Perilous Times

Good morning and welcome to Insights

with Pastor John.

Today we're going to talk about perilous

times. And uh

let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank

you for this opportunity to take a look

at your word today. We ask Lord that you

open our minds and hearts to receive.

Help us to understand what you're saying

to us, Lord. And help us to see the

truth in the things that you say. In

Jesus name we pray. Amen.

So,

perilous times and uh we're going to be

looking at several different passages of

scripture this morning. Uh the first one

is in Matthew chap 7 and this is Jesus

speaking from the sermon on the mount.

It's right at the end of the sermon

starts in verse 15 of chapter 7. He

says, "Beware of false prophets which

come to you in sheep's clothing, but

inwardly they are ravening wolves.

You shall know them by their fruits. Do

men gather grapes of thorns or figs of

thistles? Even so, every good tree

bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt

tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good

tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,

neither can a corrupt tree bring forth

good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not

forth good fruit is heuned down and cast

into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits

you shall know them.

Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord,

Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of

heaven, but he that doeth the will of my

father which is in heaven. Many will say

to me, in that day, Lord, Lord, have we

not prophesied in thy name? and in thy

name have cast out devils and in thy

name done many wonderful works and then

I will profess unto them I never knew

you depart from me ye that work

iniquity. So as I was studying this I I

was in

in prayer about it and to have a better

understanding.

There's a a whole bunch of people out

there that think that uh the walk of a

Christian is simply doing what uh Romans

10:9 and10 says.

And uh that's all you got to do from

that point on. You're saved. You can

never fall from grace. Nothing's going

to happen. U everything's going to be

good and wonderful.

And uh you're perfect just the way you

are. God accepts you as you are, which

he does. Uh but you don't have anything

to do after that point.

And uh

Romans 10:9 says that if thou shalt

confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,

and shall believe in thy heart that God

hath raised him from the dead, thou

shalt be saved. For with the heart man

believeth unto righteousness, and with

the mouth confession is made unto

salvation.

And verse 11 says, "For the scripture

saith, whosoever believeth on him shall

not be ashamed."

Um, and as I was reading that and

reading this, I'm asking

this question,

which is

what was Jesus talking about when he

said, "If if Romans 8:9 and 10 says what

it says, and I truly believe that it

means what it says,

then if I do that, how could I fall into

the group of people that he's talking

about here because if if I if I look at

one, how can the other be true also? And

they're both true. And the reason I say

that is Jesus made some statements in

his ministry. Uh he was speaking to the

people one time and um he he made this

statement. Remember Lot's wife? Well,

what happened to Lot's wife? Well,

in Sodom and Gomorrah, God sent the

angels in. They told Lot to take his

wife and his two daughters and to leave

the city and not look back. He provided

salvation for them. And he told them to

go and not look back. And as they were

leaving, what happened? Lot's wife

stopped and turned around and looked

back. She looked back at the life she'd

left behind, and she was turned into a

pillar of salt.

Jesus also made this statement will be

unto him to put his hands to the plow

and look back. And as I was going

through that and thinking about that,

stop and think about this. Judas

who betrayed Jesus

had a full portion of the ministry that

Christ had u given to them and he sold

that

portion of ministry for 30 pieces of

silver. The money meant more to him than

Jesus did. Therefore, he lost everything

that he had worked for.

Now,

how does that apply today? And that's

always that's always one of the

questions you should always ask when

you're studying the Bible. There's some

things you need to do. The first one is

always study it in context. Never

nitpick or pick out a a scripture

without reading the scriptures before it

and the ones that come after it. So,

read it in context. The next thing you

have to do

is you need to understand who Jesus or

who the writer was speaking to, why he

was speaking it, and what was going on.

And so as I was reading this and and I'm

looking at this and I'm saying, "Okay,

Lord,

for me to enter into the kingdom of

heaven, I have to do the will of the

father

because if I don't, I'm going to stand

before Christ's judgment seat and I'm

going to make all these claims and then

he's going to confess to me, I never

knew you. Depart from me, you workers of

iniquity."

So I started asking the question,

well, how can a person be saved

and and working in ministry and lose

their place in heaven?

And I realized that there's a lot of

people

who

have opened the doors to things that

will separate them from God.

And uh in this uh 2 Timothy chapter 3,

this is what he says starting in verse

one. He says, "This know know also that

in the last days perilous time shall

come. For men should be lovers of their

own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,

blasphemers, disobedient to parents,

unthankful, unholy, without natural

affection, truce breakers, false

accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers

of those that are good, traitors, heady,

high-minded, lovers of pleasures more

than lovers of God, having a form of

godliness, but denying the power

thereof. from such turn away. For of

this sort are they that which creep into

houses and lead captive silly women

laden with sins led away with diverse

lusts, ever learning and never able to

come to the knowledge of the truth. Now

as Janice and Jambre withtood Moses, so

do these also resist the truth. men of

corrupt minds reprobate concerning the

faith, but they shall proceed no

further. For their folly shall be

manifest unto all men as theirs also

was. So, as I was reading through this

and trying to gain understanding of what

Jesus said, I realized there's a whole

lot of people out there that come in the

name of Jesus

and

try to convince you that the message

they have for you is the message of the

hour.

Uh but and on the outside they look

really great. They look really good. But

on the inside, as Jesus said, they're

filled with dead men's bones because

they are their concern is not where you

spend eternity, but how much fame and

fortune they can gain.

And uh he warns us not to follow those

that preach the gospel for the sake of

money.

James in chapter James chapter 1, James

put it like this,

give me just a second while I turn to

the passage of scriptures.

James put it this way. He said, "My

brethren, count it all joy when you fall

into diverse temptations, knowing this,

that the trying of your faith workketh

patience, but let patience have her

perfect work, that you may be perfect

and entire, wanting nothing. If any of

you lack wisdom, let him ask of God to

give it to all men libery, and upgradeth

not, and it shall be given him. But let

him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For

he that waveth is like a wave of the

sea, driven with the wind, and tossed.

For let no, let not that man think that

he shall receive anything of the Lord. A

double-minded man is unstable in all his

ways. So you can be uh double-minded and

ruin your own

uh opportunities with God to move

forward simply because you can't uh grab

a hold and believe that what Jesus said

he means and um you there is two sides

to our walk with Christ. We have what

Christ said would he would do which when

he was hanging on the cross he said it

is finished everything that was needed

had been completed and then there's your

part which requires you

to walk according to what Christ has

told you

and so as I was going through this

um

I realized that there's a whole lot that

uh we can uh

ruin for ourselves. And I want to read

this to you. This is out of first Peter.

It says, "Wherefore g up the learn uh

sorry in verse 13. Wherefore gird up the

loins of your mind, be sober and hope to

the end for the grace that is to be

brought unto you at the revelation of

Jesus Christ. as obedient children, not

fashioning yourselves according to the

form of lust in your ignorance. But as

he which hath called you is holy, so be

ye holy in all manner of conversation.

Because it is written, "Be ye holy, for

I am holy." And if you call on the

father, who without respect of persons

judgeth according to every man's work,

pass the time of your s sojourning, hear

in fear. For as much as you know that

you were not redeemed with corruptible

things as silver and gold from your vain

conversations received by tradition from

your fathers, but with the precious

blood of Christ as of a lamb without

blemish and without spot, who verily was

for ordained before the foundation of

world, but was manifest in these last

times for you. who by him do believe in

God that raised him up from the dead and

gave him glory that your faith and hope

might be in God.

Seeing you have purified your souls and

obeying the truth through the spirit and

unfeigned love of the brethren. See that

you love one another with a pure heart

fervently being born again not of

corruptible seed but of incorruptible by

the word of God which liveth and abideth

forever. For all flesh is as grass, and

all the glory of man as the flower of

grass. The grass withers, and the flower

thereof fallth away, but the Lord but

the word of the Lord endureth forever.

And this is the word which by the gospel

is preached unto you.

And so we're living in times where

people

um they live

lies and they live delusion. They have

false interpretations of what judgment

is. Uh you've heard that statement,

don't judge me. Don't judge me. Or they

will misquote what Jesus said. He says,

judge not lest you be judged with the

same judgment wherewith you judge. And

he's not saying don't judge. He said

don't judge unrighteously. Well, how do

we judge? We're not judging in

condemnation. We are inspecting fruit.

We are looking to see if what they say

and what they do match. And if they

don't match, then we have to separate

ourselves from them. We shouldn't follow

what they say. If their actions and

their words do not line up, they're

false. And these are the false prophets

that Jesus is talking about. Just like

Judas, he spent three and a half years

traveling through J uh Judea and Galilee

and Samaria with Jesus.

And yet at the end he betrayed him

because his love of money uh had

completely corrupted him. And Jesus even

said, "Go and do as your father, the

devil, has commanded you." You know, and

it's it's pretty uh scary situation to

be there in a place where Jesus removes

his hand from you and lets you go.

I honestly believe with a whole heart

that you could send away your day of

grace. If you couldn't, the example of

Judas wouldn't be in the Bible. If you

couldn't, it wouldn't say in Hebrews

that if you willingly go back to the

life you were living before before there

remains no sacrifice to cover the sins.

You can send away your day of grace. You

can come to a place where the spirit of

God leaves you just like it did Saul

um when the king of Israel

and he received a tormenting spirit in

its place. He no longer was the anoint

he was the king but the anointed the

anointed king was David and it was

through acts of disobedience that caused

that to happen. And we when we look at

the old testament and we study the old

testament it's not just stories or

history.

There's examples of in the Old Testament

of how to live a righteous life and how

to get yourself into trouble and remove

yourself from the protection of God. And

so we should always start our

application of scripture

in this way. How does this apply to me?

Am I doing these things it tells me not

to do? Have I allowed these things to be

in my life?

You know, we're not talking about things

like is it okay to eat pork and

shellfish,

okay? Because

uh Jesus cleared that up in Acts chapter

10. He told Peter, "Don't call anything

I created unclean." He's speaking of

things that you could or could not eat.

Now, some of them might be disgusting or

whatever, but it doesn't mean that

they're not okay to eat. But on the

other hand,

he had condemned

u the homosexual lifestyle, LGBTQ plus

or whatever they call it now. Those are

all spoken directly against in the

Bible. And you you're not supposed to be

uh tolerant of that in a way where you

say, you know, it's all right. You're

okay. Everything's good. No, you have to

point out sin for sin. and that sin. But

you also have to provide the means of

escape from the sin which is Jesus

Christ. And if you are following Jesus,

you can't follow Jesus and live that

lifestyle. We're back to

actions speak louder than words. If I

sit here and claim to be saved every

day, all day long, yet in my life, I'm

living contrary to what God's word says,

I'm in danger of hellfire.

I could send away my day of grace. So

what is it that comes? The word of God

does two things. It convicts and it

converts. It convicts you of your sins

and your shortcomings and your failings.

And then it provides you hope that

through grace you are saved and that God

will deliver you from your own

stupidity.

Now people don't like it when I get real

like that, but it is what it is. Most of

the time the trouble we get into is not

caused by the enemy or and it's

definitely not caused by God. It's

caused by our own stupidity because our

mind is a place the devil attacks us at.

And he can't force us to do anything. He

can only try to convince us that through

deception that what we're doing is okay.

And therefore, he leads us astray. And

that's all he did in the Garden of Eden.

He he wrapped

a lie

with a little bit of truth

and he begiled and convinced her that it

was okay.

And after that, she in turn did the same

thing to Adam. And Adam who knew better

could have said no, but he didn't.

And that happens to us too. So as you go

through this where this week, I want you

to keep in mind that that we live in

perilous times. We live in times where

people uh just take a look at our

political uh environment right now. You

know, people out there claiming

tolerance for things the Bible says is

sin and saying, "Well, if you're a good

person, you know, you're going to

support these people living this

alternate lifestyle and all these kind

of things." No. If I'm a good person,

I'm going to point that out and say, you

know what, the Bible specifically speaks

against that. And whether you accept the

truth or reject the truth is immaterial

because if Jesus said it, I believe it.

And that makes it so. So when I look at

God's word, which is truly inspired by

the Holy Spirit, then I have to take a

stand for what that word says. And if I

don't, I'm guilty of it because I didn't

warn them.

So, as you're going through this week

and as you're looking at different

things and you're you're deciding

whether uh to accept or reject things

that people are are sharing with you,

remember at the end of the day, what

God's word says is final. If it says

it's sin, if it was sin 2,000 years ago

or 4,000 years ago or back at the

beginning of creation, it's still sin

today. And God doesn't wink at sin. He

judges sin righteously. But what Jesus

provides

is freedom from living that life of sin

and redemption

and being washed clean of your past. And

so it falls to you to make sure that

you're going through going forward based

on what God's word says.

So

I want to leave this with you. Perilous

times are around us today.

These are signs telling us that the

imminent return of Christ is about to

come.

If what I've said to you today ministers

to you in such a way that you find

yourself lacking,

repent.

Turn from it. Ask God to give you

victory over it. Trust him to do so.

and begin to walk according to God's

word.

So, I'm going to leave that with you

today. If I've ministered to you, praise

the Lord. If I've offended you, offended

you, it's the word that offended you and

not me. And I want you to have victory

in every area of your life. So, let's

pray. Thank you, Lord, for today and

your word. God, touch all these hearts

that'll hear today's message. Help them

understand that they are free from that

if they choose to be, but there are

consequences for the decisions we make.

I want to give you all the praise and

all the glory, Lord. Thank you for

forgiving me, for setting me free. Thank

you, Lord, for showing me when I mess

up, and help me, Lord, to move forward

in all things in Jesus name. Amen. All

right, guys. We'll see you next week.

Have a great