Standing for God in an Ungodly Culture

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4. I want to talk to you tonight about standing for God in an ungodly culture.

It’s an idea that we need to have set in our minds because it’s our responsibility as believers in Jesus Christ to stand for God wherever we go. It’s our responsibility as Christian believers to be a witness, to be a loving witness, but a witness nonetheless, of the light and truth of Jesus Christ in a world that is increasingly dark and increasingly hostile toward the things of God. We are living in a strange time.

I have to remind myself, though, that our time in history is not all that unique. It’s easy to look at the way things are and say things are the worst they’ve ever been. Things have never been this bad.

But then I remember what I teach about the book of Genesis and remember about Noah’s day where it says that every imagination of every man was only evil all the time, constantly. And the realization occurred to me the other day that when the Bible says every thought of every person was only evil all the time, that included Noah and his family, I’m assuming, Because the Bible gives no qualification there, saying except for Noah. Now what we see elsewhere in the Bible is that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

That God loved and chose to save Noah in spite of his sin, which is that not the case with the rest of us. God saves us in spite of our sin anyway. So it’s not that Noah was the one perfect exception, it’s just that God had mercy on him and got a hold of him and he straightened out.

But it’s easy to think that we live in a time where things are the worst they’ve ever been because there’s a lot of stuff that goes on that we haven’t seen before in recent times. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on out in the open in our country today that was hidden behind closed doors 50 years ago that people desperately tried to hide 50 years ago. And yet we are still, I believe, not to a place, we are still not to a place where we were in Noah’s day where every thought of every person was evil constantly.

We’re not there yet. But I believe the scriptures say that it’ll be, as time goes on, it will be as it was in Noah’s day. Now, I’m not one to say that we are in the end times.

As a matter of fact, I caution people against that. We could be. We may not be.

I don’t know. And neither do you. So I’m hesitant to say, well, we’re in the end times Because if he waits another hundred years or another fifty years or what have you, it just makes the rest of the world say, well, you’ve said all this time it was the end times and it’s not.

But things are headed in that direction towards the evil of Noah’s day and yet we’re not there yet. But it still doesn’t change the fact that things are increasingly dark in our day and age. Things are increasingly hostile toward Christianity.

When I started preaching, I want to say it was about 14 years ago. Wow, time has really flown by. I was 15 at the time.

When I started preaching, you know, it was nothing to talk about the wickedness of our culture. Meaning because they don’t agree with us and they don’t live for the things of God. Tonight, these years later, as I’m talking to you about an ungodly culture, It’s not even that they don’t agree with us and that they don’t stand where we stand on godly principles.

It’s hard for me, it’s unreasonable for me to expect the lost world to behave as saved people. It’s not the fact that they don’t believe as we do. That is, I mean, it’s a problem, don’t get me wrong.

But what scares me is not the fact that most people don’t believe as we do. It’s not the fact that most people don’t act as we do. It’s the fact that I believe we’re approaching a time where people who believe and act as we do are going to be penalized.

for that very fact. See, it’s bad enough when a culture rejects God and says, well, we’re not going to live as though God is real. It’s another thing entirely when the culture says, we’re going to punish you, though, for believing as though He’s real. You know, if the world wants to, I’ll preach against it, I’ll try to convince them otherwise, but if the world wants to live as the world lives, that’s their right. But when it’s no longer our right to stand for God, choices have to be made.

Choices have to be made ahead of time as to which side we’re going to stand on. And I watched part of an interview today. I’m not sure if the interview was done today or earlier in the week, but I watched a video online today, an interview of George Stephanopoulos with Mike Pence, who’s the governor of Indiana.

He signed a religious freedom bill into law this week that has caused all sorts of celebrities and sports groups and all sorts of things to want to boycott the state of Indiana. Now, the gist of this bill, The gist of this law that’s been signed into effect is that the state cannot prevent someone from practicing their sincerely held religious beliefs. That’s not just a Christian bill.

That’s not just a Judeo-Christian bill. That’s saying the state can’t force you to go against your religious beliefs. That’s pretty much a principle our country was founded on.

And yet it’s become controversial. And the reason this came up, ladies and gentlemen, the reason bills like this have come up is because in this country we have court cases where state governments and even I think some federal agencies have gotten involved. In a couple of different instances, I believe there was a florist in Colorado who refused to provide bouquets for a same-sex wedding ceremony. There was a baker in the state of Washington whose livelihood was ruined because she refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex union.

Now, as I understand it, in both of these cases, they were kind to the people. They referred them to someone else who would. They just said, and it’s not that they refused to serve them because of their lifestyle.

It’s not that they had a sign at the door that said no homosexuals. They just said we cannot sanction or approve this union. Now you may disagree with them, but I would think they’re right.

But we’re now in a culture today where not only does the prevailing culture not believe in and accept God’s word, but they wish to punish and penalize those who do. And choices, ladies and gentlemen, are going to have to be made. I think it’s pitiful.

I think it’s pitiful, honestly. And I promise I didn’t come here tonight to preach politics. We’ll move on into this.

I’m just trying to set the stage for you here about why this is so important and where we’re going with this. I am enough of a libertarian to say I don’t want the government involved in any of it. You know, I will probably shock some conservatives by saying I don’t want the government kicking down homosexuals’ front doors because of the lifestyle they lead.

But nor do I want the government kicking down the church door because of what we preach against it. Can we not just, I have my point of view, you have your point of view, and we’ll find out who’s right later on. Apparently those days are long past. The days of rights and conscience, I’m afraid, are going away.

Unless something drastically reverses course in this country. Said all that to say this, as I’ve already said, I’ll say it again. As we get to a point where we become penalized for what we believe about the truth of God’s word, choices will have to be made by believers.

And I maintain those choices are best made ahead of time, before the question arises, which side we stand on. Do we side with the principles of God’s word, or are we willing to compromise those principles and get along with the prevailing culture and go on to fight another day? I maintain that there’s really only one choice there.

If we truly believe what we say we believe. You know what? I don’t want to go to jail.

I don’t want to be driven out of my livelihood. But quite honestly, as afraid as I am of those things, I’m much more afraid of God. And there were things, there were similarities between our day and Timothy’s day.

Because in the time of Timothy and Paul, it was illegal to be a Christian. Now, sometimes they overlooked those illegalities and sort of turned a blind eye to the churches. We see the same kind of situation in communist China today, that it is illegal to be a Christian and to meet as Christians and to worship together as Christians.

In some times, in some places, local government officials turn a blind eye, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s illegal and you could potentially lose your livelihood, if not your very life, for being a Christian. It was that way in Paul and Timothy’s day. And because of that, they were under constant threat.

They were under constant threat from the government. They were under constant threat from new teachers who would come along with new doctrines that sounded good but were false. They were like poison wrapped in cotton candy.

They tasted good, but they would kill you. And so Paul warned Timothy of what he needed to do as the culture, as the government, as ultimately some within the church turned against the truth of God’s word. He said, you don’t have the option here of compromise.

And so he says in chapter 4, verse 1, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Now notice here he says, I charge thee. He says, I’ve handed you this responsibility.

This is your commission, Timothy. This is your calling. It’s not just left to the apostle, but it’s left to all of those who are serving in Christ’s name.

I charge you, he says, I charge you therefore before God, before the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let him be the witness of how you carry yourself. Not only before God, but before God who will judge the quick and the dead, the living and the dead, and his appearing and his kingdom. He says, God will see and God will judge what is done here.

I don’t think that’s a threat to Timothy. I don’t think that’s a threat. I think that’s a reminder.

And it’s not as though, again, we do not earn our salvation. We do not even maintain our salvation. Jesus paid it all.

And the security we have is security in Him, not in our own works. And so when He warns again that God will judge, I don’t think that’s a judgment. Will you preach well enough and serve well enough to go to heaven, or are you going to be cast into hell?

But it’s a question of standing before God and giving account, what have you done in my name? And so He reminds Timothy that the things we do on earth don’t just count on earth. they count in eternity as well.

He says, I charge you before the God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead and His appearing in His kingdom. He says, preach the word. Don’t just preach.

Preach the word. There’s a lot of preaching in our country. You can go on TV today.

You could have stayed home if you wanted to and listened to Joel Osteen. It would have been a good time. But there’s not a lot of the word in a lot of messages that are preached in a lot of churches.

Brother Shank, are you the one who tells the story of taking your dad to the Baptist church and the message was on the virtues of Hubert Humphrey? Well, at least it was a short service. Oh, dear.

Yeah, I’m getting into politics now. Folks, there’s a lot of preaching in a lot of places, even outside churches, but there’s not a lot of preaching in the Word. It’s the Word that matters.

It’s not what I have to say. It’s not the stories I have to tell. And some of you have shared that you enjoy my stories.

I’ve been at churches where I’ve had one or two people say, you tell too many stories. Jesus told stories all the time, so take it up with him. But y’all aren’t here to hear about what happened to me in the tornado or hear what my kids did this week.

Those things are incidental. Those things are to illustrate and help convey a point. But the main thrust of the message has to be the word, or it doesn’t matter what else is preached. It’s got to be God’s word.

We can’t come to the church and preach the latest pop culture talking points. We can’t preach what’s politically correct. We’re shackled to preach the word.

Paul called himself a slave to Jesus Christ. You know what? Popular culture. You know what?

Government. I couldn’t obey and preach what you want me to anyway. I don’t work for you.

That doesn’t just go for me as the preacher. That goes for all of us as believers. We are bound to proclaim the truth.

Be instant in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. That means be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

I hear this and I always think of the old Andy Griffith show where he talks about the minute men. And he said they’d run from house to house and say, get your gun, we’re going to have us a revolution. I can’t remember exactly how he says it, but I always loved that part.

And the minute men, not just on the Andy Griffith show, but actually in history, we’re ready at a minute’s notice to go out and do battle. Well, folks, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, and our war is not against flesh and blood. But our sword is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

And we’re called upon to be ready to do battle at a moment’s notice. Be instant in season and out of season. Be prepared, be studied up, be prayed up, because you never know when you’re going to be called on to give an account of the things that we believe in account.

We have a reason for the hope that is within us with fear and trembling. Reprove, rebuke, those are not our society’s favorite words. When you reprove or rebuke, those words are very similar.

But when you do those things, that means somebody’s done something wrong and you’re going to call them on it. That is not fun to be on the receiving end of, and it’s really not fun to be on the giving end of either. We live in a society where whatever you want to believe or whatever you want to do is okay as long as you’re not intolerant.

Reproof and rebuking are not popular. But you know what? We have no business reproving or rebuking based on my opinion.

But Shank, I don’t like the color of your shirt today. How dare you wear that? I really do like it.

Just an example. That’s my opinion. If that were the case, that would be my opinion.

I have no business reproving or rebuking or judging anyone on that basis. But there’s a difference between judging someone and saying what the judge has already said. And we reprove and rebuke based on what the Word of God says.

And exhort. Let’s not leave that out. Exhort means to encourage.

It’s not just our job to pull people apart for what they’ve done wrong, but to build them up. We say about children that we want to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What about babes in Christ?

What about those who are not yet born into Christ? Shouldn’t we work on building them up as well? All believers need encouragement.

Folks, the world outside needs our encouragement. I know that sounds like a strange thing to say. But the word of God can be used to reprove and to rebuke, can also be used to encourage and exhort, to build people up when they’re brought low.

He says, with all long-suffering and doctrine, with patience, oh my goodness, do we need patience. because just because we say it and just because God’s Word says it and we repeat it doesn’t mean that the light bulb’s going to go on and everybody the first time we say it is going to get it and change their ways. Right?

So we need long-suffering. When he says with all long-suffering and doctrine, that word doctrine means sound teaching. Folks, go to the Scriptures and make sure and make sure and make sure again that what we’re teaching really is what God’s Word says.

If there’s a discrepancy between our teaching and what God’s Word says, God’s Word is not the one that needs to change. It’s what we’re teaching. For the time will come.

And I submit to you that the time has come. The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. Doctrine is a four-letter word in a lot of churches.

I don’t want to hear about the Trinity. I don’t want to hear about the deity of Christ. I don’t want to hear about the resurrection. I don’t want to hear about this or that.

Just give me something that’s going to make my life better this week. There’s nothing wrong with making our lives better through the application of God’s Word. But if we’re not willing to sit and listen to the truth that is the basis of the rest of that, then there’s a problem.

The principles of God’s Word work in our lives because God is who He says He is. Well, who does God say He is? Well, now you’re getting into doctrine.

But after their own lust, they shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned into favorites. When something itches, you want to scratch it, don’t you?

My kids and I have eczema. Mild cases, I guess. It gets worse during the winter.

My legs will get to itching. And even though I know it’s the worst thing I could possibly do, it makes it worse, there’s nothing that feels better in the short term than just scratch it. Just scratch that skin right off.

even though it’s making it worse. It’s making it so much worse. Well, there’s a reason here the Bible gives the picture of someone having itching ears.

They don’t want to sit there for the sound doctrine. Their ears need to be tickled and scratched. And even though what they’re hearing makes the spiritual condition worse, it doesn’t matter as long as we get that short-term relief.

So after their own lust, they shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And you know what? when you start telling.

. . The Bible says they heap to themselves.

They collect them. I can’t say this about everybody. There might be some decent men who are making this kind of money, but when you’ve got a preacher making millions of dollars a year, be very leery.

Be very leery of what he’s telling you. Because you preach the cross, you preach the blood, you preach the resurrection, You preach sin and judgment and justice, but God’s mercy and God’s forgiveness and the need for repentance and the need for faith and the need for rebirth, those are not popular concepts. You’re probably not going to make a million dollars preaching those things.

But when you tell the people what they want to hear, surprise, surprise, surprise, who would think that human nature says, I want to hear more of that. I want to buy their tapes and their books and send them money. The Bible warned us that people will not endure sound doctrine.

And even some who claim the name of Christ will begin to follow after false teachers because they scratch the ears when they itch. They’ll be turned away from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, he says.

Endure afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of thy ministry. He says to watch and to be careful.

He says to watch and be careful. There are holes out there. There are pitfalls.

We were cleaning up the playground yesterday at the school after the tornado. And there’s an area for the infants that has an awning. It’s fenced off separately, and it has an awning tent over it, which was really kind of a nice setup.

Then the babies don’t burn if they go out to play. We noticed, and I don’t know if these were there before. My assumption is that when the awning got blown around, it didn’t go anywhere.

The tornado knocked over a huge box truck that left this awning where it was. You could tell it had been moved a little bit, though. And I don’t know if it just moved it around enough that these holes that were driven into the ground, or these poles, I’m sorry, that were driven into the ground moved around and opened up holes around them or what.

But we had to close off this area because one of the ladies from the PTA who was out there working with us noticed there were holes. We had to seal off this area with twist ties around the gate, and that’s all we had on us. So nobody would go out there.

But I was out there walking around picking up toys to bring back to where they needed to be, and didn’t even notice these huge holes that not only could an infant fall into, but that I could have, one of my legs could have gotten into and I could have tripped and hurt myself. Folks, there are pitfalls that we don’t always see around us. And so he says, watch.

Pay attention. Watch in all things. Endure afflictions.

Is it always going to be easy to be a Christian in the kind of world that Timothy was living in? No. Are we promised that it’s going to be easy to be a Christian, a faithful Christian in the world that we’re living in.

No. There will be afflictions. There will be persecution.

There will be suffering. What does he say? Go ahead and quiet down if it helps you out.

No, he says endure afflictions. I’m not telling you that because I want you to just deal with it. I don’t like to go through affliction any more than you do.

I’m just telling you what it says because that’s what it says. Endure afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist. Go out and spread the gospel.

We have a responsibility to spread the gospel. Do they want to hear it? Probably not.

Am I talking about chasing them down the street where they can’t get away? No. But with love and humility and compassion and conviction and much prayer that the Holy Spirit will lead you to the right person and give you the right words to say, do the work of an evangelist. Let me ask you a question because there seems to be some confusion about this in Christian circles, and I even had some confusion about this at one point.

I think, based on my behavior. Are we going to turn America back to Jesus Christ by getting bills passed through Congress or getting the right people elected? No.

I hate to say it, because I really worked hard on going that route for a long time until about 2006, and I started studying this some more. No, we’re not looking at outward things. This is a heart problem in our nation.

Is the government going to save America or save its culture or save its people? No. that the church can.

Not because we can save people or because we can save the culture or because we can fix everything, but we bring the message of the one who can. And the only way that this nation will turn back to God, the only way that families will be restored, the only way that we will reverse the moral decay that we see all around us and seem powerless to stop is one changed life at a time. And all the programs, governmental or church, put together, cannot cause that to happen.

But the conviction of the Holy Spirit that leads one to the cross can change lives. Changed lives 2,000 years ago and still does it today. So by all means, even though it’s going to cause us trouble, we may endure persecution in the sense that we go to jail, we may endure persecution in the sense that we are verbally attacked, do the work of an evangelist. Do the work of an evangelist. We have to proclaim salvation to anybody who will hear us.

He says, make full proof of thy ministry. That doesn’t mean prove yourself. That just means fulfill the ministry you’ve been called to.

Now, do we all have the same area of ministry? No. I was about to ask, do we all have the same ministry?

Yeah, we do. But do we all have the same area of ministry? We do not.

God’s called us all as believers to do the basic things to lead people to Christ and make disciples. I think he’s called each of us to do that in different areas, though. You can reach a whole different crop of people than I can.

I can reach a whole different crop of people than you can. You know what? God can reach anybody He wants to through us or through somebody else, whether we look at them and say, oh, that’s somebody I can reach or not.

I’ve heard said for years by people, for example, who are part of Christian biker groups, that they could reach people I can’t. And there’s a lot of truth in that. There’s nothing about me that is biker.

At all. I see people riding motorcycles on the highway. I saw them today headed home.

I can’t fathom why anybody would want to do that. But you know what? There are people who can reach them.

There are people I could reach that would be put off by a biker. You know what? At the same time, if God chooses to use me to reach a biker, he’ll do it.

We just need to be willing and available to do the work of an evangelist and make full proof of our ministry wherever it happens to be and wherever God leads. He says, for I am now ready to be offered. I almost said offended.

be ready to be offended too for I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand Paul was writing his second letter to Timothy here as sort of a farewell address as he’s about to suffer his own martyrdom and looking back over his ministry and his times of faithfulness after everything that he’d accomplished he was not a perfect man certainly. Even after his conversion was not a perfect man, but he looked back over his times of ministry and realized he had done what he had been asked to do. He’d been faithful to what he’d been called.

He says, because of that, I’m ready to be offered. Time of my departure is at hand. He’s not sitting there wishing he’d done things differently.

He’s ready to be offered for the cause. And he says, I’ve fought the good fight. I’ve finished my course.

I’ve kept the faith. I’ve remained firm in the things that I’ve been called to. And I’ve done what he’s asked.

That’s all any of us can do. We’re not called to go out and have great success as the world would see it and lead thousands to Christ. It’s great if that happens. But what God has called us to do is be obedient where we are.

He said, I finished my course. The course that in ministry that God laid out for me. Folks, you can’t finish my course and I can’t finish yours.

But in easy times and in difficult times, in a good place of ministry or in an ungodly culture like in Timothy’s day or where I think we’re headed. We each just have to finish out the course that God has laid out for us. Be faithful to what He’s called us to do.

Paul said he’d done that. And in so saying that, he’s encouraging Timothy to do the same thing as well. And he says, Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.

And not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing. He said there is a reward on the other side. In spite of all the afflictions, in spite of the opposition of the false teachers, in spite of all the suffering and the persecution and the impending martyrdom, there’s a reward in the work.

Folks, I have points to give you, but I’m not going to give you my five points tonight because I feel like we’ve already covered them in the message. What I want to leave you with is this. As we see things getting darker, as we see things getting more hostile, As we’re entering a scary new time when not only most of the country and most of the world do not stand where we stand, but also now want to penalize us for standing where we do.

We have a couple of choices. And we’ve not been forced to make the choice yet, but we might as well make it before we go. I keep coming back to the tornado, but it’s fresh on my mind.

Somebody was talking Friday about, well, we were still standing around Wednesday debating, do we go, do we not? I said, the answer is always yes. If there’s a question in your mind, you just make the decision ahead of time that if you even think there’s a chance, then yeah, we’re going.

And it’s much easier. You don’t have to stand there and waver back and forth. Folks, I think the same principle applies here.

We’ve not been forced to make the choice, but let’s make it before we get there. And then we know what we’re going to do. Our options, as the world gets darker and more hostile, we can sit back and complain about it, or we can sit back and try to blend in and hope all the trouble passes us by, but either way we sit back and we refuse to fulfill the calling that God has placed on each of our lives.

Or we can cast our lot with Him, we can stand in faith knowing that He’ll take care of us, either in this life or the next, He’ll take care of us, trust Him to follow through on His promises and do what we’ve been called to do, with love and compassion and a sense of truth and conviction and the authority of God’s Word. Say as Martin Luther said, here I stand, I can do no other. That we’re with Him.

And we continue to try to work and make a difference one by one, one person at a time. And pray that God works. And pray that God works in their lives and draws them to Himself.

And be as faithful as we know how to be in the place where He’s put us until we go to our reward. I would like to think I’m in the latter category. But we have that choice to make.

Do we bow the knee and compromise and cast our lot in with the world? Or do we say ahead of time, I stand here and I’m not budging. Let the world go dark around me.

They can’t extinguish the light of Christ.

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