All of us at one point and time have asked this same question, "What is this world coming to?" What IS this world coming to? What is REALLY going on out there today? Every day, we hear about unspeakable violence happening in our schools, our shopping malls, department stores and even cultural venues like concerts. What is this world REALLY coming to? Many people ask the question, "If God is such a loving God, why does He allow all this evil and all of this violence to happen in this world today?" Who said He did?
The simple truth of the matter is, God has not allowed ANYTHING evil nor violent that takes place in this world. So, who's to blame for all the chaos happening today? We all love to blame the government, the police department, the President, Senators, Congress men and women. But if you truly want to know who the guilty party REALLY is, all you have to do is look in your own mirror at your own reflection. "What do you mean by that?" I mean that it is you and I who are truly responsible for what is happening in America and all over the world. "How are WE responsible for any of this?"
Simple really. When we keep silent when the enemies of God and the church take prayer, the Bible and the Ten Commandments out of our schools and government buildings. We allow this evil to run rampid in the world by not going out to vote in our elections. We allow it when we do vote and we are more concerned and more swayed in our decision on who to voter for with promises of reduction in taxes and better health care. Not that any of that is a bad thing, however, when we let issues like that blind us to the fact that a candidate is endorsed by or supports groups like the LGBTQ and Planned Parent Hood, we are not voting according to the Will of God. When we fail to rally the saints of God to protest the removal of the Holy Bible from our schools and do nothing when our governments let abominations like same sex marriage and abortion happen, we open the door for evil to run roughshod over our city, our state and our country! Let me show you, read Psalms 9:17-20.
"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. For the needy shall not always be forgotten. The expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. Arise, O Lord, do not let man prevail. let the nations be judged in Your sight. Put them in fear, O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men."
Heavenly Father, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We gather here today to pay homage to You, O Lord and exalt Your Name by hearing Your Word in this place. Let Your voice and Your grace fill our hearts today and open our eyes to Your Shekinah Glory. In Jesus Holy Name, we pray and ask it in faith believing and expecting it to be so. Amen and amen.
"The wicked shall be turned into hell!" Say that again, "The wicked SHALL be turned into hell!" That includes all the enemies of Israel, the Jewish people, the Church, and God Almighty Himself! But they will not be the only ones according to David here in Psalms 9. "And ALL the nations that FORGET GOD!" Think about that for a moment. Anyone and everyone who forsakes, forgets and rejects the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says will be TURNED INTO HELL!
You can see that is happening now in America and all over the world. THIS is why all the evil and chaos is happening today. We have forgotten the Lord our God! We have banned His Holy Bible from our classrooms. We have thrown His Ten Commandments out of our government buildings. We have allowed foolish atheists to have their way and get God's Word, His Commandments, and Himself kicked out of the places it's needed the most! And now, it's seeping into the pulpits of churches all over the world.
"How is THAT happening?", you say? Easy. Revelation 2:4-5 says, "Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent."
What is the first love John the Revelator is talking about here? The Gospel itself and the preaching thereof. Remember how I said in past sermons that Jesus IS the Gospel and the Gospel must be preached? I'm here to tell you that most churches in America itself have forsaken the preaching of the Gospel. Remember also that I told you that when you forsake the Gospel, you forsake Jesus Himself because He and the Gospel are one and the same? That stands true to this day and it will stand true for all time! Jesus IS the Gospel. And without the preaching and teachings of Christ our Lord in the pulpits of churches all over the world, the Bible says we shall be turned into hell because we have forgotten God! You forget God, you will be a living hell to everyone who crosses your path!
I've known and seen men and women who were full of the Spirit of the Lord who are now the most unrecognizable walks of life I have ever seen. Many of them have turned to drugs and alcohol! Many have fallen into sexual sin and have destroyed their marriages as a result! And many have just stopped believing period because they were deeply hurt by a church or a church member who was nothing but a wolf in sheeps clothing!
You'd be surprised how many people in the world today have fallen away from the faith all because the church has failed to minister to them and encourage them in the ways of our God! You'd be surprised how many people in the church today claim to be full of God, full of Jesus, full of the Holy Ghost and go out and live like the world, take part in the luxuries of the world, and try desperately to fit in with the world. People like that are not in it for the Glory of God the Father, they're in it for the glory of men! They want the spotlight to shine on them. They want to be recognized for their contributions and their dedication to the church and the ministry. They want everyone's attention BUT GOD'S! Let me tell you, they're full of fish! Plain and simple! And not the good kind either. Jesus dealt with people just like that when He walked this earth over 2,000 years ago. Matthew 23:1-39. I want to share this passage of Scripture from the New Living Translation so maybe you will receive new revelation to what Jesus says here.
"Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So, practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.
“Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi.’
“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ (Like the Catholics do, in other words.) for only God in Heaven is your Father. And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one Teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. (Think about that for a moment. Most people dream of living a life of luxury, having servants at your beck and call. And the Lord says the GREATEST among us MUST be a servant themselves! Hmm, oh my!) But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell you yourselves are!
“Blind guides! What sorrow awaits you! For you say that it means nothing to swear ‘by God’s Temple,’ but that it is binding to swear ‘by the gold in the Temple.’ Blind fools! Which is more important—the gold or the Temple that makes the gold sacred? And you say that to swear ‘by the altar’ is not binding, but to swear ‘by the gifts on the altar’ is binding. How blind! For which is more important—the gift on the altar or the altar that makes the gift sacred? When you swear ‘by the altar,’ you are swearing by it and by everything on it. And when you swear ‘by the Temple,’ you are swearing by it and by God, Who lives in it.
And when you swear ‘by Heaven,’ you are swearing by the throne of God and by God, Who sits on the throne.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things.
Blind guides! You strain your water, so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence!
You blind Pharisees! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.
Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed.
Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’
“But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started.
Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?
“Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law. But you will kill some by crucifixion, and you will flog others with whips in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city.
As a result, you will be held responsible for the murder of all godly people of all time—from the murder of righteous Abel to the murder of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you killed in the Temple between the sanctuary and the altar.
I tell you the truth, this judgment will fall on this very generation.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let Me. And now, look, your house is abandoned and desolate.
For I tell you this, you will never see Me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the One who comes in the Name of the Lord!”
Jesus dealt with the same hypocrites and vipers you and I deal with today. This is nothing new. Churches are FULL of people who claim to be the saints of God when on the inside, inside their very hearts, they are ravenous wolves in sheeps clothing!
But look at us as the Church! Now, WE have become LIKE THEM! Now WE are the ones who are back biting, gossiping and looking our pointed noses down on people who are supposed to be our brothers and sisters in Christ! WE are now putting people down because of a sin they committed in the past. WE are now the ones condemning people over a past that God Almighty has forgiven! WE are now the ones who are doing the same thing the Scribes and Pharisees were doing when Jesus walked this earth! And He posed the question to them, "How will escape being CONDEMNED to hell?"
Jesus said in John 13:34-35, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
We are commanded by the Lord Himself to love one another as He loved us. And yet, here we are putting each other down, hating each other, even killing each other with our words! Let me tell you, words are the most powerful weapon that can ever be used against someone! Words spoken in anger can leave the deepest scars on a person!
Our words can be fatal, fatal weapons if used inappropriately. You can kill someone with your words! "How?" I know many people who were once faithful and true to God until someone said something about them or to them that absolutely killed their faith! Now, they won't step foot in a church! They won't listen to anyone speak about God, about Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit. Those people are so down on themselves and down in their faith all because someone just had to run their mouth about something they knew NOTHING about!
I know the daughter of a pastor who had her children out of wedlock. People in the church started gossiping about her for that. "How could she shame her father like that?" "How can she even show her face around this church after what she did?" Those words got back to her by way of other church members and congregants. Those words pierced her heart like a sword. She never felt so ashamed of herself as she did when she heard what her so called friends were saying about here. When she heard what her father's so called friends were saying about her. She was absolutely devastated by people's words.
Let me tell you here and now, if God is able to forgive us of our sins, you should do the same! If someone you know has sinned, they've since repented, and truly regret the sin they committed AND accepted the Lord's forgiveness, that's very important by the way, surely YOU can forgive them as well.
The problem that I have found is, people say they forgive so and so for what they did. They forgive what so and so said about them. But, they still remember that sin. "What's wrong with that?" Simple. Hebrews 8:12, "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” You say, "Yeah, but that's God. That's not us. That doesn't apply to us, does it?"
Ephesians 5:1-2, "Therefore be IMITATORS of God as dear children. And WALK in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma."
Matthew 7:1-3 of the New Living Translation says, “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged."
Paul says we are to be imitators of God. Jesus said not to judge others, because we will be judged if we do. And in the NLT, it says that we will be TREATED the same way we treat others! How are you treating people today? How are you treating those who have hurt you in the past? Have they repented? Have they shown any remorse and regret? Have they proven themselves to be sincere in their repentance? If they have, then why are you still judging and punishing them by remembering their sins?
Matthew 6:14-15 (NLT), “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins."
If God won't forgive you of your sins because you refuse to forgive others of theirs, what makes you think you're going to Heaven? If you cling to the memory of the past hurt someone inflicted on you, how is that forgiveness?
This is what is wrong with the world today! This world has twisted our minds and our hearts into believing that revenge, holding grudges, and hating those who hurt us is justified, it's okay, and no one will blame you for that. WRONG!!! Jesus said, if you DON'T forgive others of their sins, God WILL NOT forgive YOU of yours!
What is this world coming to? The rapture of the Church, the Great Tribulation, and the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ WITH His Church! THAT'S what this world is coming to! And if we don't stop hating each other, judging each other and punishing each other with our rage and our anger, we are going to suffer with the rest of this sin filled world in the Great Tribulation!
Let me ask you something. Is hating someone for what they did or said to hurt you worth burning in hell over for all eternity? And if you don't believe hell is real, just wait. You'll find out first hand that hell is real and it's no place you want to be! Not now! Not ever! Is it really worth going through what Jesus described as "weeping and gnashing of teeth"? That's what hell is. That's what's happening to those who rejected God, rejected His Son, rejected the gift of salvation and the forgiveness of sins. That's what's happening to those who, like some of you, held on to grudges and refused to forgive those who hurt them in the past. That's what's happening to those who refused to forgive their spouse for cheating on them! That's what's happening to those who refused to let go of the pain and the heartache they suffered. But most of all, that's what's happening to those who refused to forgive themselves for what they did.
There's much more to being forgiven than just receiving God's forgiveness. You MUST forgive yourself as well if you were the one who sinned. Refusing to forgive yourself is just as bad, if not worse, than refusing to forgive those who sinned against you. And yes, if you don't forgive yourself, God can't forgive you either. That's what the Bible says. "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you." Jesus said that.
Is it really worth going through not only the Great Tribulation, but dying and going to hell to burn forever and ever? No. Nothing is worth that! "I can't let it go! It hurt so much when they did that to me! It hurt so much when they said that to me! It hurt so much when they said that about me! How can I ever let that go? How can I go on and act like nothing happened?" And here's the question that makes people believe they're justified in their hate and bitterness, "How can I forgive them and not hold them accountable for what they did? If I forgive them, I'm letting them off the hook!"
Let me tell you something, it's not your place to hold anyone accountable for their sins. That's God's job. Alone. Just because you forgive them doesn't mean that God is going to let them off any hook nor go unpunished for what they did. All Jesus is saying here is that if YOU don't forgive, you will not be forgiven yourself. He never said that HE would let them off the hook. Not at any time. No one escapes punishment for sins. There will be punishment in this lifetime for that sin. Forgiveness is not a "Get out of jail free" card. Forgiveness is peace. Forgiveness is grace. Forgiveness is knowing that you are free from the burden of guilt and shame.
That's what really holds us in bondage. Guilt and shame. It's not the sin itself that holds you in bondage, it's the guilt and the shame you feel for that sin you committed that binds you. That's what Satan uses against you. Guilt. Shame. That's why it's just as important to forgive YOURSELF as it is to forgive others.
What good could ever come from you holding a grudge against someone who wronged you? Do you really think that you could do a better job of punishing them than God can? I knew a man who was engaged to a woman in the church. And for weeks on end, she kept pushing him and pushing him to join the choir with her. One day, the man agreed to be in the choir for Father's Day. He immediately felt so uncomfortable on that platform in front of everyone. Even though other choir members were there with him. He felt like a fish out of water. He couldn't wait to get down from there. After the service, he told his fiancé his experience up there and how nerve rattling it was for him. She got very offended by that.
He went on to tell her that when the announcement that a certain ministry in the church was accepting sign ups, he felt the Lord come over him telling him that he should sign up for that ministry. She immediately rebuked him for that! Later that day, as the man was getting ready for work that afternoon, they talked on the phone. An argument ensued and the engagement was broken, and the relationship dissolved. Needless to say, the man was deeply heartbroken over this. Tears were running down his face as he talked with her pleading her not to leave him. That's when the Spirit of the Lord rose up in him and told him, "Are you going to listen to her, or to Me?" He says a peace came over him like a waterfall. And the pain he was feeling from this breakup immediately disappeared.
To this day, his ex-fiancé refuses to talk to him or have anything to do with him. He says the Lord spoke to him a second time that day, "Because she has done this, she will never receive a husband from Me again." She went against Lord's Will in this case. That woman ended her engagement and her relationship with this man all because he didn't feel comfortable being in the choir. That the choir was not the ministry God had chosen for him. Think about that. She broke it off with this man because he would rather obey the voice of the Lord than the voice of her or anyone else. And this is a woman in the church!
The point being, to this day, that woman still resents the man for standing up for what God was laying on his heart. But the man refuses to condemn her. Instead, he is allowing God to stand up for him and defend him. Genesis 12:3, "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you." Be careful that you do not allow your anger, your rage or your pain keep you from forgiving and releasing those who hurt you. When you release those who sinned against you, you release them to God Himself. Think of it this way, you are turning that person over to the Judge so HIS law will deal with them. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.
Father God, thank You for this awesome word today. Thank You for opening our hearts, our ears and our minds to Your Truth. Now let this Word take root in our hearts today and let it spring forth with fresh fruit and fresh life for us to enjoy. In Jesus Name, we give You praise! HALLELUJAH TO LORD OUR GOD!!!!
