The Unsaved In The Last Days

The Unsaved in the last days

Introduction: As I said last week in Sunday School you don’t have to look far to find the moral rot that is infesting our culture today. It’s so bad that felons feel like saints, they look around and see society is making them feel normal every day. But what I want to do this morning is point out what the Bible says about where we are headed if we do not repent. If there was ever a parallel in the Bible for America it is Rome. The difference of course is that America was founded on Christianity. European Christians fled religious persecution and founded this nation and dedicated the land to God. Rome never did that but where we are at now and where they were at in their end are exactly alike. If you knew nothing about the Bible nor anything about Rome and read the first chapter of Romans, you would swear you are reading a description of America today.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;” Romans 1:28

If God gave Rome over to a reprobate mind for immorality why wouldn’t he do the same today for those who are doing the same thing? This is a warning to all the wicked ones who are ruining our culture and by that ruining our country with their immorality.

Transition: I want to describe unbelievers in the last days in three ways this morning.

I. They hate God and they hate good

Notice first of all how the first part of this verse says “even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge..”

“They did not LIKE” - it doesn’t say ‘they didn’t know him’ - they Do!!!! There are many whose convictions tell them there is a God but they fight against those convictions daily in order to do the evil things they know they shouldn’t. They know there is a God but they wish they didn’t!!! After all, they are called God haters and you have to believe in God before you can hate him. (“God-haters” Romans 1:30). We know that Everyone is given a measure of faith. But instead of submitting to the one they have a measure of faith in they repress and suppress their faith in God thus “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge”. They don’t realize the tremendous blessing they have in God!! Divine protection, divine healing, divine provision, divine blessing. Hosea 4:6 says “my people perish for a lack of knowledge.”

Ill. Charles Haddon Sprugeon tells the story so beautifully of the time he visited a old woman’s house. She was once a servant in the house of a very rich man. He had passed away, and as a gift gave her a piece of paper. The old woman could not read, but thought the design was so pretty that she framed it. When he visited the old woman he looked at the framed piece of paper, it was a cheque. The old woman never knew that she would never have to ask for another penny off anyone, or that her grandchildren would never go hunger again. But she was robbed because of a lack of knowledge.

So sad to think of all the good things, that they’re missing, that God gives us richly to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17)

One thing we notice with the last day unbelievers is that they are never happy.

Not only do they hate God but they hate anything that is good (“not lovers of the good” -2 Timothy 3:3). Remember the 3 things God is: He Holy. He is Love. And God is good! In the last days the earth will be filled with those who hate what is good! Why do they hate what s good? I believe for the same reason a thief hates the policeman or the cockroach hates the light. Those who practice evil, hate those who practice good. Why do God-haters hate what is good? Because they hate the one behind all that is good in this world - who is God! The devil hates Me, and that’s ok, the feeling is mutual. I hate the evil that’s flooding this world, because I know the one who is behind it. So they hate the hood because they know who is behind it. We hate evil because we know who is behind it. They hate the God in me! I hate the devil in them!

What’s interesting is what Jesus said to the church in Ephesus “but you have this to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I too hate.” Revelation 2:6

Jesus never said he hated the Nicolaitans but he did say he hated their works. There were things Jesus had against this church but one thing they had in their favor is they hated the practices of the Nicolaitans which Jesus also hated. if you read Revelation 2:14 & 15 those works seem to be the same as the teaching of Balaam which taught idolatry and sexual immorality. There are a few who may not have anything spiritual going for them, they don’t pray like they should, they don’t go to church like they should, they don’t read or study like they should but at the very least they have enough common sense left that they hate the sexual perversion being hoisted upon them by our culture. What’s worse is that is being taught and accepted in many of the “modern churches”