This is my adaptation of a sermon by Pastor Henry Wright
If you have your Bibles this morning, turn with me once again to the text that was read for our scripture reading this morning. Matthew 28:18-20, reading from the New American Standard Bible, says this: “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’”
The words of Christ in that passage are what we often refer to as the Great Gospel Commission. It is our charge; our marching orders. It was Christ’s last command, and it is our greatest responsibility. There is nothing that we could do or are doing that is even remotely as important as obeying the charge of winning souls to Christ. And yet we obviously aren’t fulfilling His command, otherwise either this church would be full today, or we’d all be in heaven. Today we’re going to look, by God’s grace, at what Jesus said would be the church’s biggest problem in the last days, the thing that was most responsible for preventing His church from fulfilling His Great Gospel Commission in the last days.
Prayer
Jesus was a master teacher. Never, before or since, has anyone ever made such an impact on the world as Jesus. He was so respected as a teacher that virtually every religion in the world today reveres His teaching. Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and even many Jews, consider Him to be a great teacher and a good Man.
But the interesting thing to me is, Christianity is not a really a religion. You see, the Buddhist religion is based on the writings and teachings of Buddha. Islam is based on the writings and teachings of Mohammed. All of the great religions of the world are based on the writings and teachings of their founder, but not Christianity. Do we believe in Christ’s teachings? Absolutely! Do we live by His teachings? Of course! But Christianity is different, because it is the only movement in the world that is based on the life, death, resurrection, and imminent return of its Founder.
Brothers and sisters, I want to remind you in case you’ve forgotten, Jesus is coming soon! As His followers, we believe everything He said in His Word, and He made the promise that He would come again. Sometimes we’re tempted to forget it, sometimes we’re tempted to doubt it, but if you still believe it today, let me hear you say amen.
Jesus gave warnings of what life would be like before He came. He gave signs that people might know when His coming was approaching. We all know them, right? We’ve all read Matthew 24, Luke 21, and the books of Daniel and Revelation before. We’ve heard sermon after sermon about end-time events, been to seminar after seminar on Bible prophecy, given Bible studies, read books and magazines and tracts. We know He’s coming soon, right? In fact, our church is named partly because of our belief in the fact that He is coming soon.
And yet, when you look at our churches and our lives, someone might ask the question, “What happened to the Adventists? Where did they go?” You see, for the most part, our zeal is gone. Our conviction is gone. Our backbone is gone. Jesus gave us the commission to “Go ye”, and yet the case for most of us is that our get up and go got up and went.
I mentioned it a moment ago, but Luke 21 is a chapter dealing with the signs of the end-times. We read in Luke 21, verses 10 and 11, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues, and famines; and there will terrors and great signs from heaven.” Going down to verses 25 and 26, we read, “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
Continuing on in verses 29 through 31, Jesus said, “Behold the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they put forth leaves, you see it and know for yourselves that summer is now near. Even so you, too, when you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near.”
We look around our world today and we see all kinds of problems. September 11 was big, but it’s not the last thing that’s going to happen. It’s not even the biggest or the worst. I’m happy they caught the sniper this week, but it’s not over yet, things will get worse. There are famines going on in the world still, and as for earthquakes, I doubt if anyone will remember it or not, but I was in that big Seattle earthquake they had last year.
Considering how much Jesus warned about the last days, it seems almost absurd that people would forget about His coming. In fact, after all the warnings given about how bad the last days would be, it is amazing that the Bible could compare His return with a thief coming in the night. Of course we know that He’s coming as a thief only to those who aren’t prepared and watching, after giving all the warnings in Luke 21, it seems ironic that He would say these words in verses 34 and 35: “Be on guard, that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day come on you suddenly like a trap; for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth.”
Brothers and sisters, I want us to focus on verse 34. Have you read verse 34 before? Have you really? I mean, have you really read verse 34 before? I had read this passage countless times before, but I never really noticed verse 34 until recently. You see, verse 34 tells us exactly what our problem is. It tells us why this church is empty today. It tells us why we’re still here today. In fact, it even tells us why some people can’t stay awake in church, or why they’re so upset if the preacher goes past 12:00.
We’re going to read verse 34 in several different versions in just a moment, but I’m going to take it a piece at a time first. My Bible says, “Be on guard, that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation…” (NASB). If you have the King James, it says “surfeiting”. New King James says “carousing”. Other versions say “feasting” or “eating”. The New Living Translation says “living in careless ease.”
The Greek word used there is kraipaley. While some of those words used in various translations are okay, some of them are downright mistranslations, and none of them really carry the full meaning of the word. I mean, how many of us really know what surfeiting or dissipation is? My Greek lexicon describes the word kraipalh in this verse as “the sense of disgust and loathing from overfullness of wine.” In other words, what this means is the person who drinks and drinks and drinks until his system can’t take any more, and announces its disgust all over the sidewalk.
What does that mean to us? I mean, surely you don’t think that there’s anybody like that in the church? Of course not, but this has another meaning to us. Folks, we have come to a time in the Seventh-day Adventist Church when more and more of our members are being open and bold in their sins. They’re going to do whatever they want to do, and how dare anybody tell them that what they’re doing is wrong.
They’re bold in divorce. Bold in watching whatever they want to watch. Bold in reading whatever they want to read. Bold in listening to whatever they want to listen to. Bold in eating whatever they want to eat. Bold in wearing whatever they want to wear. Bold in gambling. Bold in shacking up. Bold in smoking whatever they want to smoke, and drinking whatever they want to drink. Bold in their sins!
I’m a member of a number of Christian dating sites, and one site that is not exclusively Christian called veggiedate.com, which is an internet dating service set up for people who are vegetarians or would like to be. It lists all of the different world religions as a religious preference, but out of all the Christian religions, Seventh-day Adventist is the only one mentioned specifically. You can choose New Age, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, Pagan, Jewish, Christian, or Seventh-day Adventist. (I’m going to assume that they aren’t excluding us from Christianity, but including us specifically due to the high number of vegetarians in our church.)
I mentioned all of that to say that because this site is not operated by Seventh-day Adventists, they ask all sorts of personal questions that a real SDA dating service would probably feel it unnecessary to ask. They ask if you’re gay or straight. They ask if you smoke or drink. And you would be shocked at how many people are on this site, claiming to be Seventh-day Adventists, who admit publicly to their sins. Last night I checked the site, and 74 people claiming to be Seventh-day Adventists admit to drinking alcohol, 6 admit to being smokers, and 1 admits to being bisexual.
Now I understand that we’re all sinners, and that none of us here are any better than those people I saw online. I fully realize that we all have our struggles, and that many of these people are in bondage and are desperate for freedom in Jesus. I also must take into account that some of these are people who were just raised in the SDA church and have little or nothing to do with the church now. But sadly, some of those people are claiming to be committed Seventh-day Adventist Christians, and yet they are being open and bold in their sinfulness. By the way, one of those who admits to drinking alcohol says on the website that she is a cradle roll Sabbath school teacher.
The world has a philosophy: If it feels good, do it. That philosophy was born in hell, yet it is creeping into many of our lives, and even into the church. We, myself included, often do things because they are fun and entertaining, forgetting about what impact they may or may not have on our relationship with Jesus. If we want to watch something, we watch it. If we want to eat something, we eat it. If we want to wear something immodest, we wear it, and we’ll call anybody who disapproves a legalist. After all, as they say, it’s easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission.
I want to read something from a book I have in my library. It’s a little red book called Christ’s Object Lessons. If you don’t have the book, I highly recommend it. I’m reading from pages 54 and 55. “The more the desire for pleasure is indulged, the stronger it becomes…They form habits of idleness and self-indulgence that make it almost impossible for them ever to become steadfast Christians…Those who learn to love amusement for its own sake open the door to a flood of temptations. They give themselves up to social gaiety and thoughtless mirth, and their intercourse with pleasure lovers has an intoxicating effect upon the mind. They are led on from one form of dissipation to another, until they lose both the desire and the capacity for a life of usefulness. Their religious aspirations are chilled; their spiritual life is darkened. All the nobler faculties of the soul, all that link man with the spiritual world, are debased.”
Did you notice that word dissipation that the author used? That’s the same word used in my Bible. But also notice how the author said that “habits of…self-indulgence” makes it “almost impossible for them ever to become steadfast Christians.” I want to share Luke 21:34, at least the beginning, from another version—The Amplified Bible. “But take heed to yourselves and be on your guard, lest your hearts be overburdened and depressed (weighed down) with the giddiness and headache and nausea of self-indulgence…”
Wow! Have you learned yet that oftentimes what we think is fun really isn’t? We can do something for ourselves that we think will be fun, but after it’s done and over with, we’re more miserable and depressed than before we did it? Why? Because true joy and happiness can never come from the things that this sinful world offers.
Now I have some good news for you. The fact is that most of us are not in that first class mentioned in Luke 21:34. The term “surfeiting”, “dissipation”, or whatever you want to call it will not affect most of us. And so the Bible goes on to a second problem. Reading verse 34 again, and continuing just a little further, “Be on guard, that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness…”
Hold on a minute! Drunkenness? I thought this was supposed to be different. Hang on folks, this is different. The Greek word used here is methey, which implies that the person is not necessarily excessive, but could be if given the opportunity.
The fact is, as I said, that most of us are not going to be lost because of open debauchery and filth and wickedness. Most Seventh-day Adventists are not going to lose their souls in bars, night clubs, dance halls, prostitution houses, or pornographic movie theaters. Even those of us who aren’t really converted won’t go to those places because we’re afraid of getting caught. We put on a good show for the folks at church, and if we went to a place like that, our fine and upstanding reputations would be shot.
But as I said the text implies, given the opportunity, and the assurance that we wouldn’t get caught, we might do it because, after all, we don’t really see anything wrong with it. I don’t drink myself, but I don’t think it’s so bad if you want to. I don’t go to the casino, but as long as you’re going anyway, bet this $20 for me. I don’t go to the theater, but I don’t see anything wrong with watching the same filth at home.
But there’s still a problem. It’s not a problem for us, but rather a problem for the devil. You see, this drunkenness is still not going to be a key issue for most of us. The devil is smart enough to know that most Bible-carrying, choplet-eating Seventh-day Adventists are not going to lose their souls out in the world of sinful pleasures, either there personally or in their imaginations. He knows that most of us at least want to do God’s will, otherwise, we wouldn’t be here. So he comes up with his third weapon.
I’m going to read the next part of this verse in numerous versions, and you see if this text doesn’t all of a sudden just run right through your house. The King James Version translates verse 34 this way: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.” I want us to focus on that phrase cares of this life, looking at it in the different versions.
NASB—worries of life
CEV—worrying about life
NIV—anxieties of life
NCV—worrying about worldly things
Message—“But be on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping.”
Amplified—“worldly worries and cares pertaining to [the business of] this life”
The Living Bible—“Watch out! Don’t let my sudden coming catch you unawares; don’t let me find you living in careless ease, carousing and drinking, and occupied with the problems and bills of this life, like all the rest of the world.”
Now you know where I got my subject from—Paying the Bills. Jesus is talking about how the bad the world would be in the last days. There would be famines, earthquakes, pestilences, wars, violence, immorality, signs in the sun, moon, and stars, but His people would notice because they were “weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and worries of life.”
As I said, the devil knows that he isn’t going to get the majority of us with those first two items, but there isn’t one of us who is immune from the third problem. Every one of us has worries in life. Every one of us has headaches in life. Every one of us has problems in life. Every one of us has bills in life. And the devil can make those things seem so big that we get so busy worrying about them that we don’t have time for anything else.
The reason this is so dangerous is because it is legitimate. There’s not a person here today who has absolutely no expenses whatever. Even children usually spend their own money on at least some of the things they want. We have to work, because as they say, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. We have to provide food, clothing, housing, and transportation for our families. If you have children of school age, you should be putting them in church school. We use gas, electricity, water, and telephone, not to mention multiple credit cards. I just learned at a workers’ meeting that the average household in Louisiana is $3400. And don’t forget, the Bible says that a man who won’t provide for his family is worse than an infidel.
Then let’s not forget our grown-up toys. We all have them, you know. Sure, some of us have more expensive toys than others, but we all have them. For some of us, it’s a computer. For others, a baseball card collection. For others, a really hot sound system at home. For others, a really nice car, nicer than what we really need. For still others, those fancy pets we have. It doesn’t matter what your toy is, we all have them. And folks, it’s not wrong to have them.
The question is, what becomes our priority? Our job, or our relationship with Jesus? Our recreation, or our relationship with Jesus? I hate to think of the times when I was younger that I chose to spend money on something foolish and had nothing left to return a faithful tithe to God. This sermon isn’t about tithing, but it is about putting God first, no matter what. But, when you put God first, you will realize that returning a faithful tithe to God comes first before any other spending.
How many of you can relate to what I’m about to say? A typical day for the typical Adventist Christian goes something like this: up in the morning, brush the teeth, take a shower, eat some breakfast, go to work, spend 8 hours at the office, drive home, eat supper, engage in a little conversation with the family, watch a little television, go to bed, fall to your knees, breath a quick prayer, then go to sleep. Sleep fitfully or well for 6 to 8 hours, then all of a sudden, up in the morning, brush the teeth, take a shower…the rat race! It’s got you!
That’s why our churches are empty all across this nation every Sabbath morning! We are too tired and worn out. That’s the main reason why people get so upset if the pastor goes past noon on Sabbath, because they’re tired and worn out from paying the bills. When the call comes to go ingathering, we’re worn out. When the call comes to go and pass out literature, we’re worn out. When someone wants Bible studies, we loan them a video or enroll them in a correspondence course or direct them to 3ABN because we’re too tired and worn out to do it ourselves. We come to church on Sabbath morning and can hardly stay awake in our pews because WE ARE WORN OUT!!! Tired from paying the bills!
We come in from a hard day’s work, and that recliner with the remote control looks so nice and relaxing. We know that we should pray more, we know that we should study our Bibles more, we know that we should witness more, but we’re too tired! That’s why we stay put when the call comes to “Go ye”, we’re too tired!
Jesus said to watch out! “Be on guard, that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day come on you suddenly like a trap; for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth.”
It kind of reminds me of something Jesus said somewhere else. Revelation 3, starting with verse 14, says: “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” Revelation 3:14-17.
Ouch! That’s not positive talk, Jesus. Fortunately, He doesn’t end it there. He says in verse 21, “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
That’s good news, Jesus, but how? How can we overcome when we’re so tired? These worries and headaches and bills in life are legitimate, Lord. What should we do? He finishes His discourse in Luke 21 with these words in verse 36: “But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my load is light.”
