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of Glory.
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I want to talk about the subject of
apostasy this morning.
There have been four great apostasies in the
6,000 years of man's history.
The first one was during Noah's time.
The second was during Jeremiah's time.
The third was in the days leading up
to the first century.
Jesus Christ came, John the Baptist before him.
And we are in what the Bible terms
the great apostasy.
We are in the throes of it right
now, and we don't hardly realize it.
Even as the people in those times didn't
realize it, we don't realize it.
And I want to zero in on one
particular aspect of the apostasy, which I'll get
to in a minute.
Paul said that in the last days perilous
times would come.
Dear ones, that is complete and pure and
utter truth.
Perilous times, and he wasn't referring to the
judgments of God that are going to fall
upon this earth.
He wasn't referring to earthquakes or people going
crazy because the enemy is gaining power and
stirring people up to do crazy things.
He wasn't talking about persecution.
He's talking about the worst kind of peril
that anyone could face.
Spiritual peril.
The peril of being lost.
If you'll open up to Jeremiah chapter 8,
I'm going to use that second great apostasy,
if I could call it that.
Really there's only one great apostasy, and we're
in it.
So that should tell you something.
But I want to use this one as
an illustration of what we are facing today.
What we see going on around us today.
Now the situation during Jeremiah's time, Jeremiah ministered
for some 50 years.
He had been warning the people of Israel
for some period of time.
And he was telling them that if you
don't repent and amend your ways and get
back to the ancient paths, I'm telling you
that the nation of Babylon is going to
come in here and is going to devastate
the land.
Babylon is going to destroy our nation.
Well the problem was, you know, back then
was really it's human nature, but we'll grab
a hold of anything.
And in their particular case, Babylon was hundreds
of miles away.
Now in our day and age where a
jet fighter covers hundreds of miles in minutes,
you know, that doesn't seem like any big
thing.
But back then, they would have had, you
know, the Babylonian army would have to go
all the way up Mesopotamia, up to Assyria,
come down through Syria, Damascus, and into Israel.
You know, they were a long ways away.
And it was very easy for the people
of Israel to kind of solace themselves that,
well, I don't know.
It doesn't seem so bad.
I'm not sure that there's any danger imminent.
You know, there's Jeremiah.
He's the only one that believes this way.
I mean, the entire nation feels like we're
with God.
You know, and then you've got Jeremiah, this
radical, this fanatic preacher who's always preaching doomsday,
you know.
And he's got a few little people around
him.
I mean, come on.
He's just out of balance.
And we don't really have to take his
words all that seriously.
Well, that was probably the prevalent thinking of
the day, you know.
And so I'm going to pick this up,
Jeremiah 8, verse 4.
Basically, for several chapters, there's been a theme.
And then he takes a kind of a
side path for a few minutes, a rabbit
trail, and shares some things.
And he picks it up again here in
verse 4 of chapter 8.
Let's just go through this for a minute.
The Lord is now telling him, you know,
giving him a word for these people, his
people.
You shall say to them, Thus says the
Lord.
Do men fall and not get up again?
Right off the bat, the Lord is appealing
to their just practical nature, you know.
And he's basically making a simple point.
No one just falls down on the ground
and just lays there.
They don't just stay there.
They get up, you know.
And he brings it home, a point here
that he wants to make.
Does one turn away and not repent?
So to him, to the Lord looking at
this people, they've gone astray.
And, you know, in the picture in my
mind's eye is the entire nation just kind
of marching away from the Lord in a
sense.
And he's saying it's normal to stray.
We're all lost sheep, and that's typical for
people to stray.
But, you know, it just makes sense to
turn back to me.
And then he says an interesting thing.
This is the Lord speaking.
I have listened and heard.
They're not speaking what's right.
There's no one repenting of his wickedness.
Now, the picture is the Lord stooping down
to listen to these tiny little specks called
men.
He's bending down, and he's listening.
He wants to hear what's going on amongst
his people.
He says, I've listened, and no one's saying
the right thing.
There's no one repenting of their wickedness saying,
what have I done?
You know, it's very reminiscent of the prodigal
son who, you know, when he's in the
pig pen, all of a sudden he came
to his senses, Jesus says.
And the first words out of his mouth
is, I have sinned.
And it's the same kind of a thought.
The Lord's looking for people who will come
to that point.
They've strayed out of whack.
They're sliding away from him.
And he's looking for people.
He's listening with an ear that just can
hear the tiniest peep.
He's waiting to hear, is there anyone who
can see the trouble they're in spiritually?
Is there anyone out there who will have
this thing well up inside them?
What have I done?
Everyone turns to his own way like a
horse charging into the battle.
They can't get away from God quick enough
in their hearts.
Now remember, this is all in the midst
of a very religious culture.
This is all occurring in the midst of
people going to the temples, making their sacrifices,
doing all the things that you do.
Right in the midst of all of that,
in the Lord's eyes, he's looking on their
hearts.
And he's seeing them turn away, shutting the
doors of their hearts to the voice of
the Holy Spirit.
But outwardly, everything's good.
You know what I'm saying?
Outwardly, they're doing the right things.
They look pious and religious.
Then he goes on to say another illustration.
Even the stork in the sky knows their
seasons.
And the turtle dove and the swift and
the thrush observe the time of their migration.
They know that if you go north during
summer, that you come south during winter.
I mean, they understand this.
But my people do not know the ordinance
of the Lord.
He's been hearing people say this in their
heart, really.
How can you be thinking this way?
We're wise and the law of the Lord
is with us.
In other words, they were holding fast to
their traditions.
That they had the oracles of God.
They had the temple of God.
That we are God's people.
And they were holding to that.
And the Lord's saying, what are you thinking?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
have made it into a lie.
They've twisted the Word of God to say
something it doesn't say.
They've twisted it all to be able to
fashion it into the kind of religion that
they want to have.
The wise men are put to shame.
They are dismayed and caught.
Behold, they have rejected the Word of the
Lord.
And what kind of wisdom do they have?
They've rejected the Word of the Lord.
And then he starts talking about the consequences
that are coming up.
They did face this.
Therefore, I will give their wives to others,
their fields to new owners.
Because from the least even to the greatest,
everyone is greedy for gain.
In other words, everyone's in it for themselves.
From the prophet even to the priest.
All the spiritual leaders were in it for
self.
And here is what they were doing.
And this is my text and the point
I'm trying to get to right here.
Verse 11.
They heal the brokenness of the daughter of
my people superficially, saying, Shalom, shalom.
But there is no shalom.
All right.
That's the situation.
Shalom is a very important word in the
Hebrew language.
If you go to Israel, it's probably the
most used word because it's a greeting.
And it represents what they're saying when they
say shalom to you.
They're saying really in a nutshell.
They're getting it down to one word.
I hope peace and prosperity and good things
are headed your way.
And that's what shalom represented was an abundant
life, being secure, and being free from all
the worries and concerns, and that no disease
or terrible things are going to happen to
you or your family.
That's all represented in the term shalom.
And, of course, everything changes in the New
Testament.
After Calvary, you know, everything goes inward.
Everything was sort of outward in the Old
Testament times, and it goes inward in the
New Testament times.
So that word, though, carries forth.
It's the Greek term eirene.
And eirene means inward peace, inward prosperity, inward
richness of soul, inward joy, the abundant life,
we call it.
There was kind of a change after Calvary.
Everything became inward.
What I want to do is I want
to use this story, this second apostasy, to
illustrate what's going on today.
What I'm going to do, the way I'm
going to break this down into four points,
is I'm going to talk about the main
actors in this drama that we see unfolding
before us.
First will be the Jewish people, and then
the false teachers, and then the Nebuchadnezzar who's
inferred in this whole thing.
He's not spoken directly right here, but believe
me, all the way through Jeremiah, it's talked
about that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, is
coming in here to overthrow us.
And that's the threat.
So we'll get to him.
And then lastly, Jeremiah is the fourth player.
So let's look here for a minute at
the Jewish people.
Regardless of their spiritual condition, they were God's
people.
What that means exactly as far as eternal
implications are concerned is a secondary matter.
They were considered God's people.
They represented him to the earth, whether they
were doing a good job of it or
a poor job of it.
They were considered God's people, and we are
considered God's people in spite of the reality
of our hearts and where we're at with
him.
And Jeremiah looked at these people, or maybe
perhaps it was God who sees the intent
of the heart, who sees into the inner
world of every human being, and the Lord
could look inside these people, and what did
he see?
He summed it all up with the term
brokenness.
In other words, the false prophets were trying
to heal the brokenness.
There was brokenness there.
And just like is typical, and I'm getting
ahead of myself, but just like is typical
for false teachers, they always come in with
their soothing humanistic pity and try to make
people feel better.
And that's what they were doing.
But anyway, there was brokenness there.
And this term brokenness in the Hebrew is
the same word that's used for like a
fractured bone.
It's a very descriptive term.
And when you're talking about a person's heart
and their inward life, it means that it's
a total mess.
It's been devastated spiritually.
Isaiah really says it a lot more graphically
in the first chapter.
That's a tremendous chapter.
I've been studying it for a few days.
I'm just going to read a couple of
things he said.
And again, it's the Lord speaking to his
people.
Why do you keep on rebelling?
Do you want to be punished even more?
Israel, your head is already covered with wounds,
and your heart and mind are sick.
From head to foot, there's not a healthy
spot on your body.
You're covered with bruises and sores and open
wounds.
Your wounds have not been cleansed or bandaged.
No medicine has been put on them.
And it's kind of a picture of if
you've ever seen, it's a terrible sight, if
you've ever seen a group of guys beat
someone down, that is the picture here.
A number of guys just start hitting and
kicking and beating them down until they're just
laying writhing on the floor, and every part
of their body is covered with welts and
gashes and bruises, broken bones.
They are just a total mess.
That is a picture of what we are
like inside, what God sees inside when we
turn away from him.
That's what he's seeing.
Now, we're not seeing that.
We're not seeing it.
We're oblivious to it for the most part.
But that's what the Lord is seeing.
But the problem is one of the weapons
in Satan's arsenal to keep people in a
false sense of peace is religion.
And when I'm talking about religion, what I'm
talking about is crafting a religion after your
own making, crafting a religion that allows you
to run your own life, make all your
own decisions, do what you want to do
without answering to God, and yet you have
a list of rules, do's and don'ts.
You create a religion that allows you to
seem as though you are walking with the
Lord because you're obeying these outward rules and
regulations that we kind of create.
And what he saw in his time was
there was a religious system that allowed people
to come to the temple and offer their
sacrifices and do this and do that and
do all these outward things and yet keep
their heart far from him.
As Isaiah said, because those people draw near
with their words and honor me with their
lip service, in other words, sing songs of
praise and worship, but they remove their hearts
far from me.
And their reverence for me consists of tradition
learned by rote.
It's the traditions of man that creates false
religious systems.
And every one of these four apostasies I'm
talking about, it doesn't just happen overnight.
It takes hundreds of years down through man's
history and little by little, one corruption after
another is introduced until by the time God
is so sick of it and he can't
tolerate it anymore, not one bit more, and
he has to send judgment.
He has to purge the land.
By the time it gets to there, it
is completely dead.
There's no reality inside, in the heart.
It was a religious system.
And we know in Revelation 17 and 18
that at the last days, John called it
the Great Harlot.
And that is the apostate church.
It's the false church that has all the
guise and all the adornment of being Christian,
but the reality is in their hearts, in
their hearts, they are far from him.
Bottom line with apostasy is this, it's control.
That's the issue.
That will always be the issue.
Who is controlling your life?
Who's on the throne of your life?
Is it Jesus Christ really, or is that
just a cheap platitude that you've learned to
say?
Because it comes out in your daily life,
the way you live your life, the way
you think, the way you speak.
The reality of where Jesus Christ, where you
allow him, comes out in the way that
you live.
It's the evidence of it, but the reality
happens deep inside your inner being.
We're talking about what apostasy looks like, and
this is what I'm telling you.
That God's people, that the prevailing reality of
God's people is that outwardly they continue to
serve him, but inwardly their hearts are far
from him.
They have closed off the avenue into their
hearts.
They've put up walls and doors with a
do not enter sign.
I do not want you in here telling
me what to do with my heart and
what to do with my life.
I run the show here.
They don't ever think that way, you understand.
It's just the reality of what's going on.
They don't have those thoughts.
Well, of course, Satan is the author of
false religion, and it's his devilish breath that
he breathes on people that gives them that
spiritual stupor and puts them in a sense
of false peace.
And Satan has his ministers.
And that brings us to the second group,
the false prophets.
Satan has his agents, wolves in sheep's clothing,
angels of light.
Satan and his minions are experts at putting
people to sleep, experts at it.
They know just how to do it.
They have just the right formula, the right
tonic to dabble into your soul and put
you into a sound sleep.
Now, in this particular case, the people are
in great need.
They have been beaten down to the ground.
It's like the Good Samaritan story, the guy
who had been beaten by the robbers.
There he is, just all beaten and busted
up.
And they can see that, I suppose, but
their solution is to come on and pat
him on the back.
Oh, it'll be all right.
You know, the people are backslidden.
Oh, no, don't worry.
Don't be too hard on yourself.
You'll do better.
You'll be okay.
And they pat them on the back and
encourage them.
Now, this isn't the gift of encouragement like
Barnabas had.
Barnabas was an encourager, but a true encourager
in the Lord always encourages you toward the
Lord.
A faith, a flatterer, encourages you in your
sin.
Big difference.
We need encouragers.
Absolutely.
Thank God there's not a bunch of Steve
Gallagher's running around.
We need men with the gift of encouragement,
the real gift.
But we don't need flatterers.
And, of course, Jeremiah referred to them when
he talked about their lying pens, the way
they twist Scripture.
This is what we see prevailing today.
And, again, dear ones, I'm not up here
telling you, you know, something I've contrived or
whatever.
It is what the Word of God foretold.
Everything else is in place for the last
days.
Why would you doubt this?
Paul said, and you've heard it a thousand
times, but you need to hear it again
in this context, for the time will come
when they will not endure.
In other words, they can't take sound doctrine.
It's too burdensome.
It's too heavy.
Why?
Because their hearts aren't with Jesus.
They want to do it in their own
strength so they can control everything, so they
can't endure sound doctrine.
But wanting to have their ears tickled, they
will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to
their own desires and will turn away their
ears from the truth and will turn aside
to myths.
And, again, those myths have been supplied by
the false prophets.
The false prophets, many of whom are great
preachers on the radio.
They'll take half of the gospel and they
do a great job of expositing, but you
never hear the other half.
You never hear sin confronted.
You never hear worldliness confronted.
You never hear them preaching about pride and
selfishness.
Why?
Because when you start preaching like that, radios
shut off because people don't want to hear
it.
The funds, the donations quit coming in because
people don't want to listen to that kind
of preaching.
So they just do the positive half.
God help them.
I pity them when they stand before Jesus
Christ who laid it all on the line.
Paul also said, while they are saying, peace,
Irene, and safety, then destruction will come upon
them suddenly.
This is reality.
I hope you guys understand.
I know it's not a fun message, but
it is reality.
It's our reality today.
And where this is all heading is we
get to a point where we become swallowed
up by the Babylonian system.
We've lost all of our safeguards, our weapons,
our protections.
You know, God has given us protections just
like my wife shared.
You just have to appropriate them.
And, you know, when you appropriate them, you
will have protections in place that will keep
the spirit of this world at bay.
I'm getting ahead of myself here again.
So number three is Nebuchadnezzar who is, of
course, the king of Babylon.
And I think it's Isaiah 14.
Actually, Lucifer is called the king of Babylon.
Now Babylon has always represented the world system.
Jerusalem represents the people of God, and Babylon
represents those who are in an Antichrist spirit.
It goes back to the Tower of Babel,
of course, and it just weaves its way
until finally at the very end in Revelations.
What is it?
It's Babylon.
It's Babylon that rises up against God in
the end.
The Apostle John said something very interesting.
I ran across this about a month ago,
and I had never seen it this way
before.
It just hit me.
This is what he said, 1 John 5,
19.
He said, We know that we are of
God.
Now when he's talking about we, he's talking
about himself, the other disciples, godly people around
him.
He says, We know that we are of
God and that the whole world lies in
the power of the evil one.
These two phrases drive a giant chasm, a
great gulf between true believers and false believers,
and you can't get from one to the
other.
We try to make a gray area in
the church where we can kind of have
one foot in one world and one foot
in the other, but it's just a figment
of our imagination.
It's an illusion because the gulf is so
wide you can't put one foot over on
one side and one foot over on the
other.
It's impossible.
You can delude yourself into thinking that, but
the reality is you're fully in the enemy's
camp.
The world is in the grip of the
father of lies.
It's in the grip of Satan, and that
grip is growing stronger and tighter every day,
just like the Bible said it would.
And I want to tell you, those who
are of God do not lie in the
grip, in the power of the evil one.
You can tell by their lives if they're
of God because they're not lying in the
power of the evil.
When you talk to them, it comes out
what's inside of them.
They're not full of this world and all
into this world and their heart going after
the things of this world.
That's not what comes out of them.
Their life is all about Jesus Christ.
But those who lie in the power of
the evil one are not of God.
It's one way or the other, and in
that little comma there, in the middle of
that sentence, those two phrases represent two completely
distinct groups of people.
And we have to decide, will we live
in the power of the Holy Spirit, or
will we live with a form of godliness
and resist the power of the Holy Spirit,
keep the power of the Holy Spirit at
bay, keep him away from our hearts, and
seal our doom?
All right, so that's the picture, is you
have God's people are in a terrible predicament
spiritually.
They're in great danger.
But praise the Lord, he found a man
who could step into that situation with a
pure heart, with a genuine love for those
people.
And he could speak truth to them, even
while they spit in his face.
Jeremiah was God's representative to a backslidden people.
He stepped into that culture when everyone, the
king down to the lowest slave, everyone, everyone,
isn't that what it said?
Everyone is greedy for gain.
And he stepped in with the word from
the Lord.
But you know, really, it was Jesus.
It was the Spirit of Jesus Christ at
work in his life through him and in
his words.
It was Jesus, the one who sat and
looked upon Jerusalem and said with tears running
down his cheeks, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often
I would have gathered you under my wings.
But you wouldn't.
You would not.
Jesus Christ is the greatest prophet who ever
lived.
And he came in that third apostasy.
His way was paved by John the Baptist,
of course.
But Jesus Christ was the greatest prophet who
ever lived.
He was a prophet, priest, and king and
the greatest of all.
And you know, it's interesting.
Jesus said, Don't think that I came to
bring peace, shalom, Irene, on this earth.
I did not come to bring peace but
a sword, he said.
Now, I want you to listen to what
Oswald Chambers got to say about this.
We talk glibly about Jesus being the prince
of peace.
But when he comes into the world that
is peaceably ruled by Satan, he comes to
send a sword, not peace.
The coming of Jesus Christ is not a
peaceful thing.
It is overwhelming and frantically disturbing.
Because the first thing he does is to
destroy every peace that is not based on
a personal relationship to himself.
The peace of physical health, of mental healthy
mindedness, of prosperous circumstances, of civilization.
Not one of these is peace of God.
But the outcome of the souls of men
being garrisoned by the prince of this world.
And that says a lot.
Being garrisoned by the prince of this world.
Thank God Jesus is willing to step in
and rescue souls.
Now, just to show you the overwhelming love
that constrained Jesus.
And does.
I want to share something that he said.
And he was making a different point when
he said this.
But I'll show you something in it.
He's talking about how Satan and his kingdom
works.
Okay, and it comes out of Luke 11.
This is what he said.
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his
own house, his possessions are undisturbed.
But when someone stronger than he attacks him
and overpowers him, he takes away from him
all his armor on which he had relied
and distributes his plunder.
Okay, now what in the world does that
have to do with peace and false peace
and what we're talking about?
I'll show you.
The possessions that Jesus is referring to is
the booty.
Meaning, the great war between the kingdoms of
darkness and kingdom of light is all about
one thing.
People's souls.
That's what it's all about.
That's what the battle is all about.
There is no other reason for this battle.
It's people's souls.
Satan is in a passion to destroy your
soul.
And Jesus Christ is in a passion to
redeem and save your soul.
Your soul is the possession being spoken to.
And here's the picture.
It's almost like a Philistine camp, if I
could say.
Garrisoned, as Chambers described it.
A garrison.
A fort.
And there's Satan in there and he's got
all these captives in there.
They're in the grip of Satan.
They're held captive to do the devil's will.
They're lying in the power of the evil
one.
Now here's what I want to show you.
There's only one term that describes these people.
This is what he said.
His possessions are undisturbed.
There they are.
They're in the Philistine fort.
This word undisturbed is Irene.
It's peace.
They are in Satan's grip and totally good
with it.
Totally good with it.
Completely at peace.
No concerns.
Unruffled.
At ease.
But God who is rich in mercy.
You were dead in your trespasses and sins
in which you formerly walked according to the
course of this world.
Babylon.
According to the prince of the power of
the air.
The atmosphere you were in.
The suffocating atmosphere of Babylon.
The spirit that is now working in the
sons of disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in
the lusts of our flesh.
Indulging the desires of the flesh of the
mind.
And were by nature children of wrath.
But God being rich in mercy.
Because of his great love with which he
loved us.
Etc.
Jesus Christ came riding into the Philistine camp.
Broke through the wall somehow.
Gets into the tent where you're laying undisturbed.
And he grabs a hold of you.
And he's shaking you.
Wake up!
You hear the words.
But it's like they're coming through a tunnel
five miles long.
And it's just like this tiny little peep.
You know because you're so far gone.
Into the enemy's thinking.
Into his mindset.
Into his ways.
Into his value system.
You have so thrown yourself into this world
system.
Jesus is yelling.
He's shaking you.
But you can hardly hear him.
And it's all mercy.
That he would even bother with any of
us.
Alright now.
I want to wrap this up.
I want to wrap it up and I
want to do it this way.
I want to say that there's three types
of people in this room today.
There are those who have been to Calvary.
Some of you guys have been to Calvary.
You've had a breakthrough in this place.
Some of you have had the breakthrough that
was needed.
And now the main work going on in
your life is to continue fortifying you spiritually.
And building you up in the faith.
And getting you ready to go home.
And all of that.
And the second group I want to mention
are those who haven't yet been there.
But you're going to get there.
Your time is coming.
You know.
You don't know who you are though.
I mean that's sheer guesswork on your part
and our part.
But God knows.
And so I'm going to lump the two
of you together.
You've been to Calvary or you're going to
go to Calvary before your time is up.
And here's my concern though.
You're living in a spiritual cocoon here at
Pure Life Ministries.
You are surrounded with truth.
You can't get away from truth, right?
Sometimes you wish you could get away from
truth.
You're surrounded with truth here.
You get it constantly.
And you need it, men, because you've been
laying in the power of the evil one
for many years.
You've been wallowing in that cesspool of deception.
You have just indulged yourself with all those
lies and falsehoods to the point that your
whole mind has been corrupted in the way
it sees things.
So you need to spend a good amount
of time here laying in the truth.
But the time is going to come when
you go home.
Now some of you come from good Bible
preaching churches.
You have godly pastors.
But others of you, it's not so much
that way.
But whatever the case, no matter how good
your church is, this I know.
This I know.
There is a religious system in this country
that is apostate.
Hopefully it will become real to you.
Not because I'm trying to sound like whatever.
There are God's people out there, and there
are sincere people out there in the midst
of this system.
There are.
So don't get me wrong.
But I'm telling you that the system on
a whole Let me just give you a
couple of examples.
Who is it that rises to the top?
Is it the most humble men in the
land?
Is it the men with the least ambition
and the purest hearts?
Is it the men who Jesus Christ has
totally conquered inside?
That's the system we live in.
I mean that's just one little aspect of
it.
I'm not even going to get into the
money involved and all of that.
But whatever.
There is a system out there.
And here's the thing, guys.
You lived in that system quite comfortably.
Didn't you?
Weren't you pretty much at peace?
If it wasn't for your sexual sin, what
hope would there have been for you?
But, thank God.
Thank God that you had something that even
the church was so bad that even the
church frowned on your life.
That should tell you something right there.
And it brought you saw your need, you
know, because this thing was like a thorn
in your side.
It wouldn't let you go.
Think of all the masses out there that
are just living in a spiritual stupor, living
for this world, who don't have a thorn
in their side to cause them to wake
up and search for help.
You're going back into that system.
Now, I do believe that some of you
are going to go out of here blazing.
And you are going to go out, and
God is going to use you in the
days ahead.
I believe that.
You know, you may have to go through
some things and some struggles and so on.
But I do believe that there are going
to be men who leave this place in
a powerful spirit.
Or at least it will grow when you
get out there.
And instead of flinking under the assault and
just kind of caving into it, instead of
doing that, you will rouse yourself up.
And you'll say, no, I'm not going to
go that way again.
I'm going to stand for Jesus Christ.
And you'll have that kind of conviction just
written across your heart.
And the enemy won't be able to drain
it out of you because you won't stand
for it.
So I'm believing that there are people like
that, but there are others.
And this comes out of 25 years in
this ministry and many heartbreaking stories.
And the story isn't over until someone dies,
of course.
But I can't tell you how many times,
and it's not the majority, but all the
thousands of men that we have dealt with
at Pure Life Ministries over the years, I'm
sure you can imagine, there have been many
times, many, many, many, many.
All these guys up here know and these
counselors know how many have broken our hearts
because we loved them, we cared about them,
we tried to give them the truth.
And they left out of here in delusion.
They left out of here with a half
load, you know, just did enough to get
by.
And they went back out there and they
found that when the powerful deception came over
them, they had nothing to protect themselves from
it.
And they slid away.
Only one thing that matters is the sincerity
of your heart.
The sincerity of your heart.
You know, it's just in us human beings
to build walls around our heart, to fortify
our hearts against the conviction of the Holy
Spirit.
We do our best to protect ourselves from
God breaking through.
And some of you are going to win
that battle.
I could weep thinking about it.
You have resisted the Holy Spirit so many
times.
Because even in this place, you will resist
the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Even here, when you're surrounded by truth, you
can't get away from it.
No matter where you turn, you're hit with
it.
You have found a way to somehow slide
through.
Some people just have the ability to slide
through.
They just can keep truth at bay.
They'll nod with their head.
They'll acknowledge, yeah, that's true, you know, praise
the Lord, brother.
I'm going on with Jesus.
But inside, there's a wall.
And they never let the Holy Spirit in
to deal with them.
You know, the point comes, the Spirit quits
striving after a while.
Some of you, this is your last chance.
I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but
I just believe that, that the Lord has
finally got you to a place where He
can speak to you without all the distractions.
And you've got to respond to Him in
this place.
Because you're going to go back into a
system that is going to completely cater to
your flesh.
And I hate to say it, but there's
going to be some that the Lord has
to say.
Ephraim has gone to his idols.
Leave him alone.
He wants his own way.
Let him have it.
He's proven it time and time and time
again.
Every time I've tried to reach him, he
has found some way out of the conviction
of my Holy Spirit.
You know, you're only deceiving yourself.
But there's going to come a day when
all that deception is going to be gone.
And only reality is going to be there
staring you in the face.
And I'm talking about when you stand before
God.
There won't be any more lying devils.
There won't be any more atmospheres that are
conducive to you playing your game.
Guys, trust me.
I know you don't realize this because I'm
not involved in your lives.
But I very much care.
I very, very much care.
And that's what brings forth a message like
this, is that I care about you.
I don't want to see any of you
lost.
Just straggling along.
Can never figure out why you can't get
the victory.
And I don't mean sexual sin.
I'm just talking about the spiritual life, the
Christian life.
You just can't ever seem to arrive at
it, to finish.
I'm going to read these words from George
Whitefield that he spoke to a crowd a
couple hundred years ago during the Great Awakening.
And I hope you get the sense of
God's heart for you.
If I haven't been able to convey it,
I'm sorry.
But I hope that you can get the
sense of it from his words, this dear
man's words.
Poor soul, what a cursed condition you're in.
I would not be in your case for
10,000,000 worlds.
Why?
You're hanging just over hell.
What peace can you have when God is
your enemy?
When the wrath of God is abiding upon
your poor soul?
Awake, then, you that are sleeping in a
false peace.
Awake, you carnal professors.
You hypocrites that go to church, read your
Bibles, and never felt the power of God
upon your hearts.
You that are formal professors.
You that are baptized heathens.
Awake and awake.
And do not rest on a false bottom.
Please don't blame me for addressing myself to
you this way.
Indeed, it is out of love for your
souls.
I see you are lingering in your Sodom
and wanting to stay there.
But I come to you as the angel
did to Lot to take you by the
hand.
Come away, my dear brethren.
Fly.
Fly for your lives to Jesus Christ.
That is God's heart.
There is a great spiritual peril.
And it is this false peace, this false
sense of security.
Being secure when you shouldn't be secure.
Lord, you see these dear souls here.
Dear, dear precious souls who you love greatly,
Lord.
Who you love greatly.
It is your love that is pleading with
them today.
I know that many of these men have
already done the right thing.
And they're fighting for a real life in
God.
I understand that, Lord.
But there are some who haven't yet crossed
that line.
Haven't yet made that full surrender in their
hearts.
Lord, I'm praying that you will reach them
right now.
I'm praying if there are any visitors here
today that haven't had a true life in
God.
But have just been playing that religious game.
Keeping you at arm's bay.
But going through all the motions outwardly.
God, reach their heart, please, Lord.
Bring the conviction of the Holy Spirit to
bear upon their consciences, God.
Overwhelm and devastate everything they would exalt inside
them against the knowledge of God, I pray.
Lord, I'm just looking to you to accomplish
what you desire to accomplish.
Which is always, always to salvage souls.
And I leave it to you to accomplish
this, Lord.