If you would turn back with me to second Timothy chapter three. Second Timothy three. Our text is verses one through seven. And. Since it already has been read in our scripture reading, I will refer to these verses as we go through this topical message, which I have titled a corrupt and perverted culture, a biblical response to the Aurora Colorado Massacre. In 2 Timothy 3, verses 1-7 we find A passage that is deeply disturbing to end times Christians, on the one hand, because we know that we will be immersed in a culture that will be filled with unthinkable evil and corruption. But on the other hand, as any generation of Christians, our Lord Jesus Christ has, can and will deliver us in the midst of any trial or tribulation or difficulty, however evil and wicked our circumstances and surroundings may be. But there are incidents that occur in our world from time to time that necessitate even demand a response from the pulpits of churches. One such event took place a couple of weeks ago on July 19th in Aurora, Colorado, where A gunman shot and murdered twelve people and wounded fifty-eight. Because for Christians, everything must be placed in the context of the Bible. How are we to view this incident, this terrible, horrific incident? Well, we must see it through the eyes of Scripture. Because the Scriptures give us God's perspective on everything. including events and incidents in the world that impact our lives, however profoundly that impact may be. Now, it's argued that there have always been murders and atrocities stemming from the evil heart of man. Look at the genocide of Hitler, for example. Indeed, the Bible says that the whole world is filled with wickedness. The whole world lies in wickedness. So what makes this gruesome crime stand out more than anyone in the world's history? Well, it's not so much the act itself that happened on the 19th of July, but the context that really spoke to me as I thought deeply about the implications of this event. It's the context and the culture and the day and age in which this particular murderous rampage took place. because this murder spree did not happen in a vacuum. It occurred in our situation, our culture, and it was influenced by our society and the things that take place in our society. It happened in a nation whose culture and church and minds of the people have devolved and degenerated into a mass of corruption and perversion. In case you haven't noticed, we now live in a post-Christian America where the American dream is more and more seen for what it really is, an illusion, a mirage, behind which burns the wrath of God, which is ominously poised to fall upon our nation with dreadful ferocity. Do you believe that? Do you sense that in your spirit? Do you see the signs of the times growing along these lines? Because we're living in a post-Christian America where Christianity and the church and Ministers are seen as hostile objects to the world. Increasingly, we have known from the New Testament, from the Gospels in particular, where our Lord Jesus said, if they have hated me, they will also hate you. But that hatred is rarely seen in its core and in its depth. We see bits and pieces and shallow and superficial manifestations from time to time in a society where free speech and freedom of religion is pervasive. But let the depth of the world's hatred of Christ and the people of Christ and the Church of Christ reach closer to the lower levels of its malice and its venomous, dense hatred. And you will see genocide of the Christian people. At its worst, The world would have all smatterings and vestiges and remnants of scripture and church and their Christ utterly and forever removed from it. But we are here to do just the opposite. We're here to hold the banner high, upon which is written Christ, Jesus Christ, our Captain, our Shepherd, our King, the only Savior of sinners, the only Redeemer. We're to hold that banner high even while they burn us. One can only remember through our very rich legacy and history of our forefathers in the faith who were thrown to the lions. I read recently of Ignatius and Polycarp, two bishops in the early church who were disciples of the Apostle John. And Polycarp was burned in the Colosseum after he was interrogated by Trajan, the Roman emperor himself, promising Polycarp release if he would but pledge allegiance to the gods of Rome and deny Christ. And we read about Trajan saying, 80 and 6 years I have served my Lord, and He has done me no wrong. I cannot deny Him now. There's a day coming, I believe, in this generation. Because I read about it in Scripture. I see the signs out there matching what our Lord Jesus wrote about, what the prophets wrote about, what the apostles wrote about, including Paul right here in 2 Timothy 3, 1-7. that there is a time coming, just like the first advent of Christ was preceded by prophecies and and. Indications of his first coming, where the people of God would. Would know that what was about to happen, the same is true at the end of the world, there are many different schools of thought with regard to eschatology, that is the doctrine of last things. But I think most of those schools agree in the general signs of the times we all agree now when we get into the particulars and the specifics of those signs we may disagree we may depart. But the general signs I think most schools of eschatology are all in agreement and we'll talk about some of those general ones today I think which we all can agree upon unless you're a preterist. which is one of those schools of eschatology that I and most of the brethren I know outright reject, which teaches that Christ already came in 70 AD. But my Bible teaches that there will be a physical and a visible return of Jesus Christ where every eye will see him. And when the Jews see him, They will say, what are those wounds in thine hands? And he will say, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. And then, with one accord, the Jews will mourn for him as one mourns for his only son. Indeed, the whole world will mourn for him. But the people of God, believers, will rejoice in this blessed hope, which is a critical doctrine of Scripture. The blessed hope that when all external hope is stripped away and we are in the throes of persecution and torture and suffering. God has given us hope and that hope is to be preserved in the second coming of Christ when our Lord will come. So that when his people have died an unjust death, having their lives snuffed out with their last breath, crying out for justice, they have to hope. to look forward to our great judge who will judge according to righteousness and every crooked line will be made straight and we will indeed get justice in the end and we will even praise him and thank him for the opportunity to lay our lives down for his glory as martyrs. There's a day and age coming when indeed The blood of the saints will be the seat of the church. And I have a dear friend, Pastor Bill Downing, who sent me an email this last week. And he said, here's an article that is reporting that there's a revival taking place in Iran. where the people behind the scenes are are very unhappy with their leadership in their government and in the in the midst of a persecution yet they are they are seeking the Lord Jesus Christ many of many read that article now of course I don't know. how how much of this is a reality and how far it is and what to what extent this revival is going on. But nevertheless, I do believe that we must we must aim high so that even in the greatest times of darkness. We should be praying for revival. We should be praying that God would preserve for Himself a people in the worst culture imaginable to hold forth the truth of God and to be those who will preserve the testimony of Jesus Christ in this end times generation. We will be that light and that salt of the earth. Do you believe this? This is what I have to believe. that this is true, I do, because the scripture teaches it. But the American dream is an illusion. It's a mirage. And our society is finding that out now as the judgment of God is touching the flesh of our fellow citizens more and more with painful judgments and all the so-called layers of economic security and economic safety. that people have taken for granted in this country. One by one, these economic layers, these false layers of security and financial comfort are being removed, where most of the homes in America lost 50% of their equity in the last three years. We see that the unemployment rate is very high. There's great uncertainty. People are holding on to their money. They're not spending. They're saving their money. Men's hearts are failing them for fear of the things that are coming on the earth. We're living in a nation where there's no longer a recognized consensus on all levels of society like there used to be in the 50s 1950s and before in all political and social and educational and religious institutions that there are moral absolutes that should not be violated as represented in the Judeo-Christian heritage and ethics. We're living in a society where moral relativism has replaced the Bible as the universal objective standard of truth. In our universities, in our government, and even in a growing number of churches, we are sad to say we're told that truth cannot any longer be known with absolute certainty. Therefore, it behooves us to be established in the essentials and all the great doctrines of the faith and deeply in our consciences with conviction that cannot be moved. This is the context in which this terrible mass murder was committed and this unspeakable kind of evil seems to be growing in its frequency and fervency and brutality. It's no longer about every decade. When I became a Christian in 1976, you would hear something like this maybe every decade. Now it's once a month you hear about somebody going postal. That's where you get the term going postal. And that's a recent term, as far as my knowledge is concerned. One article I read about this crime in Aurora, Colorado, rightly concluded that because the Bible has been thrown out as an objective standard of what is right and wrong, people now look to psychiatrists and psychologists to explain these horrific events. They ask, what exactly would cause a person to storm into a packed movie theater and open fire on innocent bystanders? Because, they say, no normal person would ever do such a thing. Well, what is a normal person? What do you use to define what a normal person is? The problem is we have no idea what is normal and abnormal in the actions and thoughts of sinners. And since they've rejected the scriptural definition of why people do these things and the scriptural description of why people do these horrific things, they look to psychology for answers and for comfort in their horrified consciences. They want assurance that whatever this monster did in Colorado, it was because he had issues quote-unquote, because he wasn't normal. And when you listen to the psychologists on TV, offer their theories and speculations as to why a person can commit such a terrible act, you hear them say things like, well, he was socially inept. He was alienated from the mainstream. That's why he did it. Or he was socially awkward and reclusive. Well, my question is, if you've thrown out the Bible as the only objective standard of truth and morals, what do you base these conclusions on? Your own thoughts? What standards make this mass murder motivated by his social awkwardness. What makes it a senseless act? As our president said, such violence and evil is senseless. What makes it senseless? Certainly in our postmodern society and culture, where there's no longer absolute truth and where secular humanism and moral relativism reign supreme. There is no trustworthy standard of truth that everyone would indeed validate the opinions of the psychologists. The hypocrisy and double standard of the world's so-called judgment. The pundits and the psychologists the politicians is clear when you consider that they decry the murder of 12 people on the one hand yet they condone legally the murder of 55 million unborn babies on the other. Why is one wrong and the other one legal or okay to do? So what are the moral values that people are clinging to in order to make sense of a crime like this? You see, it's only the Christian worldview, as taught in the Bible, that enables us to understand why such evil actions occur. The Bible teaches that man is totally and utterly depraved. He is dark, he is dead in trespasses and sin, and that the nicest person in the world outwardly is capable of committing the blackest, vilest evil. Jeremiah 17, nine, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. In other words, in the original, it is wicked without hope. No redeeming quality whatsoever in its wickedness, in its depravity. And desperately wicked, who can know it? We read about the heart of man and how wicked it is in familiar text to most of you, but I'm going to read a couple of them anyway. In Romans chapter three, Verse 10. Tell me if you fit in here, because if you say you don't, you're wrong. The Bible says everyone is included in this text. Romans 3 10 and following as it is written, there is non righteous. No, not one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good. No, not one. Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. And then in chapter one, beginning at verse 18, we have a more detailed description of the sinfulness and depravity of man. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. for since the creation of the world is invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse because although they knew God they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up. to vile passions for even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. And here are those things being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness, They are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God that is by their conscience, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. This is a description of the level of depravity that any one of us can sink to say, well, I've never committed murder. I've never committed adultery. Well, the Bible says we have broken all of God's commandments in our minds and hearts. Jesus who elevated the level of accountability and culpability on the part of a sinner when he said he that commits he that hates a brother is a murderer and he who looks on a woman to lust after her or a man on a woman commits adultery in his heart. And all of us, therefore, have broken the Ten Commandments in our thoughts and in our minds. And we'll have to answer to God. We've committed murder in our hearts, adultery. We've taken the name of the Lord in vain. We've coveted. We've broken all twelve. We've dishonored the Sabbath and on and on and on. In John 3, 19, Jesus said, Men love darkness. They love darkness. They love darkness. rather than light because their deeds are evil. So with this in mind, let's remember to ask the right question. What's the right question? Well, it's not what would cause a person to do this as they ask the psychologists this question. The question is, what restrains all people from doing this? What restrains you and me from doing what this man did in Colorado two weeks ago? There's only one answer. The grace of God don't ever think you could never do such a thing because we're not for the grace of God. There go I. The only reason why you haven't given full vent. to the most unthinkable imaginations of your heart, the wicked fantasies of your mind that you have dwelled upon off and on before your conversion and maybe even struggled with afterwards, is because of the restraining grace of the Holy Spirit. Like a wall of a dam has held back those waters of unrighteousness that would just love to break forth and crush everything in its way until that wickedness of our hearts were completely satiated and satisfied. The bloodlust of our hearts is restrained by the grace of God. Can you praise the Lord in your heart today? Can you thank him? That you're not in the same place as some of those guys are on death row right down here in San Quentin. Can you praise him? Don't sit there, my brother, my sister or my unsafe friend and think that your righteousness, your good deeds, your winsome personality, your very special personality. Has has averted the wrath of God in your life, it hasn't, for there is none that does good. No, not one. We've all gone astray. We all need the grace of God to be saved. Well, in the first place, then, What does the Bible say about our culture? Well, every culture is evil in one way or another. What one saw back in the 1950s when they watched Ozzie and Harriet and other shows like Father Knows Best, which presented the ideal American family to our culture. Really behind the scenes in America. The subculture was fulfilling the desire of the mind and the heart. They just didn't make it as brazen and public as we do today, where everyone wears their filth on their sleeve. Not everyone, thank God, but most people. In our text, in second Timothy three, one, it says, in the last days, perilous times will come. Now, certainly in one sense, we've been in the last days. since the time of the prophets, because we read in their twenty five hundred years ago that in the last day, such and such will happen and those profits in the historical sense referred to their generation as the beginning of those last days. Now, when you look at Earth's age at about six thousand years, the last twenty five hundred years in in that in this first sense have been the last days because it's the latter end of the earth. But there's another separate meaning of last days in the New Testament. Where God and in particular, certain passages where the Lord Jesus Christ himself in the Gospels identifies the last generation in the world as a generation that will know trials and tribulations will know signs in the weather in in society in politics and and among the nations on a level that maybe one or two other generations do perhaps the days of Noah is one of them. And in our text in second Timothy chapter three, we read that in the last days, perilous times will come. The Lord is talking about the end times here. Paul is referring to the future, because if you read through verses one through four, all of these traits were just mentioned in Romans chapter one, the wicked traits of unsaved people. Of course, that's always been the case. for sinners since the beginning of the world. They were just like this. They behave just like this lovers of many posters, but there will be if there is not a special time of wickedness where there will be both a growth of evil in frequency and intensity. Then then There would be no meaning of the phrase in the last days. So there has to be an elevation, a great increase of wickedness in the land. I've been a Christian for 36 years, just within this almost 40 years that I've been a Christian, which is a Bible generation. I have seen a tremendous increase in wickedness. I got saved at the end of the Jesus movement in the mid seventies, and it was a wonderful time. Those first ten years and probably through the Reagan years of his presidency. Then in the late eighties, something happened. There was a marked increase in evil that spread throughout our land, and it's getting worse and worse and growing worse and worse. As our Lord warned in Matthew 24, that things will wax or grow worse and worse. I am seeing it fulfilled before my very eyes. Well, what barometer are you using to measure this? Are you saying that we can know that the day and we can't know the day and the hour, but the Bible's own statements in certain passages in the New Testament in particular explain in rich detail what the last day's generation will be like. and this this marked increase in iniquity will be preceded and precipitated by the falling away as we read in second Thessalonians chapter two this falling away. In second Thessalonians chapter two is. A distinctly a distinct increase of evil that is compared to the level of sin in Noah's generation. The verse one now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, he's referring to the second coming here. and are gathering together to him. We ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed the son of perdition. Now, the falling away is taken from the Greek word apostasy, which is where we get our English word apostasy. It's the it's the removal of the restraints upon sin, and that's all God has to do. is remove those godly restraints for man's sin to get worse and worse and to increase in the practice of it. And the culture that we're talking about when the Bible says that our culture is perverted and will grow more and more perverted and wicked and corrupt is the entire world. It's not the East Bay. It's not California. It's not the culture in California. It's not the United States only. It's the entire world. Because Paul here in 2 Thessalonians 2 is talking about the whole world. That's the culture, the world's culture. And we read in Matthew 24 that the end times generation is compared to the times of Noah, where the level of violence, sexual immorality, especially sexual immorality, will greatly increase. Well, if you throw into the mix the great advancements in visual and audio technology and radio broadcasting and television broadcasting that could transport and magnify and duplicate sexual immorality in its appeal to the eyes to the ears and to the senses. You will find in the end an entire culture that is immersed and dripping wet with the most vile immorality that is imaginable. And it should cause the hearts of every true believer to burn within us and to be vexed for such wickedness. It should cause us to flee from it, to cut off those hands and eyes, as it were, to cut all this, these gateway opportunities to have this sin come in that would water down and desensitize our consciences and the purity of our minds and hearts. From the evil of this sin, But also, this falling away will cause a great deepening and hardening of sin. People will be hardened in their sin. There will be no awakening that God would send in getting their attention that would wake them up and cause them to be filled with remorse and sorrow for their sins. They will be hardened in their wickedness, just like the Jews were hardened in their sin and hardness of heart against God. No matter how many prophets he sent or how many warnings he gave them, they hardened their hearts. They clung to their idols. And it wasn't until the captivity of Babylon and Assyria came that they were taken away captive and they still did not repent. The same is going to be true on a vast scale throughout the world in the second coming of Christ. When you read the book of Revelation, it says that there will be these creatures that come and sting with scorpion stings. And I don't know what those creatures represent. Obviously, some kind of pain that God will send. I don't think revelation is in its metaphors and imagery is mostly literal. I don't believe that. But the world will still. Dig their feet in the sand and harden their hearts against God. with all the physical pain and tribulation they will experience. That's how deeply depraved the heart of man is. You could put a fire under somebody and tell them to stop sinning and they will grit their teeth and would rather be burned, would rather be tortured, than to give up their sins. The hearts of men and women will be that hard. And when that happens, and it is happening, it's in the process of happening, the church needs to be sensitive and needs to be very, very sensitive to what is going on. Our hearts need to respond with brokenness and grief and great concern that the hearts of our family members and unsaved acquaintances and co-workers, people we know, people in the world, the deeper and growing level of hardness should cause us, as we see it in people and friends and in the world, should cause us to weep Tears of grief before God, pleading with God that in wrath He would remember mercy and He would save our loved ones, save those we've been praying for, for many, many years, some of you. Are you hearing what I'm saying, brethren, the church cannot lose its sympathy, its love, its its sensitivity and compassion of heart as priests in God's service, offering up intercessions and prayers and supplications on behalf of the lost who are growing worse and worse in their hardness and enmity against God. We must draw the line first with ourselves, judge ourselves, come before God and say, God, we find ourselves growing harder and harder. We could see the most unthinkable sin committed by the closest family members without our hearts being broken. We look at our culture, its wickedness, the idolatry. Most people don't bow down before idols of wood and stone. We have other things that suck people in, and when you take temptations which naturally appeal to the flesh and the carnal nature of man, and you prepare it with the garnish of technology where they use graphics, they use all kinds of little gimmicks, technological gimmicks through visual and audio technology. It's almost irresistible not to just sit down watching this stuff, listening to this stuff and be mesmerized. It requires the power of God to break our our minds in our and our fleshly attachments from this this idolatry, whether it be sports. And we now have sports where you've got the greatest level of violence. It used to be. It used to be in the early part of the of the 20th century. The only kind of violent sport that would be is men with boxing gloves. But now, in 2012, well, I guess for the last 10 or 15 years, they've taken off the boxing gloves. They're punching each other with bare knuckles and they're kicking each other. And they're glamorizing this violence and turning it into a sport and trying to put a legitimate label on it. So our consciences would be eased in viewing it. And the Bible says we're to turn away from evil. We're to turn away from violence. We're sinning if we do this. We're sinning. Can I say that? That's what the Bible says. I'm just a messenger. Don't shoot the messenger. This is what God says, turn your eyes away from evil. And money, it used to be millionaires worked hard and they started their businesses and they became rich. OK, it was rare, but now Advertising and merchandising is used to pull at the deepest level of covetousness. Everybody's teaching a seminar on how to be a millionaire. Everybody's teaching seminars on how to get rich. Drive down the street, billboard, it's in your face everywhere. Appealing to the greed and avarice in us all. Materialism. Sensuality and the distractions for Christians are enormous. You almost have to live like a hermit to get peace and quiet, to get in a quiet place. where you can just be still and know that he's God. Even when you get to that place, it takes 10, 15 minutes to get the memories of the movies you watched, to get the ringing of the ears from the advertisements you've heard on the radio or the worldly music you've listened to. That takes three or four days to get it out of your mind. It takes a while to just get all that junk out before you could just sit still and know that he's God and pray without Satan using these worldly memories. and sounds. To interrupt. Your meditation on the Lord distractions, movies, cable TV, video games, technology from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, you could be looking at a screen. We're listening to something without thinking your own thoughts. No wonder why there's such shallowness and superficiality in churches. No wonder why believers don't have an appetite for the meat of the Word of God and for doctrine, sound doctrine. No wonder why they're not getting blessed and fed. Because their minds and consciences have been seared by the things of the world. And I'll tell you, has there ever been a time When the deification of man has been greater with cloning and in vitro fertilization, you don't have to have a family anymore. You don't need a husband or a wife. Just go to the doctor. If you're a woman, you can get pregnant. Have a family any way you want. Can you imagine how God feels? God is circumvented. We don't need him to do these things for us anymore, to give us children. And the traditional heroes are now glamorized by comic book heroes on the big screen, the silver screen in movies. And I hear some of my brethren, I'm going to go see Batman, I'm going to go see Superman, I'm going to go see the Green Hornet, I'm going to go see this. Why? Well, I can galvanize and insulate my heart from any kind of affection or any kind of delight in what I'm seeing on the screen. Nonsense. Nonsense. Nonsense. Don't lie. Don't lie. Everything we see and hear affects us. It does even subliminally and subtly, but it affects us. That's why the Bible says guard your heart. Hello, with all diligence for out of it flows the issues of life. We become what we see and hear and think. For out of the heart, the mouth speaketh, right? garbage in garbage. And if you add to this the technology, deifying man, rap music, the arrogance, the level of arrogance and the level of pride in man taking this rap and calling it music and then voicing through this so-called music the most wretched kind of thoughts, verbalizing thoughts that you would be afraid to even think you would. Did somebody hear me think that in front of your mother or father? But they're out on the radio minimizing women and speaking out loud. Thoughts about killing police and politicians and just destroying every moral pillar that has been laid in our society. Every discipline, every science, every philosophy, medicine, all categories of knowledge is being used to deify man today. Self-esteem. I'm going to share my other three points very quickly. Number two, what the Bible says about the church. We see why this murderer is trying to present himself as a comic book character, the Joker. It's a statement about our culture. But the church is in rough shape today. In 2 Timothy 3.5, turn there, please. Let's talk about the end times, having a form of godliness, but denying its power and from such people turn away. It's talking about the professing evangelical church. That will descend to a place of form without power. So what do we need to do? We need to preserve power, the power of God, right? The form is great. I go to many places and every word is in place. The theology is orthodox. But what we need is we need to preserve and increase the power of God, the life of God, the love of God, right, and the light of God. And that requires us to cry to God in prayer to do that. So the danger of the end time church is first to have form without power, secondly, in verse seven. Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, that is, they will have had knowledge, but little heart knowledge. A brother earlier today was concerned about preserving shared with me about preserving heart knowledge, the knowledge of the Lord, assurance of salvation, the fruit of the spirit. To give life and renew life. where it already exists. There's an attack on the truth today. It seems like very few Christians care that truth is being cast into the streets and trampled upon. Unity is more important and we can never compromise on the truth for the sake of unity. Ever. Ever. So many false conversions. In the megachurches, true believers are leaving the mega churches are being emptied of the true believers and. Counterfeit Christians are taking their place. It's happening in medium sized churches to 50,000, 100,000 pastors has signed on to the purpose driven church philosophy by Rick Warren, 100,000 evangelicals. We're not talking about Catholics. We're not talking about the liberals. We're not talking about Methodists and Unitarians and Lutherans and Episcopalians. We're talking about evangelical churches of our brethren, of our brethren, pastors, 100,000 pastors. That's most of the pastors in America. That's most of them. Did you hear what I said? We need to be weeping on our faces. You need to be praying for me, for him, Owen, Pastor Downing, Pastor Phillips, Pastor Sheldon. You think we're immune to the attacks of the enemy? Don't take truth for granted. Preserve it. Preserve it. Cling to it. Number three, what the Bible says about the mind. Test the spirits whether they be of God, for there are many false spirits, deceitful spirits out there. First John 4.4. God gave them up to a depraved mind because they did not receive the love of the truth. But God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power and love and a sound mind, a sound mind. We need to protect our mind. The light of the body is the eye. You need to protect your discernment, the light that is in you. Because your discernment will depend on whether you have light or truth or darkness or deception as your guiding, discerning lamp. You protect your mind and your heart. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. That you present your bodies, living sacrifice as holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Like never before, the world has encroached upon churches and believers. It is such a powerful pull and influence and draw upon us when you add technology and other things as tools to have us become worldly. Some of you have expressed to me, and I've talked to others outside this church, true believers, friends of mine, that one of the greatest things that we view is worldly churches, worldly churches. We've got to get the world out of the church and out of our lives. Well, in closing, what does the Bible say about our need? How do we Protect ourselves from a wicked, corrupt and perverse culture in these last days. Well, I'm going to offer you a few things. The first one is the righteousness of Christ. And this is the most important one. In Luke, chapter 21, I want everyone to turn with me. Will you give me a few more minutes? Bear with me and bear with the word of exhortation. I realize it's warm and I understand that, but I'm concerned about Christ Bible Church that we make it to the end. And we make it to the end. Some of us have had some rocky times as Christians, but I don't know about you, but I want to end well. And however much I've got to commit myself to the work of the Lord and consecrate myself to the service of the Lord and walking with God, whatever I must sacrifice, I've got to give that up. I've got to sacrifice it that I can make it to the end and those who are with me. And you should have the same attitude about yourself and your family and those in your world. The righteousness of Christ, I realize that some of you here today are not believers, whether you be a young person or an adult. And and I want to, first of all, address myself to you. Can I ask you a question? You that are not yet Christians, what's holding you back? What's stopping you from being saved and putting your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, laying your life down at His feet, trusting Him for everything else you need, but most importantly for your salvation, seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you. What is stopping you? How many times has the Lord come to you in grace and in love and in mercy and given you yet one more opportunity, one more opportunity before your health is taken away and you're on a deathbed and you can't speak, you can't, you can't move. And I've gone to people as a pastor who were on their deathbed. The only thing they can do is hear. With literally hours or minutes to live, my own father, As he was dying, well, with my brothers and sisters in the room, I was pleading with him. I took the bully pulpit and I pleaded with him. And you know how when you die, your breaths get shorter and shorter. He was at like his fourth or third breath before he died. I'm pleading with him. Dad, please repent of your sin and trust in Jesus Christ. Erwin Jacobs, my father, my sister, right then and there, stomped out of the room. How dare you take control of that event? But my heart broke from my father, and to his dying breath I was pleading with him to be saved. Is that what it's going to take to get your attention? Seek the Lord while he is near. Call upon him while he may be found. Let the unrighteous forsake his way, and the wicked man his thought, and let him return unto the Lord, for he will abundantly pardon. Jesus said, Come unto me, all ye that weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Aren't you tired of carrying that heavy load of sin on your back? A thousand pounds of sin, as it were, on your back all these years? This ball and chain of wickedness dragging you down, dragging your life down to the pit? Oh, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And that weight will fall off of you. And He will give you His yoke and His burden, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light. In Luke chapter 21, we read in verse thirty four Luke twenty one thirty four this is our Lord's application to the end times generation that he just spoke to in the preceding verses he addresses the last days church talks about the signs of the times and he gives the remedy and the solution for us to be found in a place of safety and security at his second coming. He says in verse thirty four, but take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing drunkenness and cares of this life. And that day, see the word day, it has a capital D. That's the day of the Lord, the second coming of Christ. Come on you unexpectedly, for it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Never before in the history of the world it does the Bible describe such a snare taking place on a worldwide scale, except the days of Noah and the end times generation. Now, here's the remedy. Verse thirty six. Watch, therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. He's referring to two remedies in verse thirty six. First is that you would be worthy to stand before the Son of Man. Now he's speaking both to non-Christians, unsaved people, and to people in the church who are also unsaved. They're religious, they're in the church, but they're not saved. And he says, look, you need to pray that you would be worthy to stand before the Son of Man. What is he talking about? He's talking about this worthiness. And what is our worthiness? What makes us acceptable to God? It's the righteousness of Christ. If you are clothed in Christ's righteousness on Judgment Day and God looks at you, he sees the righteousness of Christ, which is a perfect righteousness. His sacrifice of himself on the cross was an offering made by Christ on behalf of sinners that was acceptable by God because Christ fulfilled the law. He kept the Ten Commandments. He obeyed God perfectly. He fulfilled all of the law's demands. And therefore, when he sacrificed himself in the sinner's place, he paid our debt where we could not pay it. And he, by the sacrifice of himself, vicariously. Presents us perfect in the sight of God and the passive and active obedience of Christ takes place, that is. the passive obedience, the judgment of God on his own son for my sin where Christ passively, as it were, receives the wrath and fury of God's anger in his own body on the cross in my place as a sinner. He substitutes himself and bears God's wrath that that I deserve. Oh, that passive obedience takes God's wrath off of me and puts it on his son. Jesus pays for all of my sins, every single one of them, past, present and future. The act of obedience of Christ is where Christ takes of his righteousness and imputes it to me. He applies it to my account. I have no righteousness of my own. I have nothing but sin and self-righteousness. But I need perfect righteousness to stand before the God of heaven and to have fellowship with Him forever while Christ gives me of His righteousness. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. You need to have this righteousness, this transfer of your sin to Christ and of Christ's righteousness to yourself. If you would but believe Him for it, As the Lord says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. He will give you His righteousness. Come before Him broken, owning nothing of your own, casting off your own righteousness, self-righteousness, good works, coming before Him empty-handed, saying, Lord, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Your cross I cling. The other thing in this verse, and I'm going to close here, I have a few other things, but my time is up. I'm right at 4 o'clock. is that we need to pray always that we would escape this snare. The first snare is to die unsaved, to have Christ come at his second coming and you and I be unsaved. So we need to pray that we would stand before Christ in a worthy manner. And how do we become worthy? We trust him to save us and he gives us of his righteousness. That's our worthiness. It's nothing of us. The second thing he tells us to do is pray always. See that? Look at it. Watch therefore and what? Pray always. That's a lot of praying always. There's another verse that says pray without ceasing, right? Now we know what that means. It means always be in the attitude of prayer. But this verse is in the literal sense and tense. That means you're to pray a lot, not every waking moment, but a lot. He's speaking to all believers. He's saying prayers got to be, in other words, our number one ministry. before evangelism before any other ministry we need to be on our faces because why is a worldwide snare that will dilute and deceive the most intelligent brilliant PHDs of religion in the secular universities, all of them will be deceived if they are not saved, that they are lost. This snare is a snare of deception, where Satan, we read in 2 Thessalonians 2, the dragon will deceive everyone. You say, oh, I'm intelligent. Oh, you're not that intelligent. No one will be able to buy or sell. Your whole life will depend on whether you receive this mark, whatever that mark is, whether it's the 666 or a barcode or something invisible. I don't know. But the pressure and the pull to sign on to the deception will be so strong, you will not be able to resist. Even the Bible says the very elect will almost be seen, be deceived. That's how strong a pull it will be. Even the elect will say, wow, are these signs and wonders from God? Look, it's fire coming down from heaven. I've never seen. It's got to be from God if it's a miracle. But the Bible says there'll be false and lying signs where the dragon, for the first time, will be empowered to do miracles that prophets did, like Elijah calling down fire from heaven. I can understand why some believers will second guess. We need to be insulated and protected But from this deception and we on the positive sense need to be renewed in the love of God, renewed in faith, where these two greatest of fruits of the spirit will fall on hard times in the end of the world, where Jesus said, when I come again, will there really be faith on the earth and the love of God? It says about the love of God in Matthew 24. Men's hearts, it says they will be cold. Lawlessness will abound. Love of many will grow cold. Your love and my love will be tempted to grow cold. Your faith and my faith will diminish. So we've got to pray always. Are you doing that, brethren? Are you doing that? Are you concerned about your soul and the souls of your loved ones, the souls of your brethren, the souls of your children, the souls of your co-workers, your neighbors? We've got to pray always. We've got to come before God and disown our sense of self-sufficiency and tell God, regardless of all of our great creeds and confessions and theology, and I love it all, we need to ask God to send out the Holy Spirit to breathe life into that theology. to feed his people with knowledge and with understanding and to revive us and keep us that way. Until he comes again. That's what our Lord Jesus commands us to do. Are we going to obey that? You said, but it's hot in here, you know, and at 430 when church is over or four o'clock, which is over, you know, it's like anticlimactic to go to a prayer meeting. I'll tell you something that's anticlimactic. Judgment Day for a lot of people. That's going to be anticlimactic. But for believers it's going to be climactic. It's going to be glorious. But while we're here on this earth, we have to keep our focus completely and totally and only on Jesus Christ. And we have to trust Him to do what only He can do for us and in us. And we have to keep praying for him to do that until he strengthens and revives us and save souls. And we need to keep doing that until the end. It's actually a very simple proposition. But to sustain the doing of it is a hard thing, takes a lot of exhortation, a lot of reminder, a lot of ministry of remembrance, a lot of admonition and a lot of teaching and a lot of weeping. Will you join with me? I can't, I'm not the church, we're the church. I'm just one member. That's it. One little old member. If I die today, Joe who? Ten years from now, Joe who? Do you remember your grandfather? I don't remember my great grandfather. I never met him. You'll be forgotten, I'll be forgotten. But the work of Christ will live on forever. This work must continue. Let's pray. Lord, I just pray very succinctly, take this word that was shared, cause us to own it, to apply it, to believe it, to live it out. Have mercy on the lost and save their souls. In Jesus name, Amen.