The Truth of It | Why You Should Read the Bible and Serving God in Changing Times | Episode 78

well ladies and gentlemen i am mark niles and this is the truth of it this evening and [Applause] the one thing you need to know about me is that really hiding away and i guess a relatively young man's body is a preacher and this evening i thought with a crowd of this size and with thousands of people live streaming from around the world to the guy from azerbaijan hats off wonderful to see you there's people from all over the world thousands of them online as well and i thought i won't waste an opportunity but before i get into my text and i will preach a little bit i will go on some excursions into culture and politics along the way as i like to do but before i get there i actually want to say a word about one of the things that was on my mind when i started the truth of it in the very beginning i wanted people to recover a sense that the bible speaks to us today i wanted people to understand not just that scripture is reliable i think we believe that but i wanted people to see that it is sufficient and that it gives us the wisdom we need even in days like today one of the amazing things about the bible is the depth of meaning that is found in every statement saint augustine actually said that scripture is simple enough for a child to understand and it is and yet he said it's deep enough that the wisest man will never grow proud in his understanding and it's not just christians that have observed that dr jordan peterson i know there's lots of excitement about whether or not he might be becoming a christian let's say he's not a christian yet okay i've listened to him he's not a christian yet hopefully he becomes one but here's the thing i was watching his lectures some time ago i think most guys my age have watched a lot of jordan peterson and i was watching one of his lectures a while ago and he did that series of on the bible and he got to genesis chapter four and he was talking about the story of cain and he stopped on the stage as he was walking because he does what i do he's walking up and down and he held his chin and he said all of a sudden you know he said this story is only 16 verses long and yet the more i look at it the more i see near infinite layers of meaning he said you know this is not quite like any other literature and then he said and you know i can't account for it and then he breathed in and went and he stopped and he said no i really cannot account for it it is different and you know anyone who spends time with it knows that that is true and if we were to gather every book in the country right now and we were to stack them up by title the stack of bibles i believe would be the highest and that's interesting though it's common i think a lot of those bibles would be largely unread and i think most people don't read the bible but most people have an opinion about it you know one of the ones you hear all the time is oh well it's subject to so many interpretations i mean who really knows what it means i sit there and go you know we don't say that about anything else i don't go to someone and say did you read the front page of the australian the other day and they go well i mean who knows what the front page of the australian's all about it's subject to so many interpretations who knows what it means what did you read you know any have you ever read any charles dickens oh yeah but impossible you know who knows what it means who knows what he's saying or clifford the big red dog don't give that to you kids who knows what it's talking about people just interpret it however they like you know there's a saying we have in law and it's rey's ipsa loquitur the thing speaks for itself and would you believe it most books speak for themselves because they're supposed to be read that's why they were written and if you sit down and actually read a bible you will find all of a sudden that it presents itself very clearly as history in some places and it reads like history this happened then that happened then this happened then that happened oh so many interpretations and then it presents you some poetry and it reads like a poem it's got stanzas it's got sentences it's got metaphors it's nice you can see it set to music in some places in other parts it reads like advice the wisdom literature one of the biggest sections sage advice for life and you read it and that's what it looks like it says you know when a man does this this will happen make sure you do this in these circumstances and there are areas that are more complex but that a prophecy but it's very clear that this person is bringing a word from god to their culture and their environment people come up to me very often one of the most common questions i get is what do you read and i actually do it deliberately now i say well get out a pen so i'll give you my list i said genesis exodus leviticus now i don't say that to denigrate good books i really don't and there are good books and that are worth reading but i think i agree with charles spurgeon who said visit good books often live in the bible and here's the sad thing when i do this i people laugh but sometimes if i just say the bible i visibly see their countenance drop i think oh yeah but what else oh yeah okay i know that but something and you can see in them a disappointment at the answer this should not be so scripture has more power in it than anything else you will ever read i can tell you this i was fortunate i got good advice when i was young and i read a lot of the bible and i continue to do so and i can tell you that what it says about itself is true the first thing it actually says is it is the word of god people think that sounds fanciful but if you were god and you wanted to talk to a lot of people in all times in all places what would you do you'd write it down it makes a lot of sense but the other things it says about itself for example in hebrews chapter 4 it says that it is a sword and it says it pierces to the joints the joining of soul and spirit right to the joints and marrow judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart there's an old greek saying which is a wisdom saying know thyself and to people who are serious about living well knowing yourself is one of the hardest things to do it takes a life to understand yourself and if you really want to know what human beings struggle with which is to see themselves accurately we're very good at seeing other people accurately but we're not so good at seeing ourselves accurately that's why jesus warned often about casting judgments he said the the measure of judgment that you give will be measured back to you that's actually quite scary because we're not it's quite scary for someone like me let me tell you sound a lot of stuff it's going to come back knowing yourself is the hardest thing you want to know yourself read a bible read a bible it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart isn't that remarkable it also says in james chapter one that it's a mirror you know i do use a mirror occasionally only occasionally and if you look in a mirror and your hair's out of place you've got food in your teeth or something else is wrong you've lost some of your breakfast on you on your collar you fix it it shows you the problems and it causes you to act the bible does the same it's a mirror it shows you what to change it also says it's a seed and here's an interesting thing it says you know a seed is planted and then it grows inside of the thing it's planted in and it says in james that we're to receive the implanted word one of the amazing things i've realized in life is that the bible the word of god it lives in you when you learn it when you memorize it it just stays with you and it comes up throughout all of life people will ask you a question and it'll be on the tip of your tongue you'll face a moment and the word will come to you and it lives in you and it springs up from time to time and actually it causes you to grow in the eternal life that you've been given it is also a lamp a light people always want to know what to do with their lives where to go next how to live you know 95 percent of that question is answered in the bible it's the other five percent we worry about a lot but here's the thing scripture can give you the light for the pathway ahead and it does it in two ways one way is you learn the principles you learn the you learn the general uh the general outlines and principles of how to live and it gives you great guidance in living but another thing that happens is that i find very very often i get a specific word from scripture for a specific thing very often i face things that i'm not sure about or i don't quite know what to do or even before i come on stage at a thing like this someone might just text me a verse and bang it's just the thing i needed to know happens all the time you know if you are reading the bible as a habit you will get those answers it's not all you will get you want the bigger picture to be building in your mind as well it's just as important don't just read it as someone who wants the short sentences and the keepsakes but you get both you get both and finally well not two other things i'll mention liberty james one it's a law of liberty can i make this point the law of god is for our freedom it is for our good it is for our liberation jesus came into the world and he said he came to bring liberty to the oppressed and what does the christian know real oppression is sin that's what oppresses the human being and real liberty is righteousness and where do we find the answers to those things the word of god that is true freedom that is why jesus says if you are truly my disciples he says you will abide in my word and then you will know the truth and it will set you free it will set you for you abide in it what does that mean you live within its parameters you live within its light its shadow you abide by it you abide in it it sets you free and i want to make this point i think we need to know this as well if you read in ephesians 6 the armor of god there's a whole lot of defensive items in that armor you've got a helmet you've got a shield you've got a breastplate but there's something else but something else is that you have one offensive weapon i don't mean it offends people well it does actually now that i think about it all the time but the offensive weapon is the attacking weapon the only one is the sword of the spirit which is the word of god you know when i got this job one of the most common pieces of advice i received was don't quote the bible in politics i really mean that i got like lots of people came to me and said don't be too christian now i was fortunate i had a chairman who was wiser than that because i sort of raised this with him and he said look you do what you do and so away we went but here's the thing i think we might have lost confidence in scripture we shouldn't lose the confidence that it does have power the bible says god's word never returns void never now even if even if all it does is shut someone up to judgment which can happen it's what happened in isaiah's day we're going to read from isaiah in just a minute in isaiah's day he went out and spoke the word of god and people refused to listen now that means it had an effect because they heard it and said no it doesn't mean it's not meant to be spoken because very often and who knows how it breaks through it makes a difference and the word of god is powerful it does implant in people and live in them it does convict them it does do a work and so i want to say the opposite i want to say do weave the word of god into what you say do weave it into your conversations do talk about it and besides which the mere act of not being ashamed of it will itself make an impact scripture is like no other book and i want to encourage us tonight to take it up and use it because it will transform us not like anything else and it is the most reliable place to find the words of god and the best way to spot problems and errors is to know the truth you can marinate all you like in trying to figure out all the problems with the world but knowing the truth is far more powerful now with that in mind i'm going to read the bible and that's going to make us all listen i want to read from isaiah chapter 6 well there's a reason i want to do this and i want to spend the rest of the time that i have unpacking this section and going on some cultural excursions on the way but really the point i want to get to is right at the end that's what i want to leave us with tonight i want to read you this amazing section it says this in the year that king uzziah died i saw the lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple above him stood the seraphim each had six wings with two he covered his face with two he covered his feet and with two he flew and one called to the other and said holy holy holy is the lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory and the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called and the house was filled with smoke and i said woe is me for i am lost for i am a man of unclean lips and i dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king the lord of hosts that one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar and he touched my mouth and he said behold this has touched your lips your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for and i heard the voice of the lord saying and note this whom shall i send and who will go for us then i said here i am send me you know i said that not a word is wasted in the bible and there's lots of layers and so i don't even want to get past the first phrase to begin with it says here in the year that king uzziah died and that tells us something important about the moment that this refers to it tells us that isaiah is writing about a time of change he's writing about a time of uncertainty and he's writing about a time of well leadership problems because the king was dead that was the change the uncertainty was what's his success is going to be like and also this what does it mean for the future because uzziah was a good king and good kings were not common you'll know that if you read your bible in fact king manasseh would ultimately come not too many down the line and tradition says that that's how isaiah died king manasseh sawed him in half in a hollow log and in hebrews 11 when you get to those heroes of faith and it talks about you know by faith abraham did this by faith abel did that and so on and then it gets to the end and the guy goes well i'm running out of time so i'll just do these ones real quick and he gives you the real quick ones and one of them is those who were sawn in two and tradition says that's actually a reference to isaiah you know isaiah wouldn't have been human if he didn't see this as a crisis moment because not many good kings are around and the good guy uzi is dead what now and here's the thing it's not a democracy he's got very limited control prophets like him were not popular guys you know he would go and say a lot of things that got a lot of kings very angry and so he wouldn't have been human if he didn't face the uncertainty and he didn't feel the weight of it we live in days like that uncertainty and also mostly failed leadership because that was the condition of his time now i don't know uh if you've noticed here in perth in the wild west of the land of the free but uh there is a pandemic on um and it has turned the world upside down um and i'm not going to dwell on it because of the crowd but i'm conscious a lot of people are watching and it also is important the outcome of all of this just to make the point is by no means certain it turns out one thing that people were hoping wouldn't be true is true and that is that the virus isn't going anywhere and the main question i think on my lips is how does it end how do we get out of this i think in wa you might be happy just to lock yourselves away forever is that is that the plan but here's here's an interesting thing the doherty institute's model which was government commissioned it says this and people don't realize this when eighty percent of the population is vaccinated there will still be restrictions a two square meter rule 75 percent stadium capacity is limited overseas travel testing tracing and isolating and at 80 vaccination they say there will be 280 000 cases in the first six months resulting in two thousand patients in intensive care and a thousand deaths over 400 of whom will have been fully vaccinated now that includes perth apparently apparently that's where it's going i'll level with you i have the foggiest idea how a government with a zero covert strategy transitions to that i don't think it's i mean that's that would be a level of political genius the like of which has never been pulled off before because here's the thing people are very afraid of covert they really are and i'm interestingly the further i get away from the pandemic hot spots the more people tend to be a bit on edge the people in sydney don't care that's why they're breaking the rules but but here's but here's the here's the um here's the thing there was a poll done a survey done by a reputable company and they asked people in in the community to rate their chances of dying of covert if they got it zero percent being no chance 100 being certain death it's interesting older people rated a bit higher younger people a bit lower that's expected but guess what the average result was 38 a 30 that's that's as bad as ebola i mean the actual case fatality rate of delta in australia is 0.4 percent that's not me pretending to be a scientist it's just the data okay but what that tells me if nothing else is that there's a lot of fear out there what that tells me if nothing else is that you're going to have a problem with wise solutions in the light of that kind of fear these are days where there is a lot of fear but there's not just fear of the virus i get a lot more fear of the government response to the virus um a lot of fear i don't know what side people are on i'm just taking the taking the applause um but the fear of the response to the virus that i get in my i mean i don't know if you've been on facebook lately but it's pretty tense in there um i mean people are really divided over this stuff and i get a lot of concern and look i'm not dismissing a lot of this stuff like i get it but a lot of people are concerned about things for example mandatory vaccination what do we do then if we're somebody who has an issue with the vaccine big concern another big area of concern is is it right really to give the government this much power given that we know they're not really on our side um just quietly i mean if they had their way i wouldn't be here tonight uh that is for sure um they tried but thank you to everybody who acted [Applause] people are also concerned about vaccine side effects you know no long-term trials are done they're concerned about that or what about the debt 850 billion dollars in the middle of next year was supposed to be 550 billion dollars just back in may i mean who pays for this our kids what does that mean don't know don't know 330 million dollars per life saved in sydney pandemic with the sydney outbreak so far and just in direct economic costs 330 million i mean this is a big amount of money people are also concerned about censorship you know at the beginning of this pandemic if somebody said that the virus probably leaked from a wuhan many of them were cancelled from facebook all together and now everyone's saying it it's been a lot of that kind of stuff and facebook has deleted 18 million posts or indeed you look at the situation with somebody like craig kelly the problem with that is he's a democratically elected leader and a foreign corporate power said you can't have your main mouthpiece to your constituents that's a problem why well because he was putting up studies and papers about coronavirus treatments big deal i mean one of the problems with that was nobody actually answered these questions they just demonized him and kicked him out of parliament now i say all of this to make the point the fear is real and i think some of the concerns people are raising are actually relatively rational but also i want to make this point there is a lot of uncertainty i don't think any of us know i don't think the government knows how this ends and in other countries where they've got very high vaccination rates and all the rest of it they're still struggling iceland israel they're still struggling uh they are still saying well the vaccine hasn't been effective as we hoped we're still doing some spot lockdowns we're still doing this israel is rolling out third booster shots of pfizer and all this kind of stuff it's uncertain i'm not here to undermine any pandemic response but i want you to see that it's uncertain it's uncertain and these are times of fear these are also times of failed leadership and this is perhaps well this is a really big thing you know i was actually listening to a world war one podcast a while ago and it turned out you know it's a really detailed one uh by a guy called dan carlin's great podcast blueprint for armageddon and he basically gets to the point where it becomes very clear that the reason world war one happened was probably because of incompetent leadership he's had a really lame bunch of leaders all over europe who made a lot of really bad decisions and so war happened on a scale like nobody could have imagined you know bad leadership is a big problem we live in a time now here's the thing you say how do you measure bad leadership well how does god measure bad leadership i can tell you it's a moral test it's always a moral test it's the moral integrity of the policies they implement how do i know that well if god was to write the lettering on the tombstone of every king it would say the same thing because it does if you read kings and chronicles again if you read your bible you will see that one of two things is said about every king either he did that which was right in the sight of god or did that which was evil in the sight of god that's the only thing that ultimately matters it doesn't actually talk about his economic reforms it doesn't talk about his political alliances it doesn't actually talk about all the global stages that they stood on and all the people's hands they shook it doesn't talk about any of that stuff doesn't talk about their military victories you get all that recorded in history but that's not the summary that's not the bullseye points the bullseye point he was good or he's bad who said what god said do you know if these leaders that we have many of them obviously there's notable exceptions in politics i'm not throwing everyone out but the truth is if they were written up in the old testament they would get the full old testament treatment i say that for good reasons the first one is you take a policy like abortion over the whole of australia nearly now there have been abortion to the day of birth laws passed with pretty much no limits as each of those bills passed in recent years and not only did they pass but in most cases there was also the rejection of amendments like for example giving babies born alive access to medical care so they're not just left to die rejected banning of gender selection abortions so babies can't be aborted if they're girls rejected banning of late term abortions in this day and age i don't know why anyone is aborting a viable baby i don't understand that and yet it's happening all around the country in large numbers banning of that no rejected and you know what happened in queensland after the bill passed they leapt to their feet and they cheered and they clapped robbie catter who's a member of that parliament said he's never seen them so overjoyed about anything in his whole time in parliament you know what happened in new south wales they went out for a champagne party can you believe the moral condition of somebody who would celebrate like that over such a thing these would be written up in the old testament as those whose hands were swift to shed innocent blood and that's an old testament quote the other thing that really bothers me from a humanitarian point of view is the rise and rise and rise of young people who are going into gender clinics around this country increasing by thousands of percent of the time hundreds and hundreds in treatment right now taking hormones which means that they will be sterilized they will never have in there as young as 14 13 12. this is happening i know someone who works right next door to one of these gender clinics is huge because adults are telling them you're stuck in the wrong body i mean they don't get this idea from nowhere it was safe schools then it was respectful relationships and then it was the good society all federal government certainly the first and the last federal government funded now the good society the latest iteration i did a piece on it in toowoomba that program runs now from prep to year 12 and it's a comprehensive deconstruction of gender it's got exercises where boys put on girls clothes and lipstick and it's got all sorts of stuff and they do an identity poster in year five where they choose their gender identity and get told it's not the same as their birth sex and all this kind of stuff i mean this isn't happening because people really are just of their own volition coming up with gender dysphoria in their mind it's because it's being put there it's being taught to them and what did jesus say he said those that stumble children are better for them if a millstone will hung around their neck and they're cast in the depths of the sea i mean this is tough stuff really tough stuff these are moral pronouncements not my words these things matter the biblical test of government is very simple it's moral and people say why are you concerned about these issues in particular well for a couple of reasons firstly they represent tremendous injustice but also i'm concerned about these things because they are those things which are revealed by god in creation as good he revealed the family he revealed the place for sexuality he made male and female he made all these things he made life and told us to respect life and champion life and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth one of the other creation ordinances the things in creation is actually authority over the earth and that's what governing authorities are today they are part of god's common grace the good things that god has given to the world and they have a duty to respect the other good things that god has given to the world for all people not just christians all people and an attack on these things is an attack on the creator that's what romans 1 teaches us when you put yourself in the seat of the creator and say i'm going to redraw creation boundaries themselves and make it up for myself and make myself god that is an assault on the creator himself and one of the really troubling things for me is that the clear teaching of romans is that when god just allows that to happen it's a judgment and there's something we've got to grapple with and it is this it is that our society is coming under judgment and you see that because you see what is happening that god is allowing these things in such a way now what does that mean people throw their hands up in the air and they say oh well let's check out no it makes the situation more urgent it makes our call more important it gives us a greater cause to take up and i'm going to see that here in isaiah because it finishes with that statement here am i send me and i believe that god is saying that in every generation where this uncertainty exists as it did in isaiah's time where the fear of the future is everywhere and where leadership is in moral failure moral failure which brings me back to that isaiah and this is what we need to do this is our part because god's work in the world begins with us it says there in that year that king uzziah died and i believe it is telling us that this was a troubled time it says it's like there's this massive pivot i saw the lord a massive pivot that's like traveling between two worlds isaiah gets just the medicine that he needs it's like he was taken by the scruff of the neck in the face of these challenges and this uncertainty and it was yelled at him what we see often in the bible but god that man could have been trapped in his circumstances he could have been troubled always by what was around about him he could have been concerned only by the here and the now it's like there's two camera angles there's earth cam and there's heaven cam we spend a lot of time looking through earth cam and we see all the problems we see all the difficulties we see all the challenges well hang on let's look at heaven cam and isaiah gets that honor he sees it like none of us have managed to see it and looking to god is always the solution to our trouble always if we would but do it more often and more constantly and isaiah learns a number of things he learns straight away number one he says i saw the lord the hebrew word translated lord is adonai which means the sovereign one i saw the one who's really in control even in these times and then it's reinforced by saying he's high and lifted up on a throne and his train of his robe fills the temple symbols of authority and rule every leader is under the rule of god jesus said that to pilate you'd have no authority at all unless it were given to you from above you're accountable now they don't realize that but they are and the angels cry something they say holy holy holy i tell you what isn't a bit of holiness what this world needs freedom from the burdens of sin and all these troubles we've described and how multi-layered and dark they are don't we need liberty doesn't the light of truth and holiness bring that doesn't he have what we need in this time and the angels say he is the lord of hosts what does that mean the lord of angel armies in other words he commands the unseen realm and lots of people dabble with the unseen realm in the whole area of the demonic and the satanist and all the rest of it and that happens a lot but there's a more powerful unseen realm as well and he commands it he's in charge [Applause] and here's the cracker the whole earth they say is full of his glory what really is his glory it's the evidence of his presence sometimes it's bright and blinding light sometimes like at sinai it was the earthquake and the lightning and all that often its creation declares the fact of an all-powerful creator the evidence we see in the world of god's work and god's presence is all around us and we must never forget that this is the perspective that we need whatever is going on today it's still in god's hands and he is still on duty and that will always be true do you know i find it astounding that no matter what happens in this world god's plans will never be derailed and that is actually what the sovereignty of god refers to that in all the madness and badness of every age the plan of god cannot be derailed and cannot be threatened and that's the amazing truth about sovereignty it's not that he's the author of evil but it is that evil cannot ultimately have its own way despite it regardless of it god's rule is not threatened his purpose is not moved ephesians 1 11 it speaks of him who works all things according to the council of his will all things will submit all things scripture says that includes the falling of a sparrow it includes the rolling of a dice it includes the rise and fall of kings it includes the decisions of kings all things will ultimately be made to submit and joseph knew this remember he said to his brothers after all the difficult things that happened in his life what insight he had in genesis 50 20. he said you know what you meant for evil he says god intended for good it didn't matter in the end god was able to even make what you did submit to his purposes and nothing that's going on is too big remember this the darkest hour of all human history ever to be seen on this planet which was when the son of god himself suffered and died because people said we will not have this man to reign over us that was the darkest moment and all the devils of hell and all the forces of evil were having a field day that day and yet in that darkest moment god was doing the greatest work that the cosmos has ever seen [Applause] isaiah got that perspective straight away and he needed it because he was going to be commissioned for something pretty challenging but he got that perspective and you know if we had that perspective we would live in peace in challenging times it's been something i've had to learn facing all the time this political world i meet a lot of people in politics who are very miserable they're defeated uh they don't laugh anymore and i say to people if i ever stop laughing tell me because i know i'm it's time to quit because here's the thing it's not all there is god is still in control and and the other thing we would do is that we would pray not worry i would like us all and i've been thinking heavily about this we need to pray for this nation we need to pray that god would move his hands and revive us again it needs to be done and that is going to only happen when we trust that he has that power and we submit to him and ask him for it and we mean it here's the next thing to notice i mentioned the final point that the whole earth is full of his glory in other words he is everywhere at work and we must never lose faith in that i sometimes nearly do but he is everywhere at work even when it doesn't look like it but here's the thing isaiah discovered that god's work in days like these begins with me and the rest of what is written here challenges me and challenges you in that regard what an honor it was to see god but what a personal trauma it was and we need to talk about this personal trauma because it was because no sooner had isaiah looked up and seen a great sight and learned these great things but he had to look down at himself and he's horrified the blinding light of the purity of god brings into sudden and sharp focus the degeneracy of his own condition and he actually screams can you imagine seeing yourself like that he says i mean in light of that contrast to suddenly see real reality real holiness and then look at yourself he saw himself clearer than he'd ever seen himself before and he said woe is me do you know what woe means in prophet speak it means i am going to hell literally and then he says i am undone i've fallen apart i've been deconstructed every atom by atom and i have realized i have nothing nothing to hold up as self-worth as credit to the almighty it is as isaiah says elsewhere filthy rags i've got nothing this is the trauma of his experience and you know this exposes to surely the great lie of our age and this is important the great lie of our age is self-love this claptrap about you are worthy you are special you are powerful the self-help coaches who say all you need to be the best you is deep down inside your beautiful soul the best you that you can be that's the goal of life build your self-esteem go on a journey of self-discovery do some self-authoring workshops write your story champion yourself be the uniquest specialist you that you can possibly be because you're beautiful and don't forget your selfie stick you know the truth is we used to have an insult when i was a kid you're full of yourself self-indulgence that is the gospel if you go to a gym mate it's on every wall you go to one of these women's workout wear places not that i have but there's a spot just to defend myself in brisbane where i spend a lot of time as you turn onto the gateway motorway there's one of these is it lorna jane or something i don't know but they've always got something written in the window that just triggers me i think that is the lie of satan this is so wrong it's delusion the spirit of our age people frankly trying to cope with themselves in their sin and trouble and instability and anxiety and they're whispering sweet nothings to themselves to delude themselves that they're okay do you know what this is where curriculum resources in our schools now begin go on a journey of discovery find out who you are express it live it out champion it and hold it high year five identity posters find out who you really are i tell you what if we'd only listened to jesus a long time ago we wouldn't have got into this mess mark 7 23 listen to this what comes out of a person is what defiles him for from within out of the heart of man come evil thought sexual immorality theft murder adultery coveting wickedness deceit sensuality endless envy slander pride and foolishness all these things come from within and they defile a person you know we need to be emptied of self not filled with self this is what isaiah is finding out real quick this is what the beatitudes tell us what do they say poor in spirits a critical attitude to yourself poverty in yourself you know that you have nothing you are poor in yourself and then what happens meekness you submit to god and he fills you full of everything good joe i actually spoke at a university a while ago and i said something like this i actually went through the beatitudes and uh i said something about i attacked this whole self-love thing and a girl came up to me afterwards and said yeah but you know you can't say things like that because what do you say about people with low self-esteem and who are really struggling with i said well don't lie to them lie to them don't say yeah that's right it's all in you and you'll be great no no point them to jesus christ and say actually you know what yeah you are sinful yeah in the light of the holiness of god you are found wanting but actually jesus can make you whole actually he forgives your sin restores you and builds you up with what is outside of you not what is within you now let me i'm having to do some edits on the fly because i've been talking too much but anyway i just want to make this point about isaiah he's not done yet he says woe is me right deconstructed i'm undone oh you know i'm deconstructed but i want to just point something out and this is going to get a little closer to the bone and that's good here's the thing he says i am a man of unclean lips and i dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips he suddenly feels compelled to blurt this out and seeing god in his purity in his light and this is not theoretical this is really who god is he suddenly just confesses his sin the thing that's in his conscience the thing that is his shame it comes out straight away i wanna ask a personal question don't answer it but i wanna ask a personal question what would you say what would you say i can think of a couple of candidates myself or maybe you're coming up blank in which case you might confess your pride because you don't see yourself as god sees you you don't see that he is holy and that you are not i fear that we've become very comfortable in this world we've become comfortable with ourselves especially this whole self-love thing and we've been immunized against a sense of sin it's like we've taken a vaccine a conscience vaccine so it doesn't get touched we're immunized against this part of the gospel which is so important which is that you're a sinner you know it was the best day of my life that i found out i was a sinner going to hell because it turned me in the right direction it made me look outside of myself [Applause] you know this really does judgment begins at the household of god and i think most of us here are christians revival begins at the household of god we need to think seriously about our condition before god i think a lot of us have championed salvation and then done nothing more and not realize that actually yes a holy god sent jesus to die for my sin but a holy god put his holy spirit in me to make me holy i got a job to do and actually it's those people time and time again who god uses to change the world one of the big themes of the bible is that you look through there and you find that the world goes to custard time and time again very often people start to pray not always and god responds and his response is very often to to choose someone to change things and the people he chooses are always described by their moral standing before god these are people it says who are blameless before him in all their ways it doesn't matter whether you look at you know abraham that's what it says about him or noah that's what it says about him or marry it so it's the fact that she is highly favored by god these people are people who god can use and we live in a time when i would that we were people that god can use and i think that there's so much corruption that we simply wink at and this is challenging i was talking to a church leader the other day and he said to me that his favorite movie was wolf of wall street now i've not watched wolf of wall street but i heard something about it from a friend of mine i saw that's funny maybe i'm wrong so i looked it up there is every act of sexual perversion you can possibly imagine in that movie it's rated extreme for all that stuff sex and nudity it's rated extreme for violence it's rated extreme for for drugs and that kind of thing it's rated extreme for profanity and blasphemy i thought to myself well hang on a second and let me be blunt if there's two people having sex on his couch he'd kick them out and yet he's happy to have that on his screen and we walk into the public squares right way you know and we we were disappointed at the status of the rainbow flag and the public squares well there's a gay orgy in that what does jesus say about hypocrites why wash tombs he says full of dead men's bones white on the outside what he says he says well you're straining out naps and swallowing camels i've got to read that chapter it's it's it's pretty pretty hefty you know i mean this is the thing i i had another friend who his wife bought him game of thrones box set i sit there and i think to myself hang on a second i've read an article the other day or the other month about one of the actresses from this who had to get through the days by drinking copious amounts of alcohol and went back to a room between scenes to cry why well i had a loreta what was in it worse than wolf of wall street let me tell you now the reason i mention this is not just it's not gratuitous it's not very comfortable i know but my goodness if god is looking for purity in his church which he is this is the will of god for you even your sanctification says the apostle paul i tell you what we're not there and i tell you what what would we say in isaiah's situation what would burn to a crisp i mean this is the challenge that we face just because it's on a screen it doesn't make it any good you say we're uncomfortable good it's time we're uncomfortable but here's the thing this whole self-love thing this whole i'm wonderful thing this whole unbeautiful thing it makes us think that a negative feeling like that is a bad thing you know it's not a bad thing conviction is not bad it's actually a sign of god's work on your life it means god's tapping you on the shoulder that's what it means you know i remember i was speaking at a school and i gave a session on the story of joseph and a young fellow came to my door and he knocked on the door i didn't i just opened it and there he was standing there and he was crying i put my arm around him and i said you know tom what's up mate and he said he just he did an isaiah he just blurted something out he said i've got a problem with pornography and i don't know what to do so i thought for a minute and then i turned him around and we looked out the door and i i pointed at all of these kids out on the basketball courts and playing sports and i said tom you tell me something why do you care i said look out there look at all those kids they're not over here they don't care i said why do you care i said i'll tell you why because god's got his finger on you and he's speaking to you and that is a good thing guilty's not bad conscience is not bad conviction is not bad it's what you do about it you have a choice and the choice you have [Applause] and the choice you have is option one run away and live your life frankly like the average aussie never thinking about this stuff just you know eating and drinking and being merry option two is double down and make it a feature not a bug and say no no everything that i am all my passions and desires and feelings that's my identity and i'm going to love it and i'm going to live it out that's the false gospel of our time or here's the other thing you can actually run to the light you can run to the light because here's the extraordinary thing god is not actually mean and distant and far away he's actually very close you know it was he who came to isaiah he spoke to him he revealed himself to him and he did it for good reasons and then the angel flies over to isaiah with this coal and says your sin is forgiven your guilt is taken away what's the coal off the altar well the altar was the sacrifices because they were waiting for the messiah to come to die for their sin and if you're in any doubt that god is far away this is how close he came he took on flesh and bone and he lived in this world under its challenges under its difficulties he lived here and suffered as isaiah says a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and he died rejected by his own creatures why for your sin and for the sin that plagues this world that we've been talking about all night he is that close paul says to the pagans at mars hill he says he's not far from each one of you he says actually in him you live and move and have your being if you would but reach out and search for him he's right there we often see those little cartoons where you've got man on one side god on the other and a big canyon in the middle and then the cross sort of sits on the the problem with that is look it's not a bad thing for what it's worth but the problem with that is he's not over there he's right here he's right here and he seeks and saves the lost i want to make this point two points if you're not a christian tonight and there are some who won't be and there's some who are watching who are not understand that actually your condition and your situation before god is fully made whole by the lord jesus christ and it is made whole because there is a place for your guilt there is a place for your uncleanness and there is a place for your sin and that's not just making stuff up and wishful thinking the resurrection really happened and any honest student of history can see that and if the resurrection really happened he really died so really actually truly in fact there is a place for your guilt there really actually truly in fact is a place for your sin it's been died for it's been dealt with in christ hallelujah wonderful [Applause] but now for christians if we claim that that is true of us what's happened to isaiah that we've been burned to the ground in our sin but then we've been forgiven and restored and rebuilt and cleansed in christ we've got to live like it we've got to live like it it takes work you know it's not easy it's difficult but we've got to do it a lot of people think it's like osmosis we just waft off into heaven no no well you will go to heaven don't worry about that but there's work to be done and it matters and one of the great themes of scripture as i said is that the world's in a mess and god is looking for someone to send and you know the qualification that always matters is the character of the person or the people plural look at us all and god finishes this whole section by saying who shall i send who will go for us now i want to ask you a question do you think god is saying that today of course he's saying that today of course he's saying it right now because yes he's in control yes he's sovereign but he's always looking for people to use because for whatever reason in his plans he uses people in all their imperfections but he's seeking people and isaiah says well here i am send me he doesn't run away he gets commissioned this is not a high and mighty prayer i don't want anyone to think that it's all about going out and doing amazing things for god big and laudable things for god i don't think there's many of those left in today's society it's all pretty hard it might just be your corner of the world done for god to achieve great things i mean one area where you see that in the bible to be honest is the mothers of the bible amazing stories of women who in their places in the bible and of course they didn't have much options they were where they were but my goodness send me if that was the prayer of their heart and god called them to the job that they had what a difference that could make where did samuel come from if not from a godly mother now i use that as an example there's many examples it might just be your small and important thing done for god to yield fruit for him it's not a flippant prayer don't assume that these prayers are answered with pixie dust they're not you know if you pray these things you've got to be serious about it because god might answer it and when he does it's not usually easy you know i made a mistake once of praying for courage let me tell you it doesn't happen by magic if you want courage you'll be put in the position where you need to find some but you've got to mean it because you've got to want to serve god in difficult days you know we need a good spoonful of concrete and harden up we do now a lot of people i mean i mean goodness me it was a mission just to get this event on tonight with all the hacking we had all the dummy rejoice we had all the cancelling i mean it was an absolute mission i'll tell you what i can see a day when it's not going to work like this anymore i mean we're making hay while the sun shines we're going to have to deal i mean i'm amazed that there's not bigger protests than all the rest of it praise god for that vetting team thank you wherever you are back in canberra amazing it's not a flippant prayer it's a serious one it's not a high and mighty prayer and finally it's not about me notice isaiah's words he doesn't actually say well i'll go he's not running off into the sunset and saying god approve what i'm doing give me success give me good things a lot of people do that you know they say oh well you know i just felt called to the swiss alps to minister you know i don't want to there's it's amazing to see how god's call is so often just what you want to do right we've got to be very careful about this a lot of people do they they feel this unction and a lot of time it's their emotions a lot of time it's their own shortcomings and difficulties a lot of time they want to get out of their circumstances that's what they do look it's really important that you're sent that you're sent isaiah says to god firstly i don't have what it takes he's just said he's undone but he's also saying you're going to have to send me drive me forward into this because it's beyond me and we need to have that meekness that submission to god in all that we do and really what this means is do the next thing just do the next thing what's in front of you what he's put there and he will send you into more things and that call goes out today we're no better than it was in his time and it is my prayer earnestly that there would be an army of people who god can use in this nation people who have had themselves burned to ashes who have been built up from outside by christ who are serious about living for him and who will pray that prayer here i am send me thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: ACL – Australian Christian Lobby

Views: 43,436

Rating: 4.9342914 out of 5

Keywords: the truth of it, martyn iles, bible, perth arena

Id: oxILDc2JeX0

Length: 58min 46sec (3526 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021