Nashville.
Begin our time this morning with just a word of prayer.
Now, Lord, as we come to You this day, You have told us in days like this to look up. Our redemption draws nigh. Lord, our hearts more than ever need to be focused on You.
And Lord, we thank You for this table. It brings us back every week. Lord, we also thank You for Your Word, Your ministry to us, Lord, and how much You love us.
And today, Lord, we want to come under Your anointing, to be able to share Your precious Word, to be able to hear it, to be able to see it, to be able to receive it, and to be able to enter into it.
Lord Jesus, we are fully dependent upon Thee. And we’re so thankful that You take up that responsibility for us, Lord, in our lives. For many times, Lord, we come to that place where we just have to look up. We do, and we thank You that You’re always faithful.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, I remember—maybe fifteen years ago—in the afternoon, some dark clouds began to roll into the Ashland area, and actually, I think, the whole state of Virginia.
Through the afternoon, the clouds built and built. They got darker and darker. Around five in the afternoon, I think I’d gone to the grocery store. But anyway, on the way home, the darkness was—I had never seen it so dark in my life. It was overwhelming, and actually a bit frightening.
It was so dark. And if the Lord hadn’t promised He wouldn’t flood the earth again, I would have been greatly disturbed. But, brothers and sisters, it was a tremendous storm that hit.
I remember that darkness, so dark, and it had been building all day. When I got home and turned the TV on and got the reports, they said that something very unusual had happened: that particular thunderhead had reached to forty thousand feet. And that’s a long way.
And I feel like ever since, at least since I was a young man, the thunderclouds—the darkness—have begun to roll in. I lived in fairly bright days, but as I’ve gone on, particularly in the last ten years, the darkness has rolled in, and it’s getting really dark. If I had to measure it, I’d say the clouds at least reach thirty thousand feet.
I’ve been considering it, particularly for the younger generation. They’re living in quite different days than we did. And this burden is on my heart: How do we live in days like this?
Now, the Lord wanted me to reinforce one thought before I go on this morning, and that is: He always tells us in these days to look up, to look off unto Jesus. He is our Savior, and all of this is coming about. He will, once again, as the Word says, bring judgment.
But before that day of judgment, He will also come back to gather His own. And we’re so thankful for that. Brothers and sisters, we will not have to go through the judgment of eternal death. We have eternal life. We’re so grateful that we have that eternal life—the light of life.
Having said that, I want to go on with Living in Dark Days, which I began last time.
Just as a bit of review, the Lord told us when He was here that the days would be like the days of Noah. We looked into that, and the days of Noah were days of great wickedness upon the earth.
He said even the thoughts and imaginations of men’s hearts were continually wicked, and He couldn’t bear it anymore. It grieved His heart that He had even made man.
That’s quite a thought to consider about our God, whom we know loves us so much and is such a loving God—that He would come to that place in His own heart. He was so grieved at what was going on.
In a sense, today I even sense that grieving in my own heart as I see what is coming upon this world and upon this nation.
The Lord made it very clear to us that He would come once again, that more and more His heart is being grieved as He looks at mankind. We’re kind of on the second go-around, if you want to say it. The first one ended with a flood in Noah’s day, and we know there is another judgment that will come.
But, brothers and sisters, the problem—the issue—is this: Why did man in Noah’s day go into such deep darkness? Why do we see men going into such deep darkness in our days?
Romans 1 explains it very well:
For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God,
nor give Him thanks;
but they became futile in their thinking,
and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
Therefore God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts.
Surely we’re seeing that happen in our day. Romans goes on to say:
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God,
God gave them up to a debased mind,
to do what ought not to be done.
They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice;
full of envy, murder, deceit, maliciousness;
gossipers, slanderers, haters of God, haughty, boastful,
inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die,
they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
So the key to the darkness that is in man’s soul is that he will not honor God. He will not recognize God in his life.
Brothers and sisters, this ought to be a great lesson to us: when we reject God, our hearts and minds become darkened. When we reject God, our hearts and minds become darkness. Why? Because we do not have the light of God in our hearts.
John 8:12 says:
Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world:
he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness,
but shall have the light of life.
The only way not to be in darkness is to have the light of life. And that light of life comes from God Himself. It is His Son whom He gave to us.
So, in accepting the Lord Jesus Christ not only as your Savior, He becomes the light of your life. He becomes the One who shows you what God is like, what God expects, what is on God’s heart, and that you are on His heart. He wants to have that intimate relationship with you.
But it is always a relationship in righteousness and goodness, and certainly not a relationship with a dark mind.
Brothers and sisters, it is a great thing that when we receive Christ, we always kind of think in terms of being saved—saved from hell, you know, saved from eternal punishment, eternal death without the knowledge of God. But we have also been given light within.
That relationship, that life which is in us—praise the Lord—is the light of life. And it gives us understanding that we cannot gain any other way.
You can read all the books of great intelligent people, and you can even understand nuclear fission and all these things. It doesn’t matter. Without the light of life, it is a darkened mind.
So, excuse me, how are we to discern what is of God and what isn’t?
Recently, we’ve been talking about judging and judgment. There’s that verse in the Bible that says you cannot judge one another. That’s true. In other words, we can’t present ourselves as being the judge over somebody else’s life.
But it certainly doesn’t mean that we should not be discerning and know evil from good—what is of God and what isn’t of God. We need to be able to judge in that way and make those judgments.
So don’t be deceived when people say, “You can’t judge. You don’t really know what is right and wrong.” You do, because you have the light of life.
First John 2:26-28 says:
These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
And the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you,
and ye need not that any man teach you:
but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things,
and is truth, and is no lie,
and even as it hath taught you,
ye shall abide in Him.
Those who seduce you are those trying to indoctrinate you with a teaching or philosophy that is contrary to God.
I spoke at quite a length last time on this matter of the anointing. It’s the Holy Spirit within you. You have that anointing, and He speaks. He is very living. He is very real. And He warns us.
That still, small voice within us says, “Something is wrong here. I don’t know what you’re being taught, but there’s something wrong.” It may sound good. It may sound right. But out of that Spirit, the Holy Spirit, you get that sense that something is wrong.
And only Christians have that sense. The anointing teaches you the truth.
We talked about the Word of God as being a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. It will make you wise—not just knowledgeable, but wise in the Lord—because the Holy Spirit will enlighten this Word as you read it, and it becomes alive to you and real. That’s impossible with an unbeliever.
We must also abide in Christ. In other words, Christ—I put it this way—you need to be at home in the Lord. You need to be comfortable with the Lord as your Friend, as your Companion, as the One you can always go to and depend on.
He is the One you need to be abiding in. Listen to Him and obey Him as the Holy Spirit shows you.
If you don’t choose to listen to that small voice, if you don’t choose to look into His Word for light and understanding, if you don’t choose to abide with our Lord, you will enter a carnal state. I’ll explain that in a minute.
But if you seek things of the world to please you instead of the things of the Lord, if you just follow the crowd or follow your friends when they want to do something that you know would not please the Lord—something that that voice is saying, “Uh-uh,” to—your spiritual ear, which we all have as Christians, will become dull.
Just like my hearing aids. They’re about gone these days. But you become dull, and you can’t hear anymore.
That spiritual life that you have from the Lord gets weaker and weaker, and your mind will go back into darkness. That is the danger of living a carnal life.
Because any time that you abandon your close relationship with the Lord, the life of Christ in you is restrained, and it draws back. It will not force itself upon you.
When you encounter darkness or wrong teaching, you’ll no longer sense it. You won’t have that inner voice sensing that something is wrong, and you will be ensnared in a trap, just like Eve was in Genesis.
Your mind will enter back into darkness and be deceived and drawn back into a life of sin and darkness. That can happen to Christians.
Paul speaks to this in 1 Corinthians, and he calls this condition being carnal. In other words, you are a Christian. You really are saved. The Lord is your Savior, but you’re living a worldly life—a life for your own self-pleasure, not the pleasure of the Lord; a sinful life.
Brothers and sisters, this is contrary to the Lord. And I’ll say this much: when we get into that carnal state, it is only God’s discipline and God’s love, His mercy and grace, that can draw us back—to bring us out of that pit and bring us to repentance.
In other words, you change your heart and say, “Lord, I’ve gone wrong here. I’ve really gone astray. I need to get back right with You. You’re my Lord and Savior. You’re my everything. I need You, Lord, right now. I can’t rescue myself. Only You can rescue me.”
If we continue in that state, we may move into an apostate state. Now, that sounds like a big word, but it’s really fairly simple.
The problem with becoming apostate is that it is very, very dangerous, and almost impossible to be recovered from. I want you to know that. It’s very difficult when we get into an apostate state.
Apostasy—what does it mean? It means simply to fall away, to take a step back, to depart from.
If you look in the book of Jude, it deals with this matter of apostasy. It’s a very short book. But that book was not written—that letter by Jude was not written—to unbelievers. It was written to believers, those who are saved, those who know Christ.
It’s a warning. The book of Jude is a warning to us, basically saying, “You need to abide. Do not fall away from the Lord. Do not depart from Christ. Do not depart from the teaching that has been given to you. Don’t become apostate.”
Now, there are varying degrees of apostasy. We know that.
In the book of Jude, he refers to the apostates and says some have fallen and denied Jesus as their Lord and Master. In other words, they had accepted Jesus, but when it came to living their lives, they didn’t want Him anymore as the Lord of their life. They didn’t want Him to be Master of their life.
They wanted to be their own master, and they were adamant about that, drifting far from the Lord. It’s a fallen state. It’s apostate.
Nowhere in the book of Jude does it talk about apostasy leading to denying Christ as Savior, but that happens. That can happen. Apostasy can go so far as denying Christ as your Savior.
I will only say this much: there are serious consequences in the next age, the kingdom age, to those who are apostate now. You’re still the Lord’s. When the Lord gives you His life, gives you eternal life, that is exactly what it means: it is eternal. He’ll never take it from you.
But, brothers and sisters, there are serious consequences for us not making Him Lord and Master of our lives and continuing to look to Him as our Savior.
At the judgment seat, remember the parable of the pounds and the parable of the talents. The master was talking to his servants. He had gone away, and He came back and held them all accountable because He had given them different talents and grace to use while He was gone.
To the faithful ones, this was His word:
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,
good and faithful servant.
Now, brothers and sisters, that’s extremely important. Think about that. The Lord wants you to enter into His joy. Now, you can experience that joy now, I know that. But He is saying, “You need to enter into joy.”
But to the unfaithful servant—they were still His servants—He said, “You are a wicked servant.” That was the Lord’s thought, not my thought. He said, “You’re a wicked servant,” and He said, “Cast him out. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Now, a lot of people have a lot of different interpretations of what that means. But for me, I will say this much: I know for one thing—they will not enter the joy of the Lord during the kingdom age.
At the end of the kingdom age, you need to be thankful that the discipline received by those who have been apostate during the kingdom age will bring them back to the Lord as Savior, Lord, and Master. And so, in the end, of course, we will all enter the joy of the Lord. So that’s my thought.
But really, I just want to point out this morning that the apostate state is so very dangerous.
So, what do we do? We’ve always talked about abiding and listening to the anointing, but there is more.
Jude 1:3 not only warns us against becoming apostate; it tells us what we need to do:
It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you
that ye should earnestly contend for the faith
which was once delivered unto the saints.
You need to contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Now, what is this faith once delivered? Actually, it is all the revelation that we have received from the Lord. It is all that we received through the Old Testament and the New Testament Word. All of that is truth.
We need to know that truth and let that truth be made alive in our hearts, not just in our minds. There is no more new revelation. All of it is in here, brothers and sisters. But how much of it have we really entered into? That is the question.
That gets to the point of contending for the faith. That’s really what Jude is after.
He does not mean that we need to fight with one another about our interpretations, such as the tribulation and the Lord’s return and who’s going and who isn’t. We don’t have to fight one another over that. We all have our thoughts.
But contending for the faith means that we have the faith. It needs to be revealed to you personally, and it means you need to strive to obtain that revelation. You need to strive to learn the faith, to know what it is, and to grow and mature in Christ. You discover Christ in His Word.
I want to quote from our dear brother Kong at this time. His thoughts on this, in a time of apostasy:
That is the reason why we have to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Otherwise, we will fall away just as other people have. Do not give up the faith once delivered to the saints. Live it, work it, strive after it, agonize over it until you have it. You gain it until that faith becomes your heritage, your property, your possession.
That is what we need to be doing.
Now, I think particularly for our young folks—and all of us—we need to be prepared for what lies ahead. We’re in the last days before the Lord returns, because darkness hates the light. There will be persecution that lies ahead.
Just a few thoughts that might help you remember: remember in Acts 7, Stephen—not Stephen Kong, Stephen in Acts 7—was before the people and explaining to them, “Your fathers have killed the prophets, and now you have killed the Messiah.”
That angered them quite a bit, but it was the truth. He was trying to open their eyes. They began to run upon him, and as they did, it says he looked up to heaven and saw it opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
He testified to this. He said, “I see Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” And they stoned him to death. They couldn’t handle the light. They hated the light.
Another one: John 9, the man born blind. Now, I love this particular Scripture because of the man who was healed of his blindness. He had been blind from birth. He was born that way, and nobody had ever been healed of that.
But the Lord one day met this man. He put some clay on the man’s eyes, and He told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He said, “Your eyes will be opened.” He went, he did it, and his eyes were opened.
It was miraculous, and the word got out all over the nation. The Pharisees really got concerned because everybody was going to Jesus. “They’re going to leave us. They’re going to leave Judaism.” They were really concerned.
So they went to his parents and said, “Is it true? Your son was born blind?” And they said, “Yes.” Then they said, “Well, how is it he was healed? How did his sight come back?”
They said, “Well, we’re not quite sure. You need to talk to him,” because they were afraid that if they said anything about Jesus, they were going to be thrown out of the synagogue.
So they went and finally found the son. They asked him, “Who did this?” He said, “Jesus did.” And they said, “Wait a minute. You should give glory to God, not to Jesus. He’s just a sinner.”
He replied to them, “I don’t know whether He’s a sinner or not. But one thing I do know: once I was blind, but now I see.”
They continued to question him. Once again, they asked him how he was healed. He said, “Look, I’ve already told you this.” They were saying, “Well, Jesus couldn’t have done it.”
He finally said to them, “Look, if Jesus was not of God, He would not have been able to heal me.” And they cast him out of the synagogue.
Now, praise the Lord. The Lord heard about this. He heard that they had cast him out, and He sought him out. He said, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” And he said, “Tell me who He is, and I will believe.”
And He said, “You’re looking at Him. It’s Me.” And he said, “I believe.” So praise the Lord. The Lord, so merciful, wanted to be sure that this man was taken care of.
But the point I’m making is this: the world hates the light. They reject the light. The Lord was the light of the world, and they put Him on a cross and crucified Him.
As Christians, I’m afraid that we’re coming into a day in the United States of being persecuted, hated, maligned, and possibly even betrayed. I want us to be prepared. I don’t want us to be caught off guard by what probably lies ahead.
Jesus’ prayer for us, which He made just before He went to the cross, was this:
I have given them Thy word;
and the world hath hated them,
because they are not of the world,
even as I am not of the world.
Brother Sparks made a great statement that has helped me a lot. He said, “We are strangers and pilgrims in this world. For believers, the only possible way of living in this world is to know that you don’t belong to it.”
The only possible way of living in the day in which we’re in is to know that we really don’t belong to it. We don’t belong to this world. Amen, hallelujah.
For the younger ones, y’all might find this a little difficult to understand, but to unbelievers, we really are strange. We are strangers.
We’re strangers and pilgrims because we realize that we’re really not of this world; we’re of Christ. But to unbelievers, they see us as strangers too—strange, not just strangers, but strange people. And they don’t understand us. They really don’t.
I’ve heard many say that Christians are weak-minded people because they’re trying to depend on God. They say Christianity is a crutch for weak-minded people.
They do not agree with our moral values. That’s pretty obvious, I think. And when we don’t agree with them, they call us weird. They call us crazy, nuts, out of our minds.
Some even believe that we’re bigots because of the way we believe, that we’re evil. And because they honestly see us as being evil, they feel justified in hating us and trying to stop our mouths.
First Peter 4:12-13 says:
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you,
as though some strange thing happened unto you:
but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings;
that, when His glory shall be revealed,
ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye;
for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you:
on their part He is evil spoken of,
but on your part He is glorified.
I remember a story recently. I can’t remember the chaplain’s name, but he was discharged—I don’t know whether he was a naval or Army chaplain—because he was telling those who came to him about the Lord, about Christ.
They discharged him and took away his pension and all these things. He said, “You know, when that happened to me, I cried. I cried, but they were not tears of grief, but tears of joy, because the Lord had given me the honor of standing up for Him in an unrighteous nation.”
He was joyful, and that’s what this Word says: you will be glad with exceeding joy.
The good part is, factually, Congress had him reestablished to his position. But still, even today, if chaplains try to use Scripture or talk to people about Christ, they come under a lot of persecution.
Let me read a few other Scriptures. Second Timothy 3:12-13:
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse,
deceiving and being deceived.
I want you to listen to that again: all those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Matthew 10:22:
Ye shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake:
but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.
Philippians 1:29:
For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ,
not only to believe on Him,
but also to suffer for His sake.
First Peter 4:16:
Yet if any man suffer as a Christian,
let him not be ashamed;
but let him glorify God on this behalf.
So what does it mean to suffer for the sake of the Lord, for the sake of righteousness? What does it mean?
Well, we all suffer, don’t we? Unbelievers suffer. Believers suffer. Sometimes we suffer from physical ailments, which I can testify to very easily, and many of us older ones in the room can. We have physical ailments.
Sometimes there is just mental anguish, or because we’ve been foolish, sometimes we do things that bring recompense upon us. Very simple thing: I’ll tell you, if you go out to the beach and lay in the sun for five or six hours, you will get sunburn. I mean, that’s the consequence of your actions.
So sometimes we’re just foolish. But you can go to the beach and get in the sun; just be careful. Wear plenty of sunscreen. All right.
But many times we are brought into difficulties that cause us to suffer. Actually, we could be under the disciplining hand of the Lord. You know, that’s not easy sometimes when you’re under His disciplined hand, because we’ve not been obedient.
But suffering for His name’s sake, for righteousness’ sake, is different. It’s not that kind of suffering. It is because you carry the testimony of Jesus in your life. It shows to other people. It is suffering because you live a righteous life, and you are despised and rejected because of it.
Sometimes, particularly younger ones, your friends want to go and do something that you know is not right to do, something that you shouldn’t be a part of. When you say, “Well, I can’t do that,” they may ask you why. You may say, “Well, the Lord won’t let me.” I don’t know if you’ll say that, but it would be good to say that.
If you’re living for Jesus, others will notice it. What they will do is reject you. They will ostracize you. They won’t let you hang out with them anymore. They don’t want to be around you because darkness hates the light.
When those around you tell you that you’re wrong for living for Jesus, then you become a hypocrite to them. They’ll point out things that they think are wrong with you, and they’ll call you a hypocrite. They may say you are prejudiced, or they don’t like you because you won’t participate with them in these things—telling dirty jokes, using filthy language, or doing sinful activities with them.
You’ll be rejected, and that hurts. Being rejected does hurt. But the Lord said, when you do it for righteousness’ sake, you should really rejoice. You may lose some friends, but you’ll gain much more of Christ and His joy.
When we come into these situations, we have a choice. We’re either going to follow the crowd—what others are doing, what everybody else is doing—in order to get their approval. You know, we want people to like us, and we try to get their approval.
But if we forsake the Lord in trying to get man’s approval, we will lose God’s approval. And that is very serious. We should be living our lives to please the Lord and not others.
If you follow the Lord, you will please Him. You may suffer rejection, and you’ll suffer for His name’s sake and righteousness’ sake. But when we follow the Lord and go with the Lord instead, we grow a lot in the Lord. We need to know that. It’s the way the Lord matures us.
He’ll bring us into these situations to test us, to see where we really stand.
Now, we need to know that you are able to do this because you have the life of the Lord in you. The Lord suffered on the cross of Calvary in order to redeem us. He was despised and rejected and crucified because He followed the Father and God only instead of man.
He didn’t try to please men. He pleased the Father. That was His heart.
Will you be willing to suffer for His name’s sake and for His righteousness’ sake? He takes notice, and He will reward those who endure and stand for Him.
We will be rewarded—maybe not in this life, but in the one to come. We will be rewarded.
Listen to the Lord’s words from Matthew 5:10-12:
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake:
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:
for great is your reward in heaven:
for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Romans 8:17-18:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;
if so be that we suffer with Him,
that we may be also glorified together.
Now, it’s been on my heart, obviously, brothers and sisters. I keep thinking, “Lord, am I really prepared for what I see coming?” And I want to be.
So I thought about it. What should be our attitude in this day when we may be suffering for the name’s sake of the Lord, or for righteousness’ sake? If we suffer in this way, what should be our attitude?
Second Thessalonians 1:4 says:
Therefore we ourselves boast of you in the churches of God
for your steadfastness and faith
in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that ye are enduring.
Now, the Thessalonian church had many Greeks in it, not just Jews. The other Greeks were persecuting them because they didn’t understand why they wouldn’t go along with what they had been doing—some of the sinful life and worldliness that the other Greeks were into. They didn’t understand these Christians when they wouldn’t follow them and rejoice with them.
So Paul is saying, thank you for your steadfastness and your faith in all your persecutions and afflictions that you are enduring—which means we should endure these things, doesn’t it?
But I have to say, what about you? What about me? What about you? What are you going to do? Will you be steadfast?
The Lord is very serious about being steadfast in these situations. Matthew 10:32 says:
Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men,
him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven.
But whosoever shall deny Me before men,
him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.
Brothers and sisters, we have to be careful about denying the Lord Jesus. He warns us.
Peter also encourages us in these situations. I put this in bold so I wouldn’t overlook it, and it’s a verse I’m thinking maybe I ought to hang on my wall, because this really helps us.
First Peter 3:14-18 says:
But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye:
and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;
but sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts:
and be ready always to give an answer to every man
that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you
with meekness and fear:
having a good conscience;
that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers,
they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
For it is better, if the will of God be so,
that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust.
In other words, in these situations He says, “Be faithful to Me.” You don’t have to lash out at these people. But you need to be prepared in your heart to tell the reason why you have this hope in your heart—why you live the way you do—and to be able to share your testimony with them.
And it says, do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.
For it is better to suffer for doing good, if it should be God’s will, than for doing evil. It says, “If it should be God’s will.” In other words, brothers and sisters, don’t think, “Well, boy, I need to suffer. Okay, Lord, bring it on.” I don’t think any of us would do that anyway.
No, no, no. He says, “If it be God’s will.” In other words, it is God’s hand that directs our lives, and we may come into these situations. When we do, we know that God is with us, and we need to stand for Him.
We need to arm our minds for the days that lie ahead. We need to be prepared to face ridicule and persecution.
First Peter 4:1-3 says:
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh,
arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.
I’ll skip the rest of it, but the point is, he says you need to arm yourself with the mind of Christ. Christ was willing to suffer for our sake. Now, will we be willing to suffer for His sake? He says, “Arm your mind.”
Also, you need to purpose in your heart so that you will not fear, as it said earlier, and you will be strong and courageous. Don’t think you can just work up being strong and courageous. That only comes from the Lord.
But I’ll remind everyone: remember Daniel purposed in his heart that he wouldn’t defile himself by eating all the great food that the king had. He said, “No, I’ll just take vegetables, and the Lord will bless.” And He did.
Eventually, though, they got so angry with Daniel that they threw him into the lion’s den. That’s being persecuted. The Lord put them to sleep—all the lions went to sleep—and Daniel was fine. He was delivered from the lion’s den.
Joshua, before he entered the promised land, had all those giants on the other side of the river. The Lord, three—maybe four—times told him, “Be strong and courageous.”
In other words, the Lord was admonishing him: “In your heart, you need to be strong and courageous.” And he was. They took down the wall of Jericho. Of course, it was the Lord’s hand that took it down, but Joshua did not back off because of the giants.
Now, I think we might come to the point after hearing all this and say, “Well, Lord, You know me. I’m not sure I’m up to this. I’m not sure I’m ready.”
Philippians 2:13 encourages us:
For it is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
You don’t have to depend on working it up yourself. You can go to the Lord and say, “Lord, I’m not sure I’m up to what I might be called to do. But Lord, I want to arm my mind. I want to purpose in my heart that I will stand up for You in that day.”
“Lord, work in my heart. Lord, work in my heart, both to will and to do.” And He will take you up faithfully.
Before I end, I need to be clear on one thing—a question we might all be asking: Why do the righteous suffer, and the wicked prosper?
Why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? We see that today, don’t we? It seems like the wicked ones, the ones that don’t want God, are prospering. Yet that’s not true.
Many Christians, even in this United States, are suffering because they stand for the Lord. A lot of people have lost their jobs and their livelihoods because they stood for the Lord.
Well, Paul gives us the answer to that. I’m going to read from Second Thessalonians 1:4-5. When you first hear this, it might seem strange to you, but listen:
We ourselves glory in you in the churches of God
for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:
which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God,
that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God,
for which ye also suffer.
Let me read that last part a little differently. The persecutions and tribulations that you’re going through are a sign of the righteous judgment of God, that you might be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you suffer.
So really, what does that mean?
We are living in the day of grace and mercy. The Lord said, “I did not come to judge the world. I came to save it.” That’s the age in which we’re living.
God actually uses the sufferings that we go through for His name’s sake and for His righteousness’ sake to mature us, to get us ready, to make us worthy, it says, of the glory that we’re going to enter into with Christ—that you might be counted worthy at the judgment seat.
We go through these testings and trials for our maturity, that it might be said by the Lord, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
In other words, this is righteousness. God is being righteous with us. It is righteous judgment when He does allow this kind of suffering in our lives. It is not to destroy you. It is to mature you, to bring you into more of the Lord, and really to make you worthy of the name which you carry as a Christian.
The Lord suffered first, and then He was enthroned. Brothers and sisters, we will come into the throne of glory, but we will probably suffer first.
God is using our enemies, our persecutors, to perfect us. That is righteous in God’s eyes; it should be righteous in our eyes.
But God is righteous and will not allow this to go on forever. Second Thessalonians 1:6-8 says that the Lord Jesus is coming from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God and do not obey the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will be punished with everlasting destruction.
Judgment is in the Lord’s hands, not our hands. But He will judge, and we need to know that.
But thank the Lord, we as Christians won’t come under that judgment. We thank Him for that. We will come under the judgment seat of Christ. Like I said, faithfully follow Him so that you can enter the joy of the Lord.
One last thought: the cross.
The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 16:24-26:
If any man will come after Me,
let him deny himself,
and take up his cross,
and follow Me.
The old life, the old nature, will want to be accepted. That old you, before you were baptized—that old you—wants to be accepted and liked, and you will be tempted to follow the crowd. That is the will of the old nature in you.
But you’ve been crucified with Christ and raised with Him. There is a new nature in you, a new life in you, which will want to follow the Lord, which will want to stand up for the Lord in righteousness and for His name’s sake. That is the will of God in you.
Now, it goes on to say, “You must deny yourself.” What does that mean? I think most of us, when we think of denying ourselves, think, “Well, we need to deny ourselves things. I was planning on having a steak, but I’ll deny myself. I’ll just get a hamburger.” I don’t know.
It could be a car you want, a specific car you want. You say, “Well, no.” But the Lord is not talking about denying yourself things. He is saying, “You need to deny that old man, that old nature.”
When the old nature raises his voice and says to you, “It’s okay. You just go along with the crowd. You follow them,” you need to say, “Wait a minute. Who are you? Who is this voice speaking to me? I don’t know you. I don’t recognize you.”
“You’re no longer a part of my life. You used to be. I used to follow whatever you said, but not anymore. I don’t recognize you in my life. You’re out of my life now.”
And you take up the cross and follow the voice of the Holy Spirit in you. When you do this, you are putting to death the old man, which was originally taken out in Christ on the cross, and you are strengthening the life of Christ in you.
This prepares us all for the kingdom age and for the glory that we will enter into. And we thank the Lord Jesus.
Lord, I just come to You today.
I thank You, Lord Jesus, that You always told us the truth. Lord, You said, “If you’re going to follow Me, you’ve got to take up that cross.”
Lord, You’re straightforward. Lord, Your Word is very clear.
Lord, we’re coming into those last days, the days in which we may be persecuted for Your name’s sake.