Hello, this is Elder Brandon Hartfield. We're thankful to have this opportunity to come and be on the radio broadcast again this week. We certainly desire the prayers of those of you that know the Lord, and by the Lord's help, we certainly pray that we could be used of God to be a blessing. Before we get started, we do want to look to the Lord in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, as we come to you this day, Lord, we're so thankful for the many wonderful things that you've done for us. Help us to stand, Father, with your message today. Lead and guide by your Holy Spirit that we that are saved be drawn closer to you. Those that are lost could be drawn to your Son, Jesus, for an everlasting salvation. And Father, we pray that your will would be accomplished in it all. Father, you know those who've lost loved ones. You know those that are sick. Father, you know the need of our nation. Father, we pray that you'd look down and bless as only you can. And for the good that is accomplished, let us step aside and give you the praise. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As we come today, we're in the book of 2 Timothy chapter 3. We went through verses 1 and 2 last week. We're going to reread that and then pick up in verse 3 of chapter 3 of 2 Timothy. He said, This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. And of course, this is going on within the church, and that's the main problem that you find the Apostle Paul dealing with. That's why he calls it perilous times. Again, they were facing persecution. He's facing death at this time. And yet he says the perilous times are coming when God's people are no longer listening to the Word of God. And that's what we see today. I know for myself that I can preach very basic, simple doctrine, and a lot of people don't want it. They want everything just like they want it, and then they're like, now preach against somebody else's sins. When you preach against somebody else's sins, I'll amen it because I'm not guilty of that. But don't preach against mine. And whenever you do preach against it, they're going, well, God doesn't want me to live that way. Well, I understand the Bible better. And I understand that, you know, sometimes they'll take and say, well, you know, to really get that, you have to look at the Old Testament and God, you know, He gives us grace to get day. And I'm going, you know, that God has not changed, right? Now there are some things that have been fulfilled in the law in Christ, but Jesus himself said, I didn't come to tear down the law. In fact, he said not one jot or one tittle of the law would go away. Now there's things that have been fulfilled of the law. We don't need the sacrifices, we don't need the high priest, because Christ is our high priest. There's things that have been fulfilled, and rightly dividing scripture, it's easy to see what things, you know, apply and don't apply. There were some things that were ceremonial. There were some things that signified sins. And there were other things that were just plain sinful. And God hasn't changed on those things whatsoever. Thou shalt not commit adultery, fornication. I mean, you could get into tattoos and a lot of other things. And God's still against those things. God wants us to represent Him on this earth. He wants us to decrease to ourselves and increase toward Him. But yet there's a lot of Christians that say, well, God loves my individuality. No, there's things about you that God can use. But God actually likes us all conforming to the image of Christ. That's clearly taught in the New Testament. God likes us all conforming to His image. God likes the laws of His Word written upon our heart. Now again, within that That doesn't mean we're all going to dress exactly the same, but there should be a sameness in the line of modesty. There should be a sameness in morals. There should be a sameness in, you know, doctrines. There are things that are supposed to be the same no matter where you come from and no matter what background you come from. And there are things that are supposed to unite us. Now there are some, you know, cultural differences in different regions that God's really not concerned about. When I say that, I'm talking about accent. You know, a farmer's probably going to look like a farmer when you see him dressed. A businessman's probably going to look like a businessman. And, you know, things of this nature. And even, you know, within cultures there might be a difference in some of the colors of the clothing or sometimes even a little bit of the styles. But the line of modesty should be the same. And yet people today say, well, modesty really doesn't matter to God. But it does. It does. And what we're seeing is we're seeing a decline, and what we're seeing really is rebellion against God's Word, and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft according to Scripture with God. I mean, it's a huge sin. I mean, my goodness, you've probably got even, you know, some Christians that say, well, it's fine for me to partake in things of witchcraft, and God's fine with it. I mean, there's a lot of sin going on. And you get to verse 3 and he mentions this, he says, without natural affection. Now let's deal with that for just a moment. Let's dig into it. How many wives have a natural affection for their husband? And how many husbands have a natural affection for their wives? Or they treat them like, you know, you can go. The Bible says that once we're married, we become one flesh. Divorcing my wife should be like having to cut off my arm. Or having to cut off my foot. Or having to remove one of my eyes. You know, something drastic. If it's part of my flesh, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, what the scripture says, it's gotta be a pretty severe thing. Let me give you an example. I'll use my my Pawpaw for an example. Years ago my Pawpaw had horrible knee problems and I would see him gingerly get up and gingerly sit down and you know just some of his movement wasn't the best and I'd say Pawpaw why don't you go to the doctor and have surgery and he said I can still use it and I can still deal with the pain. He said, I'm not taking this part of my body out of me unless it's absolutely necessary. And I mean to him, you know, that body part, even though it was causing him pain and causing him great discomfort, he said it still works. it's painful it's hard to deal with sometimes but it still works I don't know how the others gonna work and he had known some people that had surgeries had complications had to go back in and have surgery and all the rehabbing again and again and he said I think I can deal with this and again I wanna express to you extreme pain but yet he said this is my body it still works I'm still dealing with it I've seen people have their arms messed up and broken and different things and a lot of pain. They'll say, oh, it'll heal. We'll work through this. We'll get through it. Don't cut it off though. That's my arm. Many soldiers can probably tell you that, unless it's just necessary, don't cut off my leg, don't cut off my arm, don't discard this. I want everything I can have, as long as there's some way it can still work. Sometimes it's nothing but, you know, a little prop thing. It doesn't really work right, but they say, I still don't want to cut it off. It has to be some pretty serious situations, and even then, It's very painful. I've had some people with diabetes and they've had to have toes and feet and sometimes up to their leg cut off because of, you know, diabetes and sometimes with cancer things have to be cut off and things of this nature. And you're looking at that and when somebody says, you've got to cut this off, and even though they understand, it's completely necessary, you'll see sometimes they just break down and cry. This is my bone. This is my flesh. And now I've got to get rid of it. And it's painful even though if they didn't do it, it might would kill them. But they wait until it's at the moment that it's going to cause them serious pain or death before they cut it off. Is there that kind of natural affection towards husbands and wives in marriage? We see more people that as soon as there's a problem, there's friends coming around, family members coming around, and saying, why don't you just leave? This is painful to you. This is harmful to you. Why don't you just leave? And a lot of times, people will. Listen, if you get down to the biggest reasons for divorce today, it's not because my life's in danger, you know, the person's abusing me and putting my life in danger, putting my kids in danger. It's not adultery. It's not some of these bigger things. A lot of times it's just, well, we don't get along. Well, work that out. And what you might have to do is let go of you. But getting a divorce should be as difficult as somebody saying, okay, cut my arm off. Cut my leg off. That's bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. It's got to get pretty bad. And sometimes we think things are worse than they are. You know, we're good in our day and time of making some mountains out of molehills. That's the way people live today. Everything is a huge deal. Everything's a big event. Listen, there's got to be some pretty drastic stuff to justify a divorce. The person doesn't care for your life and is threatening to kill you for your own personal safety. You know, for your children's safety, something like that, or, you know, fornications mentioned in the scripture as a reason. But even then, God says, but if you leave them, you leave them and don't marry again. You can go and read that. That's out of Jesus' own mouth. So if you're arguing with somebody, don't come back and say, well, Brother Brennan says it's wrong to get a divorce. You might want to read some words of Jesus. And if we're a follower of Christ, do we believe Him or do we believe ourselves? Lean not into your own understanding, but in all thy ways, you know, we're supposed to acknowledge the Lord, lean upon His Word. Don't get mad at me. There's a lot of times when people get mad. And sometimes people don't realize the mistakes that they've made until after they've made them. And I understand that. And I understand it's better to marry than to burn in lust. I can put all those things in their proper place. But it doesn't change what the scripture says about it. There's a lot of men not loving their bodies as it says in Ephesians chapter 5, as their own flesh. There's a lot of women not loving their husbands as bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. And submitting themselves one to another in the fear of the Lord as it's taught. And now as we go with natural affection, how much natural affection is there for mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters? Some people say, I can care less if I see my brother or my sister. That's sad, isn't it? Listen, I understand that people can get into a place that you just can't be around them because they're a bad influence on you. There are people that want to use you, leech off of you and things of this nature. I understand that. There are boundaries that have to be set. But to not love and not pray for somebody and not have a desire that they repent That's a totally different subject. I've had people say, I don't want anything to do with my parents. And listen again, I understand boundaries. I understand that sometimes people hurt. But I guarantee you, we've all hurt God more than anybody's hurt us. And if you don't believe that, you haven't analyzed yourself accordingly by scripture. And you haven't seen what all you've done against God. You say, you have no idea what's been done to me. Listen, I can tell you people that had cigarettes put out on them. I can introduce you to people that were abused, molested, and different things, and they can all tell you they've done worse to God than other people have done to them. The problem is, is we have a horrible perspective of things. And what is sad about that is we don't see our own sins. Say, well, I haven't done anything that bad. Sometimes we don't analyze what rebellion is against God. Sometimes we haven't studied spiritual fornication according to Scripture and really delved in to some things that we've done in our life. Again, if you would get Christians to really focus on the wrong that they've done in life, you'd see tears returning to the church house. You'd see repentance turning to churches. You would see the floors again saturated by the tears of people of repentance when they finally see themselves as who they are and they see their failures and all of that, they see the cost of their failures and what it means to lost people, what it's meant to their family, what it's done because, again, we have a hard time seeing sin as what it is. I mean, the wages of sin is death. And we don't see that that doesn't just apply to us. That sometimes our influence on people's lives and what we think is little sin and little nothing and it's not that big of a deal, we don't see the hindrance it's been to others and how we might have led people to hell. Can you name something worse than leading somebody to hell? Or being a hindrance to somebody that causes them to go to hell because they don't trust in Christ because the way you acted, or the way that you performed as a human being, the way your character was, the way you reflected Christ negatively, positively, or not at all? Is there anything worse than doing something that hinders somebody where they might lift their eyes and hail? I'll remind you again, we don't recognize our sin anymore. We don't see what our sin has done to others. And I can say this from preachers all the way to the back of the church house, there's not a single person that couldn't have a good, weeping time of crying over their sins and repentance if we really saw them. One day we're going to see the consequences of it on Judgment Day. And we're going to receive a reward, whether it be good or whether it be evil. And I'm not talking about soul salvation. That's fixed in Christ. Soul salvation is only by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're talking about rewards here. We're talking about being judged for our actions after we're saved, which has nothing to do with soul salvation. I tell you, if we'd really see it, it would cause every single one of us to weep. How much weeping do we see on Sundays and Sunday nights and midweek service? Not near enough. In a lot of churches, I've had preachers tell me they haven't seen a teardrop hit the floor in a church service in decades. We do not see our sin. And when we don't respect our parents, when we hate people, we have bitterness in our heart, that's not natural affection. The same people that persecuted the Apostle Paul, he said, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. And let me tell you, if you go back and read chapter 9, read chapter 10, read chapter 11, and you can probably go back to chapter 8 and into chapter 12, you will see that that's not just a one-line statement. If you read the other epistles, you know it's not a one-line statement. If you look at his life and how in every city he went to, the first people he preached to, even though he was an apostle to the Gentiles, the first people he preached to were the Jews. And they were the same people putting him in prison, stoning him, and even desiring that he be put to death. And he forgave them. Your friend, there's a lot of things we need to remember. There's a lot of things we need to put in perspective of natural affection. And you know, even children are without natural affection, aren't they? No love for the parents, parents, no love for the children. My goodness, you got people that can willingly walk down to to a Planned Parenthood or an abortion clinic and they can feel movement in their body, they can feel the kicking and they still want to get rid of it. That's not natural, is it? There's been multiple cases of where people have found babies in dumpsters. That's not natural, is it? My goodness, we live in a day and time when people cut upon themselves, pumping themselves with all kinds of drugs that they know is harmful. That's not natural to want to do to your own body, is it? We live in a time where there's not a lot of natural affection. And let me say this, because it's not there, even to those who are close to Him, how is it among God's people and brothers and sisters in Christ? Is there a lot of natural affection? Or do we hear a lot of people saying, well, I'm glad that person's gone. That's not natural, is it? He said truce breakers, false accusers, I mean, this gets into lying. My word doesn't mean anything. I'll do whatever's best for me if I have to lie to you to get it. God loves people that'll tell the truth even to their own hurt. That's what God loves. But we got people even declaring the name of Christ that won't mind lying to you to gain them a buck. Truth breakers. They'll lie about somebody just because it advances their cause. False accusers. Again, this isn't talking about out in the world. This is amongst God's people. They're not considering the damage it's doing to the gospel of Christ, the damage it's doing to lost people. They're selfish. The whole emphasis of all this is men just become selfish. And not without in the world, even within God's people. And He said that's why this is perilous times. He said, incontinent. They're just never satisfied, are they? Never get enough. Fierce. Angry all the time. My goodness, we're living in a day and time where I have Christians that say, well, you know, God just made me with a stronger temper than somebody else. Have you heard what you're saying? Well, God gave me more lust than somebody else. God gave me this desire more than somebody else. God made me this way. My goodness, if people would listen to themselves. Listen, you're born sinners, but greater is he that is within you than he that is within the world. We are to deny ourselves and follow Christ. You know how many Christians say, well, I just have this feeling. I've got to go by my feeling. I've got to go by this emotion. I've got to submit to this. I just have this longing. I can't go without it. Because you don't want to deny yourself and follow the Lord. People say, I can't control my temper. Well, you know the background I come from. You know, I can say for my side, you know us Hartfields. That's my last name. There's a lot of things in the Hartfield family. Thing is, I've got stronger blood in me than heart-filled blood, and that's the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know which one gets the preeminence? Whichever one I yield myself to. Do I yield myself to the Spirit of God, or do I yield myself to the Spirit of my flesh? If you say you can't overcome any sin, it's because you're not yielding yourself to God. That's it. Let's just be honest about it. And we've entered, for the first time, that I've known of, I know it's been a continual thing, a gradual thing over the years, but I tell you what, over the past 10, 20 years, you've seen a great increase amongst God's people that, well, people just can't control their sins. Look, boys are gonna be boys, kids are gonna be kids, people are gonna be people, you know, we're just human. If you say any of that garbage, repent now. Repent now. Because it don't fit scripture. It doesn't come close to fitting scripture. We're just lazy and we don't want to repent. We just want to have excuses and we want to live in our sin and say it's okay and it's not. You got a problem with anger? You need to spend a lot of time in prayer and fasting and giving yourself to God and yielding yourself to the Spirit of God instead of the Spirit of your flesh. You need to daily wake up and adjust your mind. Crucifying the flesh daily. Daily renewing ourselves in the things of God. He says, despisers of those that are good. I don't have time to get into the depth of this today. And we're covering one verse today. But my goodness have I seen some good Christians ridiculed in church in our day and time. Well they just think they're better than everybody else. That's not their attitude at all. They're just actually submitting to Christ and you hate them because they're actually doing it and you're not. Well they just don't have to deal with what we have to deal with. They got the same flesh you got. They have the same temptations you have. Stop that lying to yourself. They don't have the wife I have. Guess what? If you've got a wife, you've got a woman just like anybody else. Now are there worse women or less Christian women than others? But that woman daily has to submit herself to Christ just like anybody else and that man has to daily submit himself to Christ just like anybody else. We despise people that actually follow the Word of God and we despise more those that actually expect us to live towards God. I've mentioned it on this program before. There was a time when I did nothing but read scriptures of what God wants us to do. And the only comment I made after reading about 20, 30 scriptures and just going through and basically just simply explaining those scriptures, not adding to it, not taking away, not doing anything, I read scriptures and then at the end said, what does God say about this subject? I had people coming out and saying, I disagree with the message that you presented. And I was like, I didn't present one, I read you scripture. It wasn't my opinion, my view. But see, that's the world that we live in today. We don't want to take heed to scripture and we want nobody to hold us accountable to the scripture. Because how dare somebody say a Christian should live like a Christian. How dare another Christian say you're not living for God like you should. And let me tell you some of the greatest despising of Christians going on is inside churches. Churches want to get rid of the preacher who actually preach the Bible instead of preaching what they want to hear. There's a whole lot of it going on. Let me tell you the remedy for what we're dealing with. It's a simple word. Repent. That's what we need to do. Repent. And let me tell you, it needs to start from the pulpits out. Preachers holding back Scripture, saying, well, they just don't want to hear it. They just don't want to believe it, so I'm not going to preach it. Your job is to preach the whole counsel of God. But I might be sent down the road. Well, at least you cleansed your hands. There needs to be more preachers that are concerned about cleaning their hands before God than if they're going to be pastoring that church or not. Politics needs to be leaving church houses. Political correctness needs to be leaving church houses. And people need to get back to the Word of God. Because we're heady, we're high-minded, we're despisers of those that are good. We're false accusers, truce breakers, and we don't have natural affection. And you know where that main affection begins with? Our love for God. Because natural affection for God makes us want to flee sin and flee iniquity. And if we don't want to do that, we don't love God. And that's the main problem. And dear friend, today my prayer is that we will repent. I pray this could be a help and a blessing to us. I pray that you understand that's the purpose of our heart. If you have anything upon your heart, our number is 601-606-4681. You can write us, Brandon Hartfield, 8 Smith Drive, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 39401. Heavenly Father, we pray that you'll take this message Use it to your honor and glory, for the good accomplished through it. Let us step aside and give you the praise, for it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.