle he says the people that he knows are whom who are these people the ones that do the will of my father only those that do the will of my father will inherit the kingdom of heaven and now i see paul writing to ephesus and he says therefore do not be foolish but understand what the will of the lord the lord is look carefully how you walk not as the unwise but as the wise making the best use of the time because the days are evil therefore do not be foolish but understand what the will of the lord is well how many of you think based on just those two scriptures paul says the days are evil understand what the will of the lord is jesus says only those that do the will of my father will inherit the kingdom of heaven how many of you think it's a big deal to go through scripture and find places where it talks about god's will my hands up seems like it's big so that's what we did and and there's there's other places for time i'm only hitting a few highlights one of them which is not gonna be very popular one of them is the very next verse in ephesians he just said don't be foolish days are evil walk as the the wise not as the unwise and in verse 18 paul says to ephesus and do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery but be filled with or by the spirit you know you know what paul is saying here when you look around and you see that the days are evil he says probably not the time for you to be you know saying hey i'm gonna sit here and i think i'm gonna get drunk today he also says don't get drunk on wine because that's debauchery meaning this would not be an example of doing god's will and that is to get drunk we find out throughout scripture we have we're not gonna have any debate today about the consumption of alcohol period but we are gonna talk about the fact that you can't find anywhere in scripture that god doesn't hate drunkenness as a matter of fact over in first corinthians chapter six you find the list of people who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven and of course you know as we've talked about many times a lot of us love to be very uh bold and we love to just talk and talk and talk about sins we don't struggle with so we like looking at first corinthians chapter six and we love seeing there that the homosexual will not inherit the kingdom of heaven we like looking there and seeing that the adulterer will not you know would not receive the kingdom of heaven we like seeing that the thief and the liar and we're not we're getting a little more uncomfortable with the fornicator that bothers us a little bit but uh oh look who's also on that list of people who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven the drunks they're on the list too so you're on the same list if you're a drunk you're on the same list as a homosexual so when you start talking about you know how sinful gay people are while you're sitting there with about six in you you might want to be thinking about that they're no different than you are and you're no different than they are uh all sin matters uh not just some of it so so so we know that's one so really not being drunk is the will of god here's some others if you have something with your bible on it go to first thessalonians 5 18. first thessalonians 5 18 here is another verse that talks about the will of the father the will of god the will of the lord and one of those is to give thanks in all circumstances that that's the will look what paul says to thessalonica give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of god in christ jesus for you so paul writes to ephesus don't be foolish and understand what the will of the lord is jesus says only those that do the will of my father will inherit the kingdom of heaven and then here's one saying it's not the will of god that i'll be a drunk it is the will of god that i give thanks in all circumstances poor poor pitiful me we love to give thanks when everything's going great don't we but have you ever thought about giving thanks like what we talked about last week that how the struggles that you have been allowed to go through have benefited you you know when you're sitting there and you think about you know uh the pos the apostle paul's in the jail at philippi and he's being thankful he says i'm in this situation and all this is doing is advancing the kingdom and and i'm learning you know once again to be content no matter where i am and i'm so thankful about the fact that i should go to hell and i'm not you know the fact that if you've been redeemed you always have something to be thankful about and it's the will of god that you be thankful in all circumstances here's the next one uh another thing that's the will of god doing good actually doing good things you know being someone that says i'll tell you go out and do some good for somebody look at first peter and we're going to really unpack every time i mention first or second peter know that coming up starting um next wednesday we're going to walk word for word through first and second peter and it's gonna be i mean i'm so stoked about it but this is in first peter doing good being part of the will of god for this is the will of god that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people so there's that word again for this is the will of god first peter 2 15 this is the will of god that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people you know what peter is saying look live a life that when people come against you and start talking about how horrible you are the fact that you live a life and you do so much good that people go are you saying that that person somebody i shouldn't like man look at the way they live their life they're helping so and so they're taking care of the widows they're looking after the orphans they're they're generous uh you know we talked about that about generosity uh back at the end of the unsaved christian uh man they're helpful they're kind uh why should i hate this person look how they live their life they do good well i tell you why they're doing good it's the will of god that they do good and then he enabled us to do that so the will of god is not to be a drunk the will of god is to be thankful to all circumstances the will of god is to do good and live a life that makes people look foolish uh you know if they're if they're trying to run you down don't you live a life that gives them a reason to it's on them then if they run you down if you live a life that says hey i i'm not doing these good things to earn my salvation i'm doing these good things because of my salvation because i've now you know if you love me obey me i love you so i do your will i don't do it begrudgingly it's not burdensome to me i'm i'm love there's no better place to be than in the will of god so what's the next thing and this one is the one that we often neglect our sanctification uh let's go to first thessalonians again first thessalonians chapter 4 verse 3 for this is the will of god for this is the will of god your sanctification so only those that do the will of my father will inherit the kingdom of heaven paul to to to ephesus hey don't be foolish but understand what the will of the lord is but don't walk as the unwise walk is the wise for the days are evil is your sanctification taking place at all is there any effort at all going into that it's one of the things we talked about at the manchurch.com one of the things that's been so destructive in men's ministry and why so many strategies have failed is these strategies featured high challenge which men's ministry does pretty well frankly promise keepers a great example of that and there's been others but where promise keepers and they'll tell you this themselves where they failed as they thought they would get men challenged that men would encounter and be confronted with the holy spirit they would repent they would come in the authority of christ and they would go back into their local church that would then disciple them from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity sanctification but that didn't happen so when we start putting together the strategy that we have now we weren't going to leave out sanctification because how about that you know one of the reasons it's the will of god that our sanctification process are you maturing spiritually are you do are you investing any time and growing from a spiritual infant into spiritual maturity if you are not scripture says then you're not doing the will of god it is the will of god that you your sanctification continues that you leave spiritual infancy and you go on to spiritual maturity are you like the writer of hebrews are you this person the writer of hebrews is saying i can't believe that i can't move you on to meat i mean you you have to stay on spiritual milk he goes some of you should be teachers by now you know why a lot of churches church bodies out there say the same 20 of the congregation does everything because nobody else will step up some people are still teaching classes because they feel called to it and they love to but a lot of people are still teaching because no new teachers are ever rising up out of the church body i let them do all that i'm i'm good to come here i'm going to take and take and take no it may be time for you to give but you're so spiritually immature you can't do that but yet you and i've said this before i'll say it again i just finished an email with a guy what can you tell me that would help me with my sanctification and i said devote the time to scripture to prayer in the pursuit of christ the same passion the same time the same energy that you devote to everything else you want to become an expert on that's really it we we know really well the things we actually care about and it's the will of god your sanctification staying with first thessalonians 4 3 he says for this is the will of god your sanctification then right after that that you abstain from sexual immorality if you're sexually immoral that's not the will of god it's the will of god that we do that we r refrain from sexual immorality paul says flee from sexual immorality so what does that mean exactly what it says that no one that is truly living in the will of god is a sexually immoral person he says that's not the will of god your sanctification is actually the will of god so are you making steps in your life because you know we understand how wretched and sinful that we can be i i take steps in my life to remain sexually pure because i know what i'm capable of and and so my sanctification is now i'm becoming so engrossed with how wonderful jesus is that it's really difficult for anything else in this world to draw me away now my devotion and everything involving my intimacy is focused on my wife because i've realized that really is possible because that's how god designed it and you know what i have found that when you do things his way and you begin to say i'm going to pursue you and my wife or if you're a woman watching this my husband the way you said to because i want to be in your will and i know the only thing that you approve sexually is a husband and a wife to be intimate inside holy matrimony you don't approve of anything else so i'm going to concentrate on making that the center of my sexual pursuit and my and my sexual intimacy because that's what you said and you know what i found as i pursue you and i pursue that standard it actually is the standard and it is completely fulfilling because it's your way so god has come up with a system that's not fulfilling of course he has it's just whether you really want to be in his will or not and there's nothing remember what we've said and we talked about this in next year's curriculum you'll see that when it comes out if you do that at the manchurch.com remember god's will is not something we have to do it's something we get to do i mean he's going to accomplish what he's going to accomplish whether we do that or not we're the ones that will pay the price for not doing it it won't change anything about him whether i'm in the will of the father and i'm in the will of the lord and i'm in the will of god whether i do that or not will grossly affect what's going to happen to me and the life i live it'll have no impact on god he's perfect and holy no matter what i do but he's saying i'll give you access to to who i am and you'll be glad for it so we know now that if we say that we want to be in the will of god then we would we won't be drunk we'll be thankful in all circumstances we'll be doing good our sanctification and we'll be sexually pure all this scripture says is the will of god the will of the lord the will of the father what's the next one to be able to recognize false teachers the gospel of john says if anyone anyone's will is to do god's will then you know whether the teaching is coming from god that's right out of the gospel of john we talked about this and we did our 33 wall 33 week walk through the gospel of john so it is the will of god that we are able to recognize whether the teaching we're hearing is actually of god or not he says that that's my will so you need to be able to recognize as we talked about uh at the end of the unsaved christian you've got to be able to recognize sound doctrine and you've got to be able to recognize a counterfeit we've said it before to recognize the counterfeit we must know the genuine article and and john tells us this is also the will of god that we know whether the teaching is coming from god or not there's nothing worse than to be sitting there especially you men that are watching this and know that here you are supposed to be the spiritual leader of a house and and you've got a wife and you've got children that they're hearing all kinds of things and they come to you and say hey daddy does the bible say this because this is what they told me at school this is what my friend said this is what i saw on some some show that i'm watching this is what a sitcom taught me this is a this is what tic tocs taught me this is what instagram's taught me this is what the internet's taught me this is something somebody sent me this is some podcast i found that i don't know where in the world it came from look that happened in my own house with a with with one of my sons that is a devout follower of jesus uh he's spiritually solid but he's still learning he comes in with a podcast that i'm kind of excited about thinking man this is awesome you know it talks about the original hebrew and in the original greek and it's gonna be a walk through the entire scripture and i'm just thinking man it's awesome that he's doing this that's fantastic my wife and i said hey i want to hear that myself this may be something we can do with him and the very first episode i hear the person doing the podcast mention rob bell who's a heretic and i'm like would he say rob bell well my son didn't know who rob bell was he didn't know about the the heresy of rob bell the universalist who who's out promoting universalism that at one time was a respected pastor and teacher that has now become a false teacher and a heretic he didn't know that so i go in and say hey man this guy said that he drove 17 hours to hear rob bell's speech and rob bell's had a great influence on on the way that he's going to walk out genesis chapter one you need to get off that podcast you you are not allowed to listen to that you know what he said thank you dad he didn't know well what if i didn't know oh that sounds good go ahead before you know it you know your kid's a universalist at the end of it thinks nobody's going to heaven and ultimately god loves us and that whole cross thing i don't know why he did it but god's not going to see anybody to hell it doesn't matter right this god loves you right where you are just the way you are well wha what if i didn't know that can happen and and that's what's so surprising when dads and moms out there suddenly your kid rises up and has become a heretic or has come up with some bizarre version or says that the bible is not god's authoritative word anymore and god's changed his mind on this and changed his mind on that and they said well we're in scripture does it say this and you're like i don't know i mean it it's important to teach your kid how to throw and catch and hunt and fish guys and play golf if you want to do that or you know build something and that's all great but if you're not able to teach them scripture then you haven't taught them the most the thing that they that they need to know above everything and it's god's will that we be able to detect whether what we're hearing is coming from the lord or not uh the last thing we'll cover because this is one in scripture you can find other places and other things but these are all the the main themes about the will of the lord the will of god uh you know what it's his will that we reach the lost it's his will that we reach the law second peter 3 9 and we'll study this in greater depth and we go through ii peter the lord is not slow to fulfill his promises as some count slowness but it is but he is patient towards you not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance that's his will his will is that all would reach repentance and then the last thing that he said when he ascended was go reach people i've done what i came to do i've completed it go make disciples baptize them in the name of the father son and the holy spirit teach them to obey all that i have commanded you hard to do that if you don't know what we've been commanded and i'll be with you to the end of the age i'll give you i'll give you my spirit i'll go with you so as we talked about a few weeks ago and i don't think we need to belabor the point but you if you missed that the point was examine your life do you have a passion for reaching lost people do you care if people die and go to hell that's what i said about this thing going to the gridiron conference were you afraid to go somewhere where people were gathering no why did you go because god told me to did people repent of their sins and give their life to christ apparently was that a big deal yes you talk about people's eternity uh well i don't know man about going to that what are you talking about i should be i should be living in terror who do you think wanted great iron to take place if who who do you think one of those 1500 men to decide they would get together and praised and worship and be confronted with the gospel do you think god would be against that or do you think the adversary would be against that and see god's told me not to be anxious about anything he's told me that i'm not called to a spirit of fear but you know who lives in anxiety and fear that's the that's the devil and i think he would love for that not to have taken place i think he loves that people are afraid to go to church see the difference between these days and the days of the past at 9 11 we all rushed into the church the pandemic says be afraid to go to church be afraid be very afraid that's what makes this one different so we are living in days that are evil so those are the words from the apostle paul to ephesus that we are to walk not as the unwise but as the wise making the best use of our time because the days are evil and for us not to be foolish but to understand what the will of the lord is and we just laid out throughout scripture all the scripture that says this is the will this is not the will i think those are very important turn with me now to second timothy second timothy let's go to uh let's go to chapter three verses one through seven and i know this has been mentioned in a bible study in the past but just like the tenets of last week have been mentioned at times you know the question of why we suffer and and all the answers that go with that i know those have been spread out over various bible studies but last week i want to put them all into one so that you'll have them same thing today on the days of evil i realized some of these verses have been mentioned in the past but now you can have this all in one bible study that you can send to someone or click on and get it all in one so let's talk about the godless it says godlessness in the last days a lot of people ask me do you think we're in the last days yes i do what's the timeline on that rick i don't know but there's a lot going on that that has have had not been going on and here's the things that we find in scripture when it talks about the last days first of all we got to understand what the will of the lord is we got that one and then here's paul telling young timothy about the last days and he says in chapter 3 verse 1 through 7 see if this any of this rings with you but understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self selfie i heard someone make this comment and it was actually a women's conference and i can't remember the speaker who said it but i heard someone referring to it the other day and i thought it was a good move by this speaker the speaker said for everybody get their phone out and look at your photos and see how many pictures you have of yourself not that somebody took a picture of you with your family or you with friends how many pictures do you have in your photos of yourself we had never heard to these times of something called a selfie people are more self-involved and worship self right now probably more than any time in the history that i've ever been alive and you know like at the manchurch.com in the store you know our our theme versus luke 9 23 when jesus says to what deny self uh pick up your cross and come with me so he says understand that in the last days there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self they'll be lovers of money they'll be proud they'll be arrogant they'll be abusive they'll be disobedient to their parents i mean you ever lived in a time where parents were more uh disobedient i mean kids have ever been more disobedient to their parents now if you look through the eras of of our of our our time in this society you will see that disobedience and disrespect from children to their parents as an all-time high and sadly apparently some of you have been raised that way that you think you can be disrespectful to older men and women in general and some of you need to be cold and i'm willing to do it so anyway it says that that people that they'll be disobedient to their parents they'll be ungrateful uh they'll be unholy they'll be heartless listen to this one see if it sounds familiar unappeasable think about the times we're living in now when when you think that somebody you're trying to have a conversation with a mob that's screaming at you and you're trying to understand the narrative you're trying to say well all right we did this we do that what about this and all you ever get is that's not enough people will be unappeasable sometimes they're just screaming you don't even know exactly what people want they become unappeasable uh they they are they are slanderous cancel culture right now man people will slander you so fast they'll wipe you off the face of the earth so fast and come against you without self-control uh look around something i struggle with uh especially our country i mean we're we're fatter than we've ever been people have all kinds of issues with being with self-control it's it's almost like it's a lost art it's something you can't even require of anyone anymore without you being called mean uh brutal people would be brutal they won't love good they'll be treacherous they'll be reckless they'll be swollen with conceit lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god having the appearance of godliness but here's what i love but denying its power we've talked about this before avoid such people having the appearance of godliness that's back to that cultural christian again uh i talk a lot about godliness but i live my life as this jesus has no power i had somebody disagree the other day talking about the verses that we've talked about in here agnosium concerning um you know uh holiness obedience uh that cultural christianity and the person was screaming you're not trying to say these people aren't saved you know i said i'm just telling what the bible says about the standard and see that's a perfect example of people claiming that the holy spirit was used by god the father that's the power that raised jesus from the dead and then when we truly repent and we become redeemed and we submit to the lordship of christ it says that god's seed then abides in our spirit and somehow we claim that that took place and just like timothy was told by paul in the last days you see a bunch of people out there claiming that god's seed has come into their spirit but it really has no power doesn't change anything doesn't change anything and here is timothy being told by paul that in the last days people will talk a lot about godliness but they'll deny it really having any power wow so then you look at the verses 13 uh through uh uh 16 in the same chapter three of second timothy and and listen to this it says um while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived listen to this he says evil people and imposters meaning evil people that are just never make a claim of anything that are evil but also imposters who claim to represent the church or claim you know and you say boy you see god weeding them out right now he's revealing the impostors he's revealing the impostors and it says that's going to go from bad to worse and and the deceiving will continue and people being deceived will continue but as for you this is paul saying to timothy you're going to be living in these days our people to come are going to be living in these days like we are but as for you rick continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise walk as the wise not as the unwise for the days are evil that will make you wise for salvation through faith in christ jesus i'm hitting it paul says all scripture is breathed out by god and is profitable for teaching for reproof yeah reproof true not for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of god may be complete i mean competent and equipped for every good work hey timothy when everything else is going on around you let me tell you what your anchor is to not be deceived and not take part is the word of god and you become competent in the word of god and tell all to become competent in the word of god that they may not be deceived and they'll be equipped for every good work matthew 24 matthew 24 we've talked about this before but let's review it again today to have it all in one study jesus talking about the end times and matthew 24 they're asking jesus the disciples are you know when when shall we expect your return jesus has talked about a lot of things in my opinion have already happened about wars and nation against nation world war one's happened world war ii uh korean war we've had you know we've had world wars which uh that have been going on honestly i think those things have already come to pass but in verse 9 and in chapter 24 he says then they will deliver you up talk to his disciples the church to tribulation and put you to death that did happen to them and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake and then many listen to this in the last days then many will fall away first john reminds us that that those that are falling away he says we're never with us but you look around you see the falling away of people in the church they say right now that if we went back to church this week from those churches that have been split up or their virtual or their spacing or they their com their meeting but they're kind of meeting they're kind of not meeting it says if right now we went to the green light church is back just like the way it was all surveys are showing right now that one in three people will not return to the church there'll be a falling away and betray one another and they'll hate one another and many false prophets will arise and leave many astray it's going on everywhere you look there's there's a false teacher being outed there's a false teacher leading people astray we know that's already happened many times and it continues continuing to happen today but this is the one that really to me is unique to the days we're living in right now because the days are evil and because lawlessness will be increased the love of many will grow cold lawlessness can you get any more lawless than trying to remove law and order completely everywhere you turn on the tv lawlessness is increasing and the love of many will grow cold you see people just shooting each other in cold blood uh you see the way we're treating we went from you know uh we we allow a baby to be terminated in the first trimester then we move to the second trimester then we move to the third trimester then we remove we move to partial birth then we move to fully birthed and just human life right now does not have the value that it once did because the love of many has already grown cold but in verse 13 jesus says but the one who endures to the end will be saved remember we talked about about suffering one of the things that suffering does is it tests the genuineness of your faith it says those that pass the test and endure all of this tribulation that endure all of this persecution that endure all of these evil days and still holds true to the will of god and never compromises god those people will be saved because they were the real deal to begin with now i know there is some there are some out there that say well rick we're rick what about the government can you can you talk a little bit about the government can we talk a little bit about what's going on we've got a major election coming up and certainly you know you have a chance to go out and vote and that's important but i want you to understand it is important but i want you to understand the role of government and our role as christians as we live under the the authority of any given earthly government if you want to hear what government because you got to be real careful i'm going to tell you something that government is never going to produce hear me loud and clear i'm not saying don't participate i'm not saying don't vote i'm not saying it's not important however what you can't do is obsess over the government and politics as if they are the answer to spiritual problems they're not okay now rick can they set up an environment there's certainly there's things they can do but i'm just telling you and i'm gonna read it right out of scripture if you think government is going to produce a revival in this country and in the church you're sadly mistaken and you're going to be gravely disappointed do you realize how many times somebody's thought that somebody going to the office was going to bring a revival to the church and it just doesn't happen you remember when jimmy carter the sunday school teacher some of your two young remember that was elected president there's going to be a revival didn't happen as a matter of fact jimmy carter appears to be affected more by government than he went in he he was affected by government more than he affected government for the kingdom he changed his biblical worldview on a lot of things so it impacted him more than he impacted it ronald reagan was one of my favorite presidents but he didn't bring revival to the country he might have brought patriotism he might have brought you know a national pride he might have brought lower taxes but he didn't bring revival to the church the 80s spiritually were very decadent uh so this is not going to happen um and and if you don't believe me then just hear what the bible says about government romans 13 let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from god and those that exist have been instituted by god so let me be clear everybody who's sitting in a government position right now not some every one of them were instituted in place there by god some for some for protection some for punishment some for filling the blame but in god's perfect will and in the plan he's working out uh he is sovereign over every single person you know who's going to go into office in this country in november exactly who god places there for his will that's who's going there does that mean we don't participate of course it doesn't mean that just like me saying because god's sovereign i'm not going to go out and do evangelism i'm not going to go make disciples because god's sovereign he's all-knowing we know that's not true well just because god's going to put you know but a lot of times the way the the what we're really asking him for he either gives us a blessing with these people or he gives us a punishment but he puts them there and that's who he's going to put there in november therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what god has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment not a very popular statement but it's in the bible all these people placed in government positions that are in authority from an earthly standpoint if you resist these people you may incur and cure their judgment for rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad so for people in government authorities he says if you if you live a life that does not bring their terror on you you really don't have anything to be afraid of what they do is they bring down terror on bad conduct not on good conduct would you have no fear of the one who is in authority then do what is good and you will receive his approval hey look you don't want to you don't want to have the government authority come down on you behave that's in scripture romans 13 for he is god's servant for your good but if you do wrong be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is the servant of god an avenger who carries out god's wrath on the wrong doer terribly terribly unpopular bible verses but it says what it says one way to be sure that you don't incur you know and the the only what could happen is it possible from a spiritual standpoint which is not what he's talking about he's not saying that if you if you go out and you and you and you get bold with the church and you start advancing my kingdom and you start making a stand for me that the government won't come down on you we know that's happened there's persecuted churches all over the world that's not what he's saying he's saying from an earth you know what the romans 13 is saying i have instituted government because people don't know how to behave and it's there to keep law and order order and it's a necessary evil and he says so one must be in subjection not only to avoid god's wrath but also for the sake of conscience for because of this you also pay taxes for the authorities or ministers of god attending to this very thing pay all what is owed to them taxes to whom taxes are owed revenue to who revenue is old respect whom respect is old honor to who honor is owed behave yourself do what they say pay your taxes if they start telling you to blaspheme me then you make a stand matthew 22 matthew 22 another example of what we're talking about where do we stand when it comes from government and what should we expect for government not to bring revival basically to keep law and order and this is out of scripture look at matthew 22 9 through 14 this is when uh they're trying to corner jesus on paying taxes then the pharisees went and plotted uh to entangle i'm sorry um i'm looking at the wrong uh the wrong verse here 22 i'm sorry i'm skipping down 22 15-21 forgive me i was back to we were talking about jesus in matthew 24 matthew 22 15-21 about paying taxes then the pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words and they sent their disciples to him along with the herodians saying teacher we know that you are true and you teach the way of god truthfully they're patronizing him and you do not care about anyone's opinion for you are not swayed by appearances what about your smart alecks but listen to 17. tell us then what you think is it lawful to pay taxes to caesar or not now keep in mind this is this is the roman empire and we know this roman empire is actually going to go on after jesus ascends and it and there's going to be persecution through nero that comes against the servants of christ the point of martyring and killing people like peter and paul but right now jesus says this he says he was aware of their intentions or their malice the english standard version says why put me to the test you hypocrites show me the coin for the tax and they brought him a daenery and jesus said to them whose likeness and encryption is this they said well that's caesar's then he said to them therefore render to caesar the things that are caesar's and to god the things that are god's so he's showing once again this taxes thing this caesar guy look my father placed him there this is not called of us by surprise my kingdom's not of this world hey they got taxes they want you to pay pay them you give to the government what is the governments behave yourself as best you can unless they persecute you for my behalf everybody else just live out a life that doesn't bring down the terror of the government officials unless they come down on you for your devotion to me that's different so it's got caesar's picture on it you think god needs a coin then this is some little currency coin thing y'all come up with that that my father's allowed give it to him but you give to god what is god's say we don't need to forget that part should we pay our taxes 100 should we be law-abiding citizens as long as that law does not ask us to blaspheme god yes would that keep us out of a lot of trouble with government officials yes could we get in trouble with government officials because of our devotion to christ yes and that's a different game but what does he mean to give to god the things that are god's our lives and see some of y'all are more than willing to give your life to the republican or democratic party or your politics or some some president the presidential candidate or president some of you all hold presidents in more high regard than you hold god and he says look if you want to give to them what what what their due your vote your taxes fine but you better not give to them what you're supposed to give to god because ultimately my kingdom is not of this world and my kingdom is a kingdom to come and you better give to god what belongs to god don't you ever give to the government don't you ever give to anybody else the things that belong to god and you know i think it's time for the church to understand that too i think it's time for the church to understand something about ourselves i'm speaking about the western american church and i think it's time for us to be sure we're giving to god what is god's our devotion to him the love of his church the church that his son gave his life for and one of the things we need to do to be sure that doesn't happen is to stop being delusional we are the church at laodicea the western church it sounds an awful lot like us revelation chapter 3 verse 14 and the angel of the church in laodicea write these words of the amen the faithful and true witness the beginning of god's creation here's what uh the lord god almighty says to us these are the words of jesus himself now in his proper glory at the right hand of the father he says to the church at laodicea and i believe that is the western church you'd be hard-pressed to make a case against it i know your works you are neither cold nor hot would that you were either cold or hot so because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold i will spit you out of my mouth for you say listen to this think about the mega churches all over this country for you say i am rich i have prospered i need nothing not realizing that you are wretched pitiful poor blind and naked i counsel you to buy for me gold refined by fire underline that so that you may be rich and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see those whom i love i reprove and discipline so be zealous and repent behold i stand at the door and i knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door i will come into him and eat with him and him with me the one who conquers i will grant him to sit with me on my throne as i also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches many times i've heard this preached that that jesus would just prefer that his church you know either be against him or for him that's not what the hot and cold means in these verses the church at laodicea was so wealthy they had access to warm hot springs hot water which was very rare and they had access to clean drinking water that was cold the hot water was for healing and cleanliness it had a purpose the cold water was for refreshment and life and it had a purpose the only type of water that was useless was lukewarm water so what he's saying is you're delusional that you think you're doing all these great things i look at you and say you're not hot or cold you're not useful i want you to be useful so i spit you out of my mouth because you are carrying on basically a spiritual country club you say that you're rich you're not rich you're pitiful you're wretched you're sinful you don't even take your sins serious you're delusional about who you really are why don't you buy from me which i think is about to start happening in a big time way you buy from me gold that has been refined by fire that's persecution it's what we talked about with suffering he said i'll tell you how i can wake you up i'm gonna let you suffer and all this all this prosper youth prospering you think you have and how rich and wealthy you think you are i'm going to break you down and you're going to suffer and i'm going to persecute you and i'm going to bring you out on the other side for all who conquer and pass the test and repent have you ever heard the thing of jesus standing at the door and knocking as being presented as a gospel message jesus is knocking at your heart let him in i guess that's fine but that's not what this is saying what jesus is saying is i stand at the door of the church of laodicea because he's not in here you're having church without me he said so the days are evil and you're carrying a wrong along with your programs you're still carrying on as if outside the doors of this church the days are not evil i stand at the door and i knock to the door of my church who is willing to get up and come to the door of the church at laodicea the western american church and invite me back in that's what he's saying would you do that can you be that person you know just one last thing if you go to revelation 21 i know i'm a little over but stay with me if you go to revelation 21 about the days are evil and this is what we're headed to when jesus is showing john about the new heaven and the new earth and behold i make all things new and he says in in chapter 21 of of six and my wife talked about this in a video that we have out on the youtube channel be great to go watch her devotion uh just go to burgessministries.com click on watch you'll see about her seven eight minute video it's a really great devotion go watch it because she talks about this very very thing here so he says that that to the thirsty i will give from the spring of the water of life without payment seven the one who conquers just like we heard at laodicea the one who conquers will have this heritage with christ listen to this and i will be his god and he will be my son but as for the cowardly it's the first word he uses but as for the cowardly the faithless and then he goes on to the detestable the murderers the sexual immoral the sorcerers the idolaters the liars their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur which is the second death listen to this you can look and say i don't i don't think i'll be a murderer i don't think i'll be sexually immoral i'm not a sorcerer i'm not well i may be an idolater i'm not sure i'm not well i do lie sometimes but you know what i don't think a faithless but the very first word that jesus says who's going into the lake of fire is the cowards as for the cowardly those who did not endure they crumbled when persecution came for them as the lake of fire which one are you which one am i one who conquers are the cowardly the days are evil walk is the wise not as the unwise and don't be foolish about what is the will of god let's pray lord jesus um your conviction is all over me i'm thinking of things in my life that need to be addressed and i'm asking the question am i really ready for for how things are are likely not going to get better they will only get worse am i prepared for whatever is ahead forgive me for the times that i have been cowardly forgive me for the times that i lose the motivation that you have overcome the world and i haven't rested in that peace and that joy but right now lord i'm in it thank you lord for forgiving me thank you for reminding us today that because of what you've already done what in the world do we have to fear you haven't called us to a spirit of fear you've told us to be anxious about nothing and when you say nothing that's what you mean nothing give us the strength to be the people that only you can make us in your holy name we pray amen thank you for being with us if i can help you in any way rick rickimbava.com next wednesday we'll start our next series as we walk through word for word first and second peter you

Channel: Rick & Bubba

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Id: b3qm3pJzixo

Length: 62min 53sec (3773 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2020