This Age Ends Only One Way
By David A. DePra
Transcribed by Software with minor edits.
Where is this age going?
What
do all of these things mean that we see, not only in the world today, but in the
church today?
If you haven't
noticed, evil has accelerated.
It's
accelerated at a pace that we would not have believed possible, only five years
ago.
Not only has it accelerated,
it has increased in its evil.
It's
everywhere in the world, but it's also in the church -- among people who call
themselves by the name of Christ.
There is an important passage In Matthew 12 that establishes a principle that
applies to many situations, but it certainly applies to what is happening in
this present age.
The passage
begins in verse 38, where the Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign, and he calls
them an evil and adulterous generation for seeking after a sign -- rather than
recognizing that he was the Messiah.
Israel had enough to be able to recognize the Messiah.
They had the entirety of the Old Testament Bible as well as the history
with God from the time he delivered them from Egypt.
Yet when the Messiah that they were waiting for and had prayed for stood
before them, they called him the devil.
This was something for which God was going to hold them accountable.
But it was also something that had opened the door for terrible evil.
In verse 43, Jesus begins to tell a story – it is a really a principle.
It is a principle that speaks of the nature of this creation and of what
happens when God is forsaken.
When
we look at this principle in Matthew 12, we are seeing a principle that Jesus is
certainly applying to Israel of that time.
It's a warning to them; it's a prophecy; it's a parable.
It applies to Israel of that time.
But how many understand that truth is truth?
And if this is a principle of TRUTH then
it applies to all situations to which it applies.
When God operates and judges, He's always operating from out of the same
truth of Himself.
And so in most
cases, when we read a story like this, it really is a principle of truth that
can apply to any person, any church, or any nation.
Because God is God, He's unchangeable – Truth is unchangeable – and
therefore such a principle applies to all.
Now here is what Jesus says.
He
says, starting in verse 43, “When an unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he
walks through dry places seeking rest and finds none…”
I'm not going to talk about unclean spirits.
Let's just stick to the subject here.
Jesus continues, “Then the unclean spirit -- that can find no rest --
says, ‘I will return unto my house – unto the person -- from whence I came out.’
And when this evil spirit has come back to that man, he finds the man
empty, swept, and garnished.’”
Now that might SOUND good.
This
person is swept and garnished.
He
is certainly in a better condition than being demon-possessed like he was
before.
But there is a huge
problem:
NOTHING has come into that
person to fill the void.
He is
EMPTY – yes, of the demon – but also of God.
Verse 45 says, “Then the evil spirit goes out, comes back, and takes with him
seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they all enter in and dwell
there in this man.
And the last
state of that man is worse than the first.
Even so shall it be under this wicked generation.”
So again, this applies to Israel of the time of Jesus -- but it is a
principle of Truth that applies across the board to anyone.
Now, notice what Jesus is saying here.
He's talking about somebody out of which God has delivered great evil.
In this case, a man.
But we could
apply this principle to a church or a nation that was at one time in great evil,
maybe demon-possessed, certainly demon-influenced -- at least in great deception
and darkness – but was then delivered.
As an example, we have this man who is in great deception, great
darkness, may be demon-possessed, and the unclean spirit is gone out of this
person, presumably God set him free.
After being delivered, the state of that man is that his life is swept and
garnished.
Now, I have to believe
that this is a picture of somebody that has at least received some truth; some
light.
I mean, after all, he didn't
get free of that evil spirit just through luck.
And if God delivered him, God brought truth to do it to a certain degree.
And so this man has at least some truth.
He's swept and he's garnished.
He's in possession of enough truth to be able to turn to God and walk on
with Jesus Christ.
Israel was in that condition.
They
were given the Old Testament.
They
were given a history with God that they all knew.
And yet they rejected the Messiah when he stood before them.
So Israel was swept and garnished at that point.
And any of us could be as well if God delivers us from our ignorance and
darkness and brings us into a certain truth; a certain amount of truth.
At that point, we have at least enough
to turn to God.
I'm not talking about a bunch of theology.
No, I'm talking about God bringing a person to the point where they
recognize they're accountable to God -- they recognize their need for God, and
they recognize that they need to turn to Jesus Christ.
I'm not saying they've done it yet.
I'm saying they recognize that they need to turn to God.
That's the work of God to bring a person to that.
That person or that church or that nation can be said at that point to be
swept and garnished.
But as noted
-- the other characteristic is EMPTINESS.
In other words, Jesus, in describing Israel here -- this is the principle
he's putting forth -- he's talking about people who have been delivered from
darkness, even delivered from Satan himself and the bondage therein.
They have been delivered by a certain amount of light and truth.
They've been brought to the place where they know to turn to Christ, but
they haven't done it.
Now, I don't read here a picture of a nation or people that have yet rejected
Christ.
No.
It is a picture of a person or nation who have been delivered, but
haven’t accepted Christ – have not received anything to fill the house vacated
by the evil spirit.
Jesus is
telling us that it is sufficient to do nothing – if that person or nation KNOWS
ENOUGH to turn to Christ. That alone
opens the door to great peril.
The house is empty.
Jesus is
talking about people that have been set free from a lot of evil but haven't
filled their life with good.
He is
talking about people who have been brought out of darkness into some light, know
enough to turn, but they haven't done it.
They're swept and they're garnished, and yet their house is empty.
Now, according to Jesus and what he says here, that's a very dangerous
position to be in because you are accountable for the truth.
Israel was accountable for recognizing the Messiah.
They were accountable for that, especially after the three and a half
years of Jesus’ ministry.
They had
enough, Jesus said so, and yet they were empty.
Jesus said, “Your house is left to you desolate.”
Now, it was worse than that.
And of
course, it's worse for most people who have enough to turn to Christ – but
refuse.
Because there is no such
thing as neutral ground.
You're
either for God or you're going to be against him.
You're either, in the final analysis, going to choose Christ or you're
going to choose yourself.
You're
either going to choose salvation in Christ or reprobation.
You're going to choose either light or
darkness.
The fact of the matter is God's going to push each one of us to that choice.
He has to.
It's the way to
set us free and to build faith in us.
Now, this evil spirit found the house empty.
What a warning for each of us.
Really, it is a description of what has happened to this world, to the
United States of America, and to the church, to those who call themselves the
body of Christ.
Let's back up a
second and just talk about the world and world history for a minute.
We know that God created Adam and he rejected God.
He turned away from God and walked away from God and decided to own
himself.
When he did that, he
destroyed humanity as a creation.
Humanity was given over to the realm of darkness, Colossians 1:13 says that
Christ has delivered us from the realm of darkness.
That tells us where we've been because of the sin of Adam.
The realm of darkness has governed the human race since the sin of Adam.
It governed the entire world, ultimately, to the point where God had to
wipe out the human race except for the eight people in the Ark. God said that
the imaginations of men are evil continuously.
You're talking about
people that
lived five, six, seven, eight, 900 years.
Imagine being evil and living that long, how bad that would get.
A whole world populated by such creatures.
Well, God had to wipe that population out in his mercy.
He did that.
Now, we have reason to believe, we read Jude, we read the Epistles of Peter, we
have reason to believe that not only did humanity turn away from God as time
progressed after Adam.
It was a
turn that happened pretty quickly because Satan was in charge.
He was the God of the world at that point.
But after the turning away from God, what resulted was a whole bunch of
sexual immorality, homosexuality, and ultimately child sacrifice.
Now that happened before the flood.
God wiped out that race before the flood.
But after the flood, after Noah emerged from the Ark, it started all over
again.
It was less severe, I guess
we could say, because humanity didn't have the lifespan as before, but it was
evil nevertheless.
It was evil
nevertheless.
Now we know that
because every single ancient culture that we have a record of that left
monuments like those in Egypt that left a recording in written form, every
single ancient civilization that we dig up in archeological finds have one
common thread, and that is all of them worshiped demons.
All of them did.
We probably can
hardly wrap our mind around that, to understand that the entirety of the world,
the entirety of the human race, a couple of exceptions, I'll mention in a
minute, was if not devil-possessed, then devil-influenced, as time progressed
even after the flood.
That's why
you find all these archeological finds, these statues that you find in these
cultures of hideous demon images.
Well, that's demonic influence that resulted in all that.
They really did worship these demons.
It were civilizations that were filled with homosexuality and ultimately
child sacrifice.
They've found
evidence of child sacrifice in almost every ancient culture.
Where this demonic influence was, and it was all of them at one point.
The whole world was like that.
Incredible to think about that.
Now, God had a line that he preserved first through Noah, but then
through Noah's son, Shem.
Of
course, ultimately Christ, the Messiah, came through that line.
But it was only that line and that ancestry that God was in and that God
was revealing himself through.
It
was certainly not in a widespread way.
The whole world was in the grips of this darkness.
Now, God eventually called Abraham.
Abraham and his family lived in or the Keltes.
They were a part of this initially, but God delivered Abraham out of it.
Of course, this resulted in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 tribes of
Israel and the nation of Israel.
God wanted Israel to be a light to the nations.
In bringing the revelation of the true God, they were the only light to
the nations.
That was because God
had chosen them for that purpose.
We see that when Israel was delivered out of Egypt.
You'll find again and again and again that it was the gods of Egypt
mentioned that Moses, through God, had to defeat.
That's what set Israel free.
Oh, Farewell had them, but he was controlled by those gods of Egypt.
We find that when Israel wandered through the wilderness, when Israel
finally entered the promised land, what's populating those places? Gians and the
occult and the same evil that had enveloped this world.
Israel alone was the light to the nations and they would eventually
produce the Messiah.
Now that's
world history.
Then, of course,
when Jesus came on the scene and the Gospel began to be preached, God began, if
I can use the terminology that we find in this story of Jesus, God began to
empty the nations where the Gospel was preached of these evil things.
He began to sweep and garnish those nations to a certain degree, didn't happen
in five minutes, but I think you get my gist.
And the Gospel spread.
Now
here's the observation that I think is vital to see.
All of the nations of this world that we recognize as at least having at
some point acknowledged the true God is God, all the nations that acknowledged
the Bible as being the word of God.
I'm not saying perfectly.
I'm not
saying we had a theocracy anywhere.
I'm simply saying that there was a certain reverence and honor paid to the God
of the Bible.
Churches were
established for the good or bad, and Jesus Christ was known as savior.
There was a foothold where this was the case in those nations.
Now, look at those nations about which I'm speaking.
Are not these nations where the Gospel was accepted? The most civilized
nations, the most moral nations? Now, I'm not saying there weren't horrible,
immoral things going on behind the scenes.
I'm simply saying that generally speaking, in comparison to the nations
that did not accept Christ, the nations that did accept him were the most
blessed with prosperity.
They were the most blessed with civilized law, democracies in most cases.
You look at those and there was a freedom there.
There was a moral freedom that came to these nations: United States,
British, Isles, Western Europe, mostly, and so forth, other places, a few here
and there.
But the nations where
the Gospel did not take a foothold and Jesus Christ did not become known in any
widespread way, such as China and India.
Look where they are today.
They're just as much mired in the occult as ever, ruled by vicious dictators.
We're talking when we're talking about China and India, about half the
population of this world.
This
isn't any small number.
We're
talking about 4 or 5 billion people.
There's a very clear distinction between those nations that accepted,
generally speaking, I keep adding that, the Gospel, Oh, there were ebbs and
flows, Hitler's and Mussolini and dictators like that.
It went up and down, in and out.
But generally speaking, throughout history, there was this trend that
distinguished the nations that accepted the Gospel from those who did not accept
it.
No question about it.
These nations that did accept the Gospel did have those demons that
demonic influence cast out to a great extent.
They really did, and the others didn't.
We can say of those nations that, well, they were swept and they were
garnished by a measure of the truth.
Now, what has happened in the last 50 years, mostly, you could expand it
to the last century if you wanted to, but I think certainly in the last 50
years, this is the case.
In the
last 50 years, those nations which had received the gospel and had been the base
from which the gospel was preached to other nations, the nations that had
churches, the nations that had a certain amount of godliness going on in them,
those nations, rather than continue on an increase in what God had brought them,
those nations have begun to give it away.
That is something new.
That
is something that never happened before in the history of the world that never
happened before on that scale with regards to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Before the last 50 years, a lot of it was the Gospel going out and people
either receiving it or rejecting it.
In the last 50 years, some of that's continued, but in the last 50 years,
on a widespread scale, it has been a Gospel that was received and revered as
truth, now being rejected, now being cast out, now being mocked and ridiculed.
That never happened before regarding the truth of Jesus Christ.
What has happened as the result of that in our day and age is that all of
the evil spirits, all of the evil influence from demons, from Satan himself, as
he works directly and as he works through people that give in place.
It's all coming back.
It's
coming back much worse.
In this
parable, it's seven times worse, which is a number of completion spiritually,
and I think we're heading in that direction, wickedness, spiritual wickedness in
its completion and fullness.
If you
have been delivered, and this world was, this nation was, if you have been
delivered and been delivered out from evil, even if you receive truth and begin
to get your act together, you need to fill it with good.
You need to fill the house with Jesus Christ.
If you don't, something is going to come in and fill the void.
Because like I said, there is no such thing as neutral ground.
You can look at the forces of evil and the enemy as a power that is
always pushing and seeking to invade the human race.
Always there, pushing in, trying to crush in upon humanity.
You can look at the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the resurrection power that
prevents that from happening.
Now,
I don't believe that ultimately it was ever God's will for God's people who are
to live in the power of Christ to simply operate from a defensive position.
But I think he wanted us to take possession and to operate from an
offensive position.
But it never
really got to that, did it? Never really got to that.
Once the gospel was preached in a lot of places in this world, well, the
enemy found a way in.
It found a
way in through compromise.
It found
a way in through false and wicked and corrupt leadership in the very Church of
God and those who profess themselves to be Christians.
The enemy found its way in through the wickedness of men in this world.
And you're seeing this parable unfold right before us today.
Everything that was wrong in this world because of Satan, in the human
race before the Gospel became widely spread is coming back, and it's coming back
with a vengeance far worse than ever.
Because now we're talking about light and truth rejected, not ignorance
of it, but light and truth rejected.
There's no question about it.
If
you're ignorant and you don't know the truth, yes, you can find yourself
entangled in a lot of evil.
You can
find yourself entangled in a lot of evil.
But if you know the truth and reject it, the evil that comes upon you is
far worse.
Far worse, because
you've rejected the way out.
You've
rejected light.
You get darkness.
And that's how it works.
That's the nature of things.
We
live in a moral creation that God created.
He created humanity as moral creatures.
There's no neutral ground on this.
The enemy is seeking to come in as a flood anywhere the enemy can
infiltrate.
And yes, the Lord will
raise a standard, but more and more today, this world, this country, the body of
Christ, is allowing those standards to be torn down.
And what we are witnessing now in this world, in this nation, and in the
Church, is nothing more complicated than Satan and evil spirits getting their
way in humanity.
Look at what's
happened in only the last five years or so, how the acceleration and
proliferation of things like homosexuality, transgender, and now the attempt to
brainwash innocent children with those things.
I mean, the sins are beyond belief.
We don't think that they're as bad as ancient civilizations because, again, we
think of ourselves as being civilized.
We have computers, we have modern weaponry.
You don't generally have in our society today, out in the public, people
worshiping demons, people worshiping statues.
We don't have that like that yet, but we have it in other forms.
It's not only it's bad, it's worse.
How many understand that Satan will get whatever he can get and he will
deceive subtly and he will do it in a way that people won't even realize what is
happening to them.
This is what's
happened.
It's gotten to the place
now where the normalization of perversion is taking place.
It's getting to the place where the very evil spirits that once
controlled this planet are gaining control again.
Gaining control in this world, gaining control in civil governments,
including the United States, but worse of all, gaining control in people that
call themselves by the name of Jesus Christ.
That's where this is all going and God's going to let it.
It's going to happen.
Although God is going to raise a standard and anybody that wants to be delivered
from it can be, but make no question the majority of people are going to go
down.
Now, I want to turn to a couple of other scriptures here having to do with this.
I want to turn to 2 Thessalonians 2.
Now this is the chapter where it talks about the Son of Predition, the
man of sin sitting in the temple of God, proclaiming himself as God, I believe
the temple of God in which this particular man of sin sits is, in fact, the
Church, the body of Christ, an Apostate church.
But I'm not going to get into the detail of that in this message.
I want to focus on what I've been talking about today as to where all of
this is going in this age.
Now, I
need to start reading here in verse two where Paul says that we should not be
shaken up or be deceived into thinking that the day of Christ is at hand because
that's not going to happen until they're first come of falling away.
Now, let me read this verse three, and let's note clearly what he's
saying.
He says, Let no man deceive
you by any means, for that day, the coming of Jesus, shall not come, except
there come first, a falling away, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
Predition.
Can we see very clearly that it is the falling away that results in the man of
sin being revealed.
The two are
absolutely related.
The one causes
the other.
As an apostasy takes
place, as the truth is abandoned, as Jesus is rejected, the man of sin is
revealed, he's made manifest, the son of tradition is made known.
Can we see very clearly how this relates to the parable Jesus was telling
in Matthew 12? As an Apostasy takes place in the church, well, the restraint is
removed, that which restrained the forces of evil.
In other words, the gospel was given.
Generally in this world, it was accepted.
The churches were established.
That was a tremendous restraint against the forces of evil, as I
rehearsed when I talked about this whole world history that I went through.
There was an establishment of Christ in this world, as imperfect as it
might have been.
In those nations
where the church was prevalent, you had sanity, moral sanity.
That was a restraint, and it's because it was a restraint against the
forces of evil.
It acted as a
casting out.
But as that is
abandoned, and today it is being abandoned, and it's going to be a whole lot
more abandoned on a greater scale yet to come in this age.
But as that's abandoned and as Christianity is pushed to the side and people no
longer operate in faith and from the perspective of life in Christ, well, that
restraint is going to be removed from the forces of evil.
The forces of evil that we see invading the world and the church today
are the result of that.
Just the
beginning of it, really, but it's the result of it.
Now, that's exactly what Jesus said, as I noted in Matthew 12.
The house becomes swept and garnished, emptied of evil.
But once that condition is forfeited, the forces of evil come in and the
latter state is worse than the former.
Now, let's read on in this passage and we'll see how the same thing that
Jesus talked about in Matthew 12 is in fact, described.
He says again in verse 3, There will first come a falling away, and the
man of sin, because of this falling away, presumably, will be revealed.
The son of perdition, who opposes and exalted himself above all that is
called God, or that is worship, so that he, as God, sits in the temple of God,
showing himself that he is God.
People try to make this mean an individual human being called the antichrist.
I'm not convinced that is ever going to happen.
I think the Spirit of antichrist is certainly more prevalent.
I think there will be representatives of Satan, representatives and
leaders of antichrist? Absolutely.
But I think antichrist is the collective body of antagonism, the collective body
of unbelievers, the collective body of fake Christians, the collective body of
man in Adam, trying to pass itself off as the genuine article.
I'll just leave that right there.
Now, Paul says, remember you're not when I was with you.
I told you these things.
And
now you know what withholds that he might be revealed in his time.
In other words, you know what's restraining, so that this son of
predition, man of sin, is not yet revealed in his time.
And he says, For the mystery of iniquity does already work.
In other words, all of this was starting even in Paul's time, although
not fully manifested.
For the
mystery of iniquity, already is at work, only that which restrains will restrain
until that which restrains be taken out of the way.
That's what verse 7 is talking about.
We're seeing that what restrains is the presence of Jesus Christ in his people.
It's the presence of Jesus Christ Christ in his people, but also just the
acknowledgment of God, the acknowledgment of God as God, in God we trust, one
nation under God.
That may not seem
like a lot, but God honors that.
It
matters.
It matters.
You take that out of the way in a nation.
Satan will come in like a flood, and there won't be a restraint.
You take the presence of Jesus Christ in his people.
You reduce that.
You water
that down.
You begin to push that
out of the churches in favor of what we see happening today.
You are removing not only a restraint of evil from the church, you're
removing the restraint of evil that has held back evil from invading the world
itself.
Dr.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
It says that when that restraint is taken out of the way, then shall the
wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth.
Many people have tried to say that the restraint of evil is going to be
taken away when the rapture happens, that God's going to take that restraint
away.
And when he does by raptoring his church, then evil will prevail.
It's not what this says, people made it mean that, but I don't believe
that that can be substantiated from scripture.
Talking here about apostasy, that's not insignificant in this passage,
just the whole point.
God's not
going to remove the restraint of this evil.
The church itself is going to be the cause through compromise, through
apostasy, and then the evil will have its way.
Now, that doesn't mean that there's not going to be any restraint or any
life of Christ in his people.
There
is.
God's going to, I think, raise
up as a standard Christ in the end time over and against us so that people will
have truth and light to which to turn.
But nevertheless, the general trend is that as we approach the end of the
age, there will be more and more compromise with Jesus and with the truth.
The enemy will, as never before, come in like a flood, and it will be
worse than it ever was before.
Now,
you read the rest of the passage and you see that in the end, Christ wins.
Thank God.
But there's going
to be a lot of trauma leading up to that.
We have that scripture in second chronicles, which says, If my people who are
called by my name will repent of their wicked ways and humble themselves and
pray I will their land.
Do we
understand that the opposite happens as well and has happened? Evil has been
restrained in this world.
The
powers of darkness and Satan have been restrained in this world by the presence
of Jesus Christ in his people.
Well, his people, or at least those who profess to be his people, have
compromised with the truth, have compromised with error, have allowed error into
their personal lives, and have allowed error and perversion into the church.
And as this has happened, evil has come in to fill that void.
The house had been swept and garnished.
And so if you want to know why Satan is gaining ground in this world,
look at the church.
People of God
are the key.
The people of God are
those who were supposed to be those who would restrain evil.
But God knew from the beginning that that was not going to happen.
That's why this is prophesied and Apostasy is prophesied.
It is the Apostasy of the church that has in effect, and it's going to
continue to get worse, but the principle is that it's the apostasy of the church
in giving away the truth and giving ground to the enemy that is going to result
in evil prevailing, evil finally being manifested in the time of the end.
It's not the rapture.
It's not God
taking the Spirit of God out of this world.
It's the people of God relinquishing the ground that they have in Jesus
Christ that is going to allow the enemy to come in and occupy that ground.
And… This is shown here in 2 Thessalonians 2, and it certainly is
suggested in a lot of different places in the Bible.
It's how it works.
Again, no
neutral ground.
You don't want to
stand your ground in Christ, the evil one is going to take that ground.
Yet what a horrible, unnecessary relinquishment of the truth.
Doesn't that happen that way in a personal life? If you believe God and
you believe Jesus Christ, and if you're walking with Him, you're being protected
to a certain degree to the extent that you walk with Him from evil.
Well, if you reject Christ and walk away from Him, you're going to walk
into evil.
And on a wide scale,
that is what is happening in this world.
And it's also happening in the very churches that used to be Christian
churches, everywhere it is.
And
there is a progression.
I mentioned
it a little bit earlier.
The first thing that happens is that people begin to reject Jesus Christ.
They reject Christianity.
They reject the Gospel.
That
happens in many, many ways.
It
happens in personal lives.
It
happens in civil government.
Incidentally, why do you think it happens so quickly? If you've noticed things,
especially through the COVID thing and all that's happened since.
Have you noticed how all of these evil things that are happening are
almost like a disease that spread? It's like a fanaticism that people get taken
up in.
It's one thing after
another.
Somebody comes out
protesting this, before you know it, it's a worldwide phenomenon.
It's like a horrible disease that spreads like wildfire.
If you don't get with that narrative, if you don't get with that new
disease, you're canceled.
That
happened in living color during COVID, but it happens on all these moral issues
as well.
That's Satan.
That's the Spirit of Satan working in the sons of disobedience, as it
says in Ephesians 2.
What do we
think that means? Well, that's what's happening in this world and that's what's
happening in the church.
That's
what happens when people turned away from Jesus Christ.
But the second thing that happens on the hills of that, and this just
happens like clockwork, it doesn't necessarily happen in a one, two, three
fashion, but the trend is there.
The flow is like this.
You reject
God.
The next thing in this flow
that begins to take place is the proliferation of sexual immorality.
All the time that happens, I said it happens on all these ancient
cultures, sexual immorality begins to be accepted.
It's practiced first, of course, by individuals, and then it finds its
way into the culture, and then it is normalized.
It's accepted.
It gets to
the point where it's just a joke.
Don't we see that everywhere? It's everywhere.
Sex is everywhere and has been growing as such for the last 50 years.
Now, on the hills of that, sexual immorality, then what we have almost
always is sexual perversion.
We
have the normalization and the widespread practicing of homosexuality.
That has happened in ancient cultures as well.
Then alongside of that, as the result of that, what you have is the
sacrificing of children to demons.
Now you would say that we don't do that in our modern world.
Well, yeah, actually, we do.
We may not haul them up to an altar and put them to death, but what we do
instead is that we indoctrinate them with all of the satanic perversion.
That's what they're trying to do now, everywhere.
You'll notice how this happened so quickly.
That was unheard of even two years ago, but now it's heard of everywhere.
Governments are passing laws that underage children, kids that can't even
vote, kids that aren't even close to being able to vote, are allowed to get sex
change operations without their parents' knowledge.
That's child sacrifice to demons, spiritually speaking.
The mutilation of children, not to mention abortion.
64 million abortions since 1972, when it was legalized.
64 million.
That's
sacrificing children.
That's
putting children to death.
Oh,
people that do it don't realize the depth of the evil and what's all involved in
it.
I don't think that some of
these young girls that get abortion are thinking in their mind that they're
sacrificing a child to a demon or whatever, but people never do realize what
they're doing.
They don't.
Do we understand that in some of these ancient cultures where they
worshiped demons and sacrificed children to demons, do we understand that those
people, even then, were so deceived and that had become so normalized that they
thought that it was okay, that it was right, that they were doing according to
the truth?
That's the depth to which these things can get.
Now, let's turn to Romans, chapter one here, and we'll see some things
that ought to open our eyes in light of everything that I've been talking about
so far.
Romans 1, I am not ashamed
of the Gospel of Christ, verse 16, For that Gospel was the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Now, let me just say this.
The truth of Jesus Christ, which is the gospel, the Gospel is a person preached,
included in which is, of course, the entire plan of salvation and the necessity
for faith.
But the gospel of Christ
is the power of God under salvation, but only to those who believe.
How many understand that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is actually the power
of God under reprobation if you don't believe? Again, there's no neutral ground.
If you hear the truth and know to turn to Christ, the only other option
you have is reprobation.
The only
other option you have is eternal separation from God.
Now, God desires for all men to be saved and come into the knowledge of
the truth.
But not all will be.
Some will
refuse by their own choice.
God
does not ordain some to salvation and some to damnation.
God desires all to be saved, and we make our choice once we hear the
truth.
It's talking about people
here who have heard the truth, not talking about people that haven't.
It is the power of God and the salvation to everybody that believes.
You got to hear it to believe.
It says in Romans 10.
It
talks about the righteousness of God being revealed in that Gospel.
Don't want to get off into that.
But it goes into verse 18.
You'll notice we just heard in verse 16 that the Gospel of God, the truth of God
in Christ, is the power of God and the salvation to everyone believes.
But verse 18 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all unGodless and all unrightelessness of men.
And it specifies against all ungodliness and unrightelessness of men who
suppress or restrain the truth in unrightelessness.
These are people that have heard and that could have turned and believed.
Now, again, turn and believe.
God doesn't say that in order for you to be saved, you have to have a
degree in theology.
He doesn't say that you have to understand all the ins and outs of the
redemption of Jesus Christ.
God
brings light and He knows what you need to see and what you can see to turn.
You need to see that you're a sinner and you need to relinquish yourself
to Jesus Christ and Him crucified unconditionally.
Isn't about adopting a new religion.
It's about being exposed as a needy sinner.
John 3 says this is condemnation, that light has come into the world.
And men love darkness rather than light.
Why? Because their deeds were evil.
So in other words, the basis of condemnation is that light has been given
to a person, and that person chose darkness rather than light.
They pushed away the light, pushed away the truth, restrained or
suppressed the truth in favor of darkness.
And why? Because their deeds were evil and they did not want to have
those deeds exposed.
That's the
pivot point, and that's what condemn people.
The only way around it, the only alternative to that is to choose light
rather than darkness, stand in that light, be exposed as a sinner, and take your
place by faith in Jesus Christ crucified.
And then, of course, if you do that, new life will be found in him.
These people won't.
They
suppress or restrain the truth.
Now, you can't do that unless you've had some truth.
These are folks who know enough to turn, and they know enough to turn
because God made them to know enough to turn.
They suppressed the truth in their condition of unrightelessness.
This is a call to them to come out of unrightelessness.
It's not somebody that was saved.
They suppressed the truth in their unrightelessness.
And it says, Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them,
for God has shone onto them, is the Greek.
They've had a revelation, again, not a theological revelation, it's a
spiritual revelation from God where he cuts through the darkness and makes them
to see enough to turn And it says in verse 20, For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and deity is the word, so that they are
without excuse.
Now, some people
would interpret this verse to mean that every human being that ever lived had
enough light because you can see the truth in creation and see the truth in
conscience.
Well, that's absurd.
The conscience
is damaged and seared, first of all.
And a lot of people that look at nature and creation are scientists that
don't believe in God.
I believe
this verse is true, but I believe it's true once you plug in the necessity of
God using creation and God using conscience to bring light to a person.
God still has to initiate it and open a person's eyes.
Jesus said, No man can come to me except the Father who sent me draw him.
He didn't say, No man can come to me unless he gets a lesson in creation
and conscience.
I'm not going to
argue that point, but you got to take all the scriptures on a subject together.
God's got to open the eyes.
But when he does, they're open and you can't go back.
If God has brought light, I can't say I didn't receive light.
He's brought it.
I've seen
it.
There's no way back.
My choice is clear then.
It's either salvation or reprobation.
It's either faith or unbelief.
There's no more middle ground.
There's no neutral ground.
Light judges.
And so they're
without excuse.
And it says,
Because that when they knew God, there was again enough to turn.
They didn't glorify him as God, neither were thankful.
Now here's the first turning away from God.
If you know enough to turn and you don't, verse 21 says the result is
that you become vain.
The word is
twisted in the Greek.
You become
twisted in vain in imagination, and your foolish heart is darkened.
You turn away from light, what you get is darkness.
I mean, that is what happens, that's the nature of things.
That's what happens in God's moral creation.
You have enough light to turn to God, you refuse it.
You don't have a sound mind after that because you've turned away from
the very foundation of all knowledge and all truth.
And again, this isn't so much about facts.
It isn't so much about theology.
It's a moral condition.
Note
that they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was
darkened.
This isn't about being
mistaken about facts or doctrine.
It's about becoming, or in other words, it's about falling into a condition
because of a rejection of God.
Where you are in darkness, you can't think in the terms of God, and you can't
really see anything for what it's worth.
All discernment in the Christian life is the result of knowing Christ.
You want to turn away from knowing Him and reject that, you're not going
to have discernment.
It's going to
be governed by foolishness.
What
does it say somewhere in one of Paul's epistles that people will turn away from
truth to fables? Again, no neutral ground.
You either accept the truth or you're going to live in untruth.
You're going to become an expression of untruth.
You're going to be twisted in your imagination.
That's what it said about the world before the flood.
Their imaginations were evil continuously.
Well, the first step in rejecting God is that you come into a corrupt
mind and your heart is darkened.
We
see that everywhere today in government, and we see it in some churches.
It says, professing themselves to be wise.
So many smart people around, but they became fools.
What made them to become fools? Well, they suppressed the truth that God
gave them.
In favor of darkness,
and they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like
under corruptible man.
Now, this is
incredible, really, when you think about it.
It isn't just that they rejected God and started building statues.
Now, that did happen in Paul's time.
But he is simply saying that when you refuse the truth, you're going to
create a God in your own image instead of the God who is the truth.
And isn't that the case? We either embrace the truth that God brings or
we create a truth that fits us.
We
either allow the truth to adjust us to God or we're going to take the truth and
suppress it to the point where it's adjusted to us.
Again, no neutral ground.
It's all in one way or another ultimately.
People create God in their own image.
We have today a God that celebrates homosexuality.
We have a God that's okay for sex outside of marriage.
We have a God that okayes same sex marriage.
We have a God that understands we need to abort children and so forth.
It's a God we've created and people become normalized in that.
It's the product of a vain imagination, a twisted imagination, and a
heart that is darkened.
Now, next
step is verse 24, Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the
lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves,
because they changed the truth of God into a lie.
The next step down is sexual immorality, and that's the case always.
Why do we think that so many of these false ministers that are finally
exposed, you find out that they've cheated on their wives or they're having
affairs with women in their church? Why do we think the Roman Catholic Church,
one of the biggest issues there is sexual immorality.
Of course, it's pedophilia as well, which is the next step.
But everywhere you have truth that has been corrupted, everywhere you
have places where the Gospel at one time had a certain foothold, where that's
been pushed away or given away, in any personal life where people that maybe
just had a Christian education growing up.
I know several young people that were raised in a Christian home that
just went off and they got into all kinds of sexual immorality and some even to
homosexuality.
Why does that
happen? It's because once you reject God, you get darkness and everything that
comes with it, and you are going to fall under the influence of the demons that
govern there.
Those demons may not
always bring you into sexual immorality or homosexuality, but they will bring
you into whatever it is that your particular version of the flesh needs and it
needs to be satisfied.
It'll go there.
Maybe it's the love
of money.
If that's what your flesh
cries out for in your sinfulness, well, that will be used against you.
But in most cases, it's sexual immorality.
Now, they changed the truth of God into a lie.
It says in verse 26, the next step, for this cause, God gave them up onto
vile affections, vile affections, for even their women did change the natural
use under that which is against nature.
Likewise, also the men leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in
their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly and
receiving in themselves that recompense.
Now, these people that say that God does not condemn homosexuality in the
Bible.
Just read it again.
You can't even argue with people like that.
They already have their mind made up, and they also are exchanging the
truth for a lie.
But this is the
next step down.
There is no bottom
point to the abyss into which Satan wants to bring humanity.
It's perversion upon perversion, depth of darkness upon depth of
darkness.
That's where this age is
going and we're seeing it all around us.
We're seeing everywhere people that have rejected God and created at best to God
in their own image, if they even acknowledge there is such a thing.
We're seeing the proliferation, the celebration of all kinds of sexual
immorality in the media, and it's being practiced everywhere behind the scenes:
pornography, adulterous affairs.
In
most churches today, people are living together in immorality outside of
marriage and sit in the congregation and nobody does anything about it because
we don't want to chase them out of church.
We don't want to be mean.
We
don't want to be judgmental as if that is judging.
That's everywhere today.
It's becoming normalized as is homosexuality, transgenderism, same sex,
marriage, and so on.
It's all here.
You read through Romans 1, and it's one step down after another into
worse and worse evil.
Verse 28
says, And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave
them over to a reprobate mind and to do those things which are not fitting.
There is a tremendous principle here that God is talking about in this
chapter that is repeated again and again and again, each step lower.
That principle is this: when people reject God and give themselves to
sin, then God gives them over to the power of that sin and everything that goes
with it.
Let me say that again.
When people
reject the truth that God has given them and instead give themselves over to
sin, then God gives them over to the power of that sin and everything that goes
with it.
And that's the truth.
That's how humanity will function in its rejection of God.
Humanity was made to fellowship and enjoy God forever, and that's a
tremendous potential.
But with
tremendous potential for good comes a tremendous potential for evil.
Humanity certainly has that.
And so we read this progression, and homosexuality isn't the only sin.
Read verses 29, 30, and 31.
All sin is involved, but these are the worst sins because they destroy what a
human being is.
But we understand
that what's going on in society today and in the Church is Satan's attempt to
destroy what a human being is, to destroy gender, to destroy sexuality, to
normalize the destruction of it.
Do
we understand what is happening to humanity in this day and age? It's just going
to get worse and worse and worse.
Thank God we have the promise that when the enemy comes in like a flood, God is
going to raise a standard.
God's people need to clean up their act.
As an individual, you and I have to get out of our lives all uncleanness,
all sin.
We need to get out of our
lives all unbelief.
We need to tell
God to do whatever it takes to get us there.
We need to stop playing religion, stop playing Church, and we need to get
on the altar of Romans 12:1-2, and we need to ask God to take us and to bring
the truth.
We need to repent of
sin.
We need to repent of
self-righteousness.
We need to
repent of any other sin that we may have allowed in our lives.
It's not a game.
We need to
repent of it.
And we need to tell
God bring the truth, bring deliverance no matter what it takes.
I believe that God, in this end time, is going to raise a standard
against the enemy.
It's not going
to be a standard to which the vast majority of people are going to gather
around, but it's going to be a standard and a witness to Jesus Christ that is
going to cut through all of this evil for a season and give people who want to
turn to God the opportunity to do so.
I believe God's going to do that because He's always done it before great
judgment has be fallen on people.
He did it before the flood.
He did
it with Jonah and Nineva.
He did it
with Israel in '70 AD.
He did it
again and again and again every time he punished Israel.
He brought the truth that they could turn to before that.
He's going to do it again in this end time.
There's going to be a standard raised, and people are going to have the
opportunity to be delivered out of any evil that they might be in now, and
they're going to be given the opportunity to enter in to a fullness of Jesus
Christ before the end.
Then when
God gets that, well, it's going to arise a great deal of animosity and a lot of
people will fall away even from that.
Where does all this go in the end? Where is this age going? This age is
going toward a tremendous, apostasy, and evil on a scale that has never been
before in the history of the world.
But it's also going toward a deliverance that God will offer during this age, a
witness of Christ leading up to the literal second coming of Jesus Christ, where
he will descend from heaven and put an end to what Satan is trying to do in the
human race.
That's a great hope.
That's a great
hope.
And soit's a cause to look up
and turn to Christ because everything that's happening right now is right
according to what God said would happen.
But the end of it is God wins.
The end of it is that Jesus Christ is going to be Lord.