Understand Eternal Life as never before

1. I come to you very humbly this morning. With what I hope is the fear of the Lord today. The sermon that I had last week, and this is part 2. I received these words before the war in the Holy Land started. The Word I’m preaching today; I’ve never preached anything quite like it. And maybe I’ll just read a lot of it, because I want you to really understand the word today. And if you don’t agree with it, it’s OK. We can talk. Because in this day in which we live, we need to discuss the Word with one another, carefully with people we trust to handle the Word carefully.
2. I absolutely believe that we can no longer be lazy Christians, I no longer believe that we can be indifferent to what is happening in the world. We can no longer seek the approval of the world. The Church in the world is important, but the world in the Church is wrong. And we need very humbly and seriously to hear from the Lord. Last week we spoke about Jesus saying, ‘I am the light of the world’. He says this in John 8:12, and if we follow Him, we will not walk in darkness, but we will have the light of His Life. Amen, Amen.
3. So, I believe the Lord is wanting to shine brighter, in our lives, than He has ever done before. And He is wanting us to understand eternal life, like we never have before. For people to look at us, and question us, ‘Why are you so full of joy when life is so hard?’ And it will be, because I know, whatever happens to me here, ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because I’m going to live forever. Amen, that is real life, Amen. Hallelujah. Like a blind man, in a maze, or somebody lost in a jungle without a compass, I believe, how we can describe many people in the world today.
4. The world has seen many mighty nations rise and fall. There’s not a single worldly empire, that’s lasted forever. A t some point they begin to fall. And I think the Lord is asking us or challenging us, to think for just a moment today, to see in part 2, as we are waiting for the Lord to come again, what does the Bible say about nations. Because, really nations, are just a collective expression, a bunch of people, expressing an identity of a country. When I act like an American, it’s very different from when I act like a Greek. When Cecilia acts like a Zimbabwean, or Mary and Evy like South Africans, it’s very different from their Italian side. Nations have identity and individuals in those nations express those identities. Regardless of race, religion, or country of origin, and this makes us different from the animals, every person is made in the image of God. Dogs, and I love dogs and cats, they are not made in the image of God.
5. Every person in the world, has a moral conscience. Unless they are criminally insane. We are born with a basic understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Every person, and these are general things in persons that live in nations, is born responsible before God. Now, I’m not going to take time to read these Scriptures, but you might want to jot them down and look at them at home. Remember it doesn’t matter if you were born in China, or where you were born, what religion you were born into, or no religion, these are things distinct about every person in every nation. And finally, number 4 – God will judge each person based on their response to Him. The Scriptures in number 4 are very important.
6. It is very true – God gives us the freedom, to deny Him, and to excommunicate Him from our culture. We as nations and individuals can remove ourselves from His Word, we can remove him from the government, we can remove God from universities and schools, we can remove God from the squares, the town square. We are given the choice to remove Him. And a powerful piece of Scripture in John 3:17,19, says very clearly, and again, I’m saying I don’t have time to read all the Scriptures, so I’m asking you to note them. It says clearly, ‘Light is available to everyone, but people love the darkness.’ God gives us the choice, to remove Him from decisions in our lives, how we raise our children, what kind of government we want. But there is no freedom regarding the consequences, of these choices.
7. We very clearly are wanting to pray for everyone in the world. Everyone would hear the Message, the Good News, so that they will not have to face the consequences about which I’m going to preach today. God wants us to get a burden, that no one will be lost. The love of God is calling people to know Him, even as we see a second earthquake again in Afghanistan, we see wars, we see pestilence. God is allowing these things to happen; God is in control, but He’s letting these things loose, to let people know that this world here is passing away and we need Him, Amen.
8. The consequences of not choosing God are devastating. One of the consequences is the revelation of the wrath of God. A lot of people will tell you that God is only love – yes, He is. He is only love, but He is only righteousness, He’s only peace. He is all those things, but also when people harden their hearts, they can harden their hearts to a point, where they can no longer receive the love of God. Let me give you an example, read about the children of Israel in bondage in Egypt, Pharaoh continued to harden his heart against God. And the wrath and the placement of God came because he would not listen to God.
9. I don’t like preaching this sermon, and again I’ve never preached anything like this, but the Lord told me, today is the day. So, what is the wrath of God, when an individual, or nation rejects Him and suppresses His truth. The apostle Paul outlines seven progressive penalties for both people and nations, who fail to respond positively to God’s revelation of Himself to them. I can openly speak about America, I’m a Greek American. I can say that we can see America losing a lot of its strength. It is compromised very much on the truth of God’s Word.
10. Number 1: Darkness (Romans 1:21) “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Without God for an explanation for all there is, humanity, we people, we’re left on our own to figure it out. Unfortunately, without God in the equation, we can never come to the correct conclusion, about life and the origin of human kind. I declare today, my ancestor was not an ape. I am made in the image of God. God is the only true source, of light and truth. And I already read the Scripture, that when people love darkness, when we disconnect from God, people are left in total darkness.
11. Now you need to think about your loved ones. Do you know someone in your family who doesn’t serve the Lord and is not their Savior? Their minds are darkened, they’re trying to make sense of the world with a darkened mind. Romans 1:21 says ‘Their thoughts, their speculation, are futile. The word futile or speculation, they’re based on yourself. It’s just ideas, thoughts that bounce backwards and forwards in your mind, trying to figure it out. And you’re doing it in a dark mind. All that is produced is empty human ideas, but no truth. Without God’s truth in our minds, we are left to fill our minds with other ‘so-called truths.’ Satan will deceive our hearts.
12. Number 2: Delusion (Romans 1:22-23), “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.” Without God, in the darkness, people begin to think of themselves as quite intellectual. Our ideas and philosophies, aren’t they amazing? A self-deceit descends on the mind, convincing themselves, ‘Oh, what you figured out yourself is true’. I short, they proclaim themselves to be wise. It’s just like I have a chest of drawers, and I thought it was all wood, but just recently I noticed, it’s not – there’s a thin veneer, that’s beginning to peel off.
13. People like this, it’s like their thoughts are like a thin veneer, and underneath they’re full of darkness. In Romans 1:22 God calls them fools. They think they’re smarter than God. In English this is where we get the word ‘Moron’ (stupid) from. A moron is stupid, they don’t understand. When we believe, that our values and our truths are greater than God’s, we become morons – we have no understanding. Today as I look in the world, I’m very burdened, I’m burdened for Victor’s generation, and the little children behind him, there’s a deterioration, in the ability to reason because they’re rejecting the truth of God. The Bible says very clearly in 1 Timothy 4:2, if we constantly reject the truth of God, your conscience grows dull. Has God ever told you not to do something and you continue to do it anyway, and you begin to think it’s OK, and until we really repent do we realize, ‘I thought that thing was OK and I shouldn’t have been doing it.’ At that point, the people are worshipping the creation instead of the creator.
14. Number 3: Divine Delusion (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12) “and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” The apostle Paul wrote that in the last days, unbelievers will be deceived by the devil; the devil will be able to do miracles and they will suffer delusion. Why will they suffer this? Because they did not believe, they refused to love the truth. They didn’t want to be saved. They wanted to be in control of their lives rather than God, that’s the bottom line. I’ll do it my way. They consciencely reject God, and His Son. And instead, they will believe the deception of Satan. They will believe what is false. Rejecting the truth of God is very serious, and in these days, as we’re moving towards the last days, the end times, days leading up to the worst tribulation the world has ever seen, if people will not believe the truth they will be totally deceived. It’s like people are drowning, and there’s a rope to bring them up, but instead they cut the rope and they and they kill themselves. Only death and damnation await them. 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, the purpose? “And so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness”. They will prefer to be in charge of their lives, and believe the lies of the devil, rather than surrender to Jesus and receive abundant life.
15. Number 4: Desire (Romans 1:24-25) “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen”. I won’t dwell a long time, but I challenge you to think about this one. “Gave them over to” “paradidomai”, it is a judicial word. It’s when a judge, hands people over for judgement. God is declaring that you’re headed to prison, not freedom. Revelation 9:21, it says, “There will be an explosion of sexual immorality”. Now, listen to this very quickly. I don’t have the latest statistics, in 2016 in the United States, the US’s largest Internet site, was online pornography. The statistics were, that people watched 4,392,486,580 hours of pornography. That was in 2016. Convert that to years, it would be 500,000 years, of watching porn. No, and it’s not just regular porn. In the US, there is more commercial child pornography, than anywhere else on the earth. People say, ‘Oh, anything goes, if it feels good, just do it. Follow your heart.’
16. But the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful and wicked above all.’ When we follow our own hearts and not God’s, we will be deceived. We will have desires that are ungodly. God is looking for people to be what they were created to be; we were created, to worship God. We were created, sometimes we think it is to witness – no, the first reason is that we were created to worship God. But the world is choosing a different path, and the Church must wake up, that we can win; at least tell everyone, about Jesus.
17. Number 5: I have 2 more and it will be done. Deviance (Romans 1:26-27), “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” I want you to notice that Paul addresses lesbianism first, in here, not homosexuality. And many commentators, theologians, think it is because usually females, are last to be affected when a society is in decay. So, listing lesbianism first, is a sign that all virtue is lost. Women are the conscience of the culture. Usually men, more readily give in to lustful desires. So, if women are falling that way, we can be sure that men have already been doing it.  Shameful lust. Paul is telling us here in this passage, there is nothing natural about lesbianism or homosexuality. It contradicts basic biology. We all have the same body. Our parts are the same.
18. Now, I am not preaching against people who are struggling. Do not hear that. Do not hear that. We want them to come, this is a hospital, Amen. We need to love those people, we need to love those people who are murderers and liars and thieves, we’ve got to love people. We are all born sinners, and everyone chooses how they will express that sin. And people can say they were born homosexual and lesbian, but science still cannot prove that. Cannot prove it. It is the effects of our fallen nature, ever since Adam and Eve we are born into sin. Sexual desire is a very powerful narcotic, and when we are under that narcotic, we can begin to believe it is a truth that our dark minds and our sinful bodies telling us. Let me leave this with you in that section, Genesis 19:1-21, angels came to visit Lot, their desire was so strong, the men outside who knew the angels were there, they wanted to gang rape the angels. The Bible says, they actually grew tired trying to break through the door to rape the angels.
19. Many nations are tolerating these sins as never before. Parents are encouraging their children to say they’re gay or call themselves by a different gender. Church today, family of God, I challenge to stand on the Word of God, the world doesn’t define men and women or marriage, but God does. We are going to look like we are narrow minded, we’re going to look like we’re intolerant, the nearer the coming of the Lord. But I believe, if the love of the Lord grows in our hearts, we will not judge, we will love. We will love so much, they will want the freedom in Jesus that we have, Amen.
20. Number 6: Depravity (Romans 1:28-31) “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.” God gave them over to a depraved mind, A depraved mind – we have a whole list of sins here in this passage. When you have a depraved mind, you fail the test. This was a word used in the 1^st People who worked with metals used this word. It would describe metal that had impurity in it. And the impurity would rise to the top and they would throw it away. A Depraved mind, has rejected God, it is worthless. That mind will continue to reject God. When you have a depraved mind, God is saying, ‘Well you want your own way.’ God can no longer influence them. It is nothing short of moral and spiritual insanity.
21. Number 7: The last one. Destruction. It is a hard comment. I hope I never have to preach like this again. I have loved ones that are on their way to hell. I want them to know what they will face; I want that none of this happens to them. (Romans 1:32) “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” These are people that practice and promote sin. Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” So where does this lead? Death. Spiritual separation from God forever. I believe as we look around the world, we have gay pride parties, we have people who lie in government and we applaud them when they get away with it. We cannot look at the world today and not say, we’re on a destructive path. But we are His light in a dark time. John 3:19, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”
22. Now is the time to reach everyone, with love, the love of God, like we’ve never had in our lives before. Amy Carmichael, she was a blind song writer, she wrote, ‘We shall have all eternity, to celebrate victories, but we have only a few hours before sunset to win victories.’ When we stand before the Lord, people will be asked, ‘Do you know my son? Is your name in the book of life?’ I hope a lot of people run up to me and say, ‘Because you prayed, I gave my life to Jesus. I saw you at a bus stop one day, you didn’t know my name, but you told me that Jesus loved me, and I’m here today, because you told me about Him.’ Only what we do for Jesus, is going to count in the end.
23. We went a little longer today, but I felt like the Lord told me, this was the day, to challenge us, to get a heart to rescue the perishing. This world is going to go away, and we need to take as many as we can to life eternal. People are dying without Jesus. When was the last time, the weight of the Word broke your heart. I want to see as many as possible in heaven, that I shared Jesus with them. But we can’t compromise the truth. We’ve got to give the Lord all the glory. Our lives. When we surrender to Him, when we make Him Lord of our life, we receive freedom, we receive joy, that’s incomparable – nothing compares.