What on Earth Is Going On - Tony Evans

to our Father some men trust in horses but we're gonna trust in the name of the Lord our God regardless of tomorrow or late tonight it won't matter we didn't plan it but I don't think we could have planned better to have tonight be what tonight is on this occasion none of us were looking at the calendar we just said let's put two tuesday nights in the fall and let's do this and we looked at each other and said do you know what November 7th is or is it the 8th scritch say we're supposed to be here last night that's the problem just easy all right dr. Tony Evans is the founder and pastor of the Oak Cliff Bible fellowship he has a graduate he has the distinction of being the first African American graduate with a doctoral degree from Dallas seminary and we're proud of that he has served as an associate professor in our pastoral ministries department the areas of evangelism homiletics black church studies he's the founder and president of the urban alternative former chaplain of the NFL Cowboys present chaplain of the Dallas Mavericks his radio broadcasts the alternative with Tony Evans can be heard on nearly a thousand US radio stations and in more than 130 countries which lets you know the Ministry of the word transcends to the state of Texas Oh cliff Bible fellowship the u.s. it's truth it's God's truth in its worldwide applicable dr. Evans has been married to Lois his beloved wife ministry partner for over 40 years they're the proud parents of for the grandparents of 12 and though he's way too young he's the great grandparent of one they are it's a privilege to call him a friend board member for Dallas Theological Seminary a very helpful partner in counsel and thank you Tony for taking the time out to be with us in our Chapel time tonight would you join me in welcoming dr. twenty others good evening can't believe they picked this date to ask me to speak I believe that did it on purpose this is called white on black crime they do that no an invitation was short and sweet president called me if I asked my believed in free speech I said yes he said come give one so at the heart of all in all services I am very grateful to be here any opportunity that I have to come to this campus is one of highest honor for me every time I step foot on this campus for whatever the reason my mind goes back to 1972 when I had the privilege of becoming a student here and having my worldview shaped having a theological foundation poured and having a ministry philosophy hewed out of my time here developing during those great years some magnificent friendship like my friendship with ramesh richard and others who we have come to love and appreciate and we still benefit from our relationship with this school and so it is an honor to be able to be here to have two of our my children will graduated from a school and another one who is now attending uh so it's it's quite an honor it was stated that I spend a number of years it's Chapel of the Dallas Cowboys when my son Jonathan Evans is a graduate of the seminary finished his brief NFL career and then came and graduated from seminary he took my place and is currently the chaplain for the team he does the Bible studies for the team does the chapel's for the team travels with the team and carries on a great ministry with the players all of you who know football and love football know that when there is a football game three teams take the field there is the home team in Dallas of course that's the Dallas Cowboys and then there is a visiting team this week the Pittsburgh Steelers and that means that they are going to be three hours of non-negotiable conflict this conflict will occur because these two teams will automatically be at odds with each other because they had it in two different directions there is a goal line a year and a goal line there and their job for the better part of three hours is to interfere with the other's progress nothing you can do can stop the can stop the war it's the nature of the field on which they have gathered but in the midst of these two teams has been inserted a third team it's the team of officials these made up of the nine officials whose job it is to be on the field but not of the field their role is to be in the middle of the conflict without becoming a part of the conflict you see they have been deputized from 345 Park Avenue in New York by the commissioner roger goodell to represent the kingdom up there in the chaos down here there have been deputized to be on the field and while they will not stop the conflict they are to make it manageable by their mere presence each one of these nine officials has been given a book this book coming from the offices in New York given to every official on the field is designed to give them the governing guidelines by which all decisions are to be made on the field of play you see each official understands that that his personal opinion must be subject to that book he understands that his inclinations must be adjusted to the book as he has received from the kingdom in New York he understands that this will not be a popularity contest because sometimes they know they will be booed by at least one of the teams and the hometown crowd if it goes against the hometown team they know other times they're going to be cheered but they also know that they're not there for the applause of the crowd they're there to render decisions in the middle of the chaos based on the book that they've been given from the kingdom of which they have emanated from in the chaos that they find themselves these officials are very distinguishable you will never have to guess who they are they wear black and white jerseys they do not dawn the jerseys of the competing teams because they don't belong to them now to be sure they are grossly outnumbered there are 53 players on each team there is the coaching staff of each team and then there are thousands of people in the stands there just nine of them but they understand that even though the players are younger stronger and faster and they are older fatter and slower they clearly understand that while the players have power they carry Authority because they have a yellow flag and a whistle oh to be sure the players can knock you down the rest can put you out because they carry Kingdom Authority you need to understand that you and I are gods officiating crew in a world of conflict there is cultural conflict racial conflict police and citizens recon flicked there is democrat and republican conflict and the clashes just keep on coming that is the world in which you live raise a family and do ministry that is the world in which god has placed you and me he's given each of us a book it's the same rule book and he intends for all the decisions on the field of play by his officiating crew to be consistent with that book a few years ago the NFL officials went on strike they went on strike they sent in replacement officials there was chaos on the field because the placement replacement officials didn't know the book and so they were giving their opinions rather than ruling by authority from above if there's one thing that Dallas seminary did for me above all else was to give me a view of an inerrant document that carried with it Kingdom authority you and I have to understand why you matter now Christ may not come more than ever before because only you and I understand what's really going on in the conflicts that we've been called into the midst of second chronicles chapter 15 verses 3 to 6 puts it this way in those days there was no true God no teaching priest and no law it goes on to say there was no peace to him who went in or to him who went out it says city rose up against city and nation rose up against nation in other words cultural chaos but then verse 6 ends with this word it says for God trouble them with every kind of distress personal conflict family conflict urban conflict international conflict but the cause of the conflict we are told is not that the devil made them do it we're told that God troubled them with every kind of distress now if God is your problem only God is your solution if God is the cause only God is the Cure you see what you are seeing on news every day and in the papers every day is a country and a culture experiencing what I call the passive wrath of God in the Old Testament economy it is plagued with the active wrath of God fire and brimstone falling from heaven the earth opening up the flood pouring down where God directly brings judgment on a people a culture or a person but the death of Christ in history greatly adjusted how God could relate to the world for through the death of Christ 2nd Corinthians 5 says that God reconciled the world to himself and so the world gotra postured by Christ's death so God could relate to it differently so now what the world normally experiences is not the active wrath of God that we regularly see the Old Testament but the passive wrath of God described in Romans chapter 1 verses 24 26 and 28 when God says and he turned them over and he turned them over and he turned them over that is he abandoned them to experience life without him what you are seeing today is what it looks like when a people have been abandoned by God because God has been put on the periphery of the life of the family of the culture some time ago my wife asked me to go to Walmart to get some things from for her and you have to understand I hate anything with Mart in its name if Mart is in its name I'm not interested in it but on this particular Saturday shared too many other things to do and so I agreed to go to Walmart to get what she needed I wanted to be there as soon as the doors open I wanted to be the first one in the first one out when I got there the rest of Dallas had beaten me to attic parking lot was jam-packed with cars I'm wondering how could all these people be here this early I went in got my good stood in this long line trying to figure out how could these people be and it's this early come to find out this Walmart was having a store wide sale so everybody had shown up to get their goods at reduced prices and it dawned on me yeah that's what's wrong everybody wants God they just want him on sale as long as they can get God cheap they'll shop there the moment he comes at full price they'll shop elsewhere see people do not want the God of the Bible they want the God that they control better known in Scripture as idolatry the God that you control but the reason why the passive wrath of God was there in the new testament and as it is stated that he was the cause of a crisis in second chronicles chapter 15 it goes on to say because during those days there was no true God it didn't say there was a little religion it didn't say people didn't still go to Temple or what we would call today church but for God of the Bible and the God that they were dealing with was not the same person God had been dumbed down to be a glorified man who mock recei had replaced theocracy the rule of man had replaced the rule of God the attempt to build culture and civilization Babel was now being erected in society and so there was no true God while there was plenty of religion it says the second thing that was wrong that was really responsible for the first thing verse three says is that there was no teaching priests the pulpits had preachers but they weren't saying much of anything you see a mister the pulpit is a fog in the pew when pulpits are weak and the members become weak then referees fail to call the right plays the reason why there is a racial divide in the country is because 11 o'clock on Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour the reason why the culture is in disarray is that the officials can't get together and make a unified call and it is the absence of teaching priest that was developing a constituency of Kingdom citizens that was led to a culture without the true God resulting in what verse 3 calls the absence of law that is people were making up their own rules in other words post-modernism where you you have no absolutes except that what you call absolute because it's absolutely true for you and so as a result of this divine dismissal as a result of the marginal marginalization of God the weakness how can we have all these churches on all these corners with all these preachers and all these members and still have all this mess as a dead monkey on the line somewhere that is because there is pulpits that are satisfied to give words about God rather than the authority authoritative voice of God we do not believe that God has spoken and that he has not stuttered that there are two answers for every question God's answer and everybody else's and everybody else is wrong and you speak it with authority and who are not wimps because this is not a time for weak puppeteers this is not a time for weak church leadership because the teams are at war and they're not going to stop fighting and God has always said you know that Sodom and Gomorrah would still be on the map if Abraham could have found ten Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed not only because the sinners were sitting Sodom INGOs Gomorrah was destroyed because the righteous couldn't be located now he had a righteous preacher in town named lot but he suffered from the American disease of personal peace and affluence he had a family but when it was time to get out of Dodge his two sons and laws didn't believe him his wife remembered Neiman Marcus and Saks and she turned back into a pillar of salt two daughters-in-law two daughters had an incestuous relationship with his father I mean if he would have just won his family that would have made six if each one of them would have won one that would have made 12 Abraham would have found ten in Sodom and Gomorrah would still be on the map so God's people can't be located Dallas Fort Worth is in trouble the culture collapses I know what you say we're dispensationalist here at Dallas seminary and we're waiting for the imminent any moment return why should we care why would we why should we worry about this since we know the Bible declares that things are going to get worse inwards same reason you jog even though you know you're gonna die you don't use the reality of death as an excuse for inertia no that's why he says in verse four he says in that distress they called on him in their distress they called on him that's the same statement that's made about what God caused in verse 6 if verse 6 it says he caused distress in verse 4 it says in their distress the thing he caused they called on him and he let them find him he put them in a position that only he could fix and the way it is now in our culture in the redefinition of the family in the the taking of the lives of the unborn and the racial strife and you name the issue God caused it and when you understand God causes it then you have to understand only God can fix it and make no mistake about it my brothers and sisters God is not going to skip the church house to fix the white house he's not going to bypass his people the Ephesians 3:10 God checks with the church before he deals with the principalities and the powers and the rulers and until he discovers that the church is ready to act and rule on his behalf and the culture deteriorates because the referees are more interested in being popular than being principled so this is not a time merely to to just learn great theology as foundationally important that that is but this is a time for men and women of God to rise up and to bring God unapologetically and definitively into the public square this is not a time for secret-agent Christians and spiritual CIA representatives God is not looking for covert operatives everybody else is coming out the closet you might as well come out - you and I will all go back to our televisions tonight and we will we will look at the returns as they come in and for years now people have unapologetically come out for the person that they want to rule in America it's on their lawns it's on their cars it's it's discussed around water coolers because they're passionate about the candidate to be President unapologetically willing to risk scorn by the opposing team because they're committed to the one they believe in well if we're really committed to the lordship of Jesus Christ if we're committed to the fact that he alone is king of kings and Lord of lords if we are committed to his death his resurrection his ascension and his ruling from the right hand side of his father if we are committed to the fact that he lays claim to authority not only it was sweet by-and-by but also in the nasty here and now when you understand that he has authority a Casilla over heaven and earth legitimate right to rule you you don't come at this as a weakling you come at this with Kingdom Authority I call it having a kingdom agenda the visible manifestation of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life officials don't come just because they're out bird on a field and make suggestions they don't come just because they're going to be mood boo to ask everybody what do you think they come because they've got a definitive word from New York that definitive word is to be made in the midst of a conflict because they know they carry Kingdom Authority that I like how Jesus put it when he spoke to Peter about the church said I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom there's a thing that we've missed about the ekklesia the New Covenant you see way back in the old covenant God told Israel look I'm going to give you laws Deuteronomy chapter 4 I'm going to tell you how the world works from God down to you but you're not to keep this to yourself I want you to be so visible with how I work with you to you and through you that the other nations of the world will see you and say what manner of people is this with a God like that that they would see the Covenant of God at work and be envious of it even though they were not part of it all through scripture we are told about the role of God's people not only in influencing God's people but influencing the environment in which they lived it would be Daniel who would influence the environment of a Babylonian pagan it would be Esther who would who would influence the environment of her Persian husband over and over again it would be the righteous that would affect the environment and who would shape the atmosphere and so he says of his church the ecclesia what we've missed is we've defined the church we've dumbed it down we've done get down to be a one and a half hour gathering weekly what else if you if you black two-and-a-half-hour gathering weekly for inspiration information fellowship oh that's great but if you were walking up and down on the streets of Rome under a Hellenized environment under Greek influence where they spoke coin a common everyday Greek you would have heard the word ekklesia it would have been part of regular discourse because it's not a unique Christian word because the ekklesia was regularly and normatively used of a legal gathering a city council a congress some legal body that had gathered to pass laws it was a legal gathering the word means call that one's but the question is called out from what for what to what well it was called out of the general population in order to execute legal instruction on behalf of the populace they were the legislators that was the gathering or the Assembly of the ecclesia it's used that way in Acts chapter 19 in Acts chapter 19 verse 39 and verse 41 he says the assembly gathered get this to pass laws against the church but he uses the Greek word ekklesia twice because the ekklesia was a legislative body Jesus grabs that word sanctifies it and says I will build my ekklesia my legal gathering it is the job of the church to legislate from heaven to history we're to be God's embassy and embassy is a small replication that represents a bigger nation we are embassies on earth that reflects the value systems of heaven located in history he says I will give to you and only you because nobody else has it the keys to the you ever been in a hurry and not being able to find your keys maybe you like me you got keys on your key ring and you don't even know what some of them go to so they become useless keys well I was in New York and I was at the Marriott Marquis and I had to leave checkout and fly to Chicago to the Hilton Hotel checked in when I'm 35 floor than the Dettol when I put my key in lock click click read like click click read like click click red light well right now I'm evangelical II ticked off it's I've got I've got all this luggage I've been going all the way up and now I got to go all the way down and tell this guy this key does not work he said scuse me sir that T key doesn't go to this hotel I was trying to put my marry I keyed it I didn't throw away in a king in a Hilton lock and those kingdoms don't mix what we often find in churches today is they don't legislate from heaven what they do is bring to the church the world's point of view say a little prayer over it and think it's endorsed by Jesus he says no I'm gonna give you the keys to the kingdom and you'll know when you have those keys because whatever you bind on earth you pick will be bound through whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven that's allowing or forbidding you will carry the authority so why do we have more authority is it just because the devil is just running crazy no it's because we don't recognize our legal authority and we've settled for inspirational weekly meetings if Christ comes tomorrow we don't have to worry about any of this if he doesn't come back for another 100 or 200 years you better worry about all of this your children your grandchildren your great-grandchildren and they're gonna grow up in some kind of world so it will either be one influenced by the kingdom of God or controlled by the kingdom of darkness and the fact that we're outnumbered is irrelevant because when the referee's step on the field they control the agenda and it is with that mindset I challenge you to go into whatever ministry God calls you into the mindset that I am a representative of the king and therefore I carry Kingdom Authority I don't just do Kingdom ministry yes I do that but I do Kingdom ministry with Kingdom Authority that's how I view me that's how you ought to view you that's how we ought to view God's church because it is God who has caused all the despair until he gets the undivided attention of his people a gentleman one day was on his way to his to his honeymoon with his lovely bride they were traveling on this country road to their first evening together as a married couple but it was a foggy evening they were behind a truck a fairly good-sized truck and the husband wanted to pass the truck they pulled out to pass the truck but he didn't see the oncoming van it would be a head-on collision the collision was so hard that it popped his car and flipped it over and both he and his wife were knocked unconscious he came to first he looked over to the passenger side and saw his wife his brand-new bride gushing with blood he knew he had to do something quickly because she would bleed out and die but what could he do he's on this country isolated road that's when he saw it as fortune would have it there was a sign on the on the hill right in front of him that said office of dr. bill Jones how fortunate could it be that this catastrophe catastrophe happened in front of a doctor's office he quickly staggered around to the passenger side opened the door grabbed his bleeding bride walked up the hill to the house knocked on the door an old man came to the door the old man said what can I do for you he said save her she's dying please please save her the old man looked at the young man holding his bleeding bride and said I am so sorry I stopped practicing years ago to which the young man said mister you have two choices save her or take down your sign but don't have a sign that gives me the impression that if I show up you can turn things around don't have a sign that makes it look like if I show up you can make things better don't have a sign that advertises that when we show up here things are gonna be different but when we show up nothing happens there is a bleeding world in every single category so as you study and learn and prepare you have two choices be Kingdom citizens that unapologetically represent the king or take down your sign [Applause]

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 152,318

Rating: 4.8425398 out of 5

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Id: MO-jcNg-4m0

Length: 35min 56sec (2156 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 09 2016