How to Think and Act in Evil Days, Part 1

The word of God is the source of all spiritual truth.

Everything we need to know for salvation and sanctification in the hope of glory is given us in the Scripture. Injustice by a national conversation about the event and what we should do about it. But the fact is, the world has problems that politicians and academicians and popular media cannot solve, and can't even explain.

Thankfully, if you're a believer there are answers and hope and today on grace to you. John MacArthur looks at how that hope can change not only your life but the lives of those around you. John is continuing a series he originally preached during chapel at the Masters University. It's titled how to think and act in evil days and now here's John we live in a society unlike any in the past.

We live in a world of electronic media and mass communication of relentless visual images and enhancements we see everything we see everything that happens in the world of any significance, and we see it again and again and again and again.

What were not isolated from anything. In fact, were overloaded with absolutely everything for the first time in history of the world. Most of these things have nothing to do with us. Were not there were not involved. We might occasionally experience some tragedy, but we have to bear the weight of the whole world now, and I guess part of the coping mechanism is you you eventually become a little bit insensitive to all of that and we forget that life is dangerous on this planet very, very dangerous and life is very very brief.

How do we as Christians absorbed that, take that in turn that into motivation be effective for Christ in the world in which we live.

Now we know. Everyone dies and supported on the men once to die, and after this the judgment. We know that the Bible says that Hebrews 9 we get that everybody set it for death and everybody set it for heaven or hell that ought to be enough motive for us to be serious about using the time and opportunity God gives us to bring the gospel to people realizing everyone dies everyone lives forever in heaven or hell of the only way to get to heaven is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ should be enough compulsion for us but of course were caught up in a strange kind of paradox where on the one hand, were overexposed to these massive calamities that catapult large groups of people in the death and on the other hand, we live in a very self-conscious self satisfying personally fulfilling world of people who were trying to suck everything they can out of this life and live temporal life to its max and elevate themselves to the highest level of comfort prosperity they can estrange paradox, but as believers we we need to understand the world the way the Lord wants us to understand that we need a biblical view so that takes me to the 13th chapter of Luke verses one through five. This is a very very important and very foundational way to view the world. Some Galileans were in the temple and they were offering sacrifices and pilot soldiers came in and slaughtered them so that their blood was mingled with the blood of the sacrifice for dramatic scene and some other Jews 18 of them to be exact word minding their own business and walking in a construction zone and a tower fell on them and crush them to death. Now the question that is on the mind of these people who are in the presence of our Lord is did this happen to these people because they were worse sinners than everybody else. That's that's the point verses to do you suppose these Galileans were greater sinners. Verse four. You suppose those 18, on whom the tower fell were worse culprits.

That is the question.

It's a question that's in their minds, and the question is that simple question. What about calamities, not about death in general. What about calamity, is this singled out for the worst of people is God doing something that we could actually call judgment actually call judgment only back off of that question for a minute and just say God or have a right to kill us any time any of us at any time right. The wages of sin is what death the soul that sins, it shall die. Certainly God would have the right to kill every sinner anytime he wanted, and that would be adjust act on God's part. God is just a judge sinners, we are worthy of that judgment, but God is merciful God extends grace to us in sinners live and they get used to living in they get used to not being judged. So when something happens like some calamity, then the question arises why is this happening why is this happening is that the better question is why is this not happening. Why, why is there not more of this because God is patient and kind and gracious and merciful God, giving sinners gospel opportunity.

We can say in this life. So the question then go to verse two. Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate and the Lord says in verse three I tell you no, I tell you no, they're not greater sinners than anybody else or everybody else and again I go back to what I said earlier, let life and in this world is a very dangerous thing is only one group of people who have any truth that can deliver people from the danger of being alive and that's Christians. There is no other message. There is no other truth how important is your life.

How important is your testimony is more important than anything else on the planet. Children are our children to school politician get together to talk about gun control, but nobody died. That wasn't going to die people in Colorado just pass laws against guns because it person massacred people in the theater but nobody died that was going to die.

And the answer is not new laws, the answer is only available for the world from you. You're gonna die you know when you're going to die just dodging traffic can be a deadly experience. As you know, you have no control over that soul that makes you critical to the world in which you live. But the only thing that makes you critical is that you have the gospel, which alone can rescue people from the eternal damnation that is the consequence of dying without repenting. So what is the message that Jesus gives at the end of verse three and at the end of verse five unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

You're going to die and it's going to be the end you're going to be literally destroyed. A very familiar word use their in the New Testament to speak of eternal destruction, you need to change your mind about your sin, you need to come to the only Savior the only one who can rescue you from judgment. You will all likewise perish. Apollo me to be lost, destroyed, killed the intent of the warning is the divine judgment comes after death. You have to be ready to die. And once you get a vision of this and you see all humanity as people on the brink of death and you have the only message they can rescue them from hell. Your life takes on an importance that transcends every president, every king, every monarch, every ruler every great mind on the planet, so I think it's a fair assumption to say that all the people killed at the altar and all the people crushed by the tower went to hell. The parish I don't know that we could conclude that any of them were true believers in the true God that was over for them in this life, but it just begun eternally in the next life.

So in a sense everybody is living on borrowed time. Everybody lives on borrowed time and with that thought in mind, pick up the parable with which Jesus draws this sermon to a conclusion. In verse six he began telling this parable. A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and didn't find any. And he said to the vineyard keeper behold, for three years I've come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down.

Why does it even use up the ground but he answered and said to him, let alone Sir for this year to until I dig around it in, put fertilizer, and if it bears fruit next year, fine.

If not cut it down pretty dramatic fig trees were common in Israel valuable excellent for shady used for gathering C1 and John chapter 1 fruit useful delicious everybody understood that the farmer comes in he looks to the fig tree defined fruit didn't find any. By the way fig trees have fruit every year.

Apparently this had been planted as a grown tree and should've produced kept coming back for three years. Disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. Interesting that three years used here because that's the length of the ministry of the Lord Jesus to Israel. Was this Jesus saying Israel is the fig tree that would certainly fit the biblical picture. I've given enough time to see some fruitfulness. I see none. The tree is been around long enough to prove its self worthy.

Nothing coming from it. What is it even use up the ground. What a waste. Cut it down cut it down judgment on Israel, but not just Israel, judgment on any fruitless life any fruitless life at that point in verse eight, the farmer responds by saying let it alone. Sir, let alone for this year to until I dig around it and put in fertilizer dig around it, but the verb simply means to loosen the soil better irrigation when he put some cup Freon on it some manure.

Let me do whatever I can to help, and if it bears fruit next year, fine the bears fruit in that duration, fine. If not cut it down. The tree is living on borrowed time and that's exactly what our Lord is saying about every human life, not just Israel but every human life.

Everybody lives on borrowed time. Everybody you're moving through the world is a possessor of Christ and the Holy Spirit is a believer knowledgeable of the gospel you're living through a world moving through the world in which you alone have the truth that rescues dying people.

You are the most important people on the planet. Judgment is near next year. Judgment is imminent. Life is short and appears for a little time like a vapor and fades away. God is patient, but he will not always strive with man. So as we think about life in this world as we think about what matters in this world.

I think we have to go back to this very basic reality that really only one thing matters and that's what has eternal implications. You know when I was a college student, I was thinking about athletics. That's what I did this, but I loved and that's what I enjoy and I had the opportunity to play football and thoroughly enjoyed it and opportunity to go to pro football camp after my junior year in get into the mix is being drafted and all that.

After my senior year and idea. I have had an experience I was speaking at an event as a senior football player. The season was over, I received some kind of an award, and so I went to to speak to this group that invited me to come and talk about football. It was a secular kind of thing so I just give my testimony. Talk about Christ and by then I knew kind of in my heart that I want a minister that I wanted to give my life in in ministry, but out of that event. Somebody told me about a girl and this is kind of an important point in my life really important who had been shot to the neck by her boyfriend and sever the spinal cord and she's a quadriplegic. She is a head cheerleader Thousand Oaks high schooland somebody asked from that event.

If I would go talk to her in the hospital because they heard me give a testimony I'm I'm like you, college senior, I'm not.

I'm not sure I'm ready to give profound answers to people just been shot to the neck by their boyfriend at the age of 17 lifetime quad but I went and I talked to her and II just said it's not what happens to your body that matters, it's what happens to your soul and I even said fear not him or destroys the body with fear him or destroys both body and soul in hell and I just gave the gospel and and told her that God could give her a reason to live purpose in life and I remember that the occasion very very physically.

It was in the hospital in Glendale Adventist Hospital and she responded by saying I I would kill myself I could but I can't move anything and I said well then you are hopeless you can't live without hope. We begin to talk some about that. Eventually she opened her heart to the Lord, she prayed a beautiful prayer, knowledge, Christ responded to Christ I was. I was shocked how that kind of desperation and in anger and fear could turn into a heart open to Christ was a was a work of the Holy Spirit. And I saw it anyway.

She gave her life to Christ and that totally shifted my entire life thinking what why would I do anything other than that, what, what else would matter certainly football didn't matter that matter and the wonderful part of the story is a she recovered and of course quadriplegic in a wheelchair young man came along fellow love with her murder, Christian young man and God graced her life in that way that when I was a monumental event in in the life of a young guy about your age that answered all the questions that I ever had about what should I do, because what was the most important thing you could ever do with your life. The one thing that only Christians can do that makes them the most important people in the world and that is to communicate the gospel to a dying people who are all living on borrowed time.

They're going to die. They don't know when they're not in charge when whether it's here or anywhere around the world. That's why we're here. That's why we exist. That's our great high calling.

Nothing but that really matters in the big picture can't get caught up in the trivial can't get caught up in the superficial in the temporal were two important. I guess the irony of it is the world's try to marginalize us try to shut us up and you may see that happen more in the next 10 to 15, 20 years 30 years of your life with the Lord Terry's this salad flows reject the Bible in a culture we done that where there that's first reject the Bible second turn morality upside down. Fornication is good sex is recreational abortion is good woman's right to choose.

So you reject the Bible. Now you turn morality upside down. You've substituted good for bad light for darkness, bitter for sweet borrow. Isaiah 5's words. Third, demand tolerance demand that all of this morality be turned on its head be tolerated. All of it has to be tolerated. We have trouble with that because we understand that immorality on any level.

Sex outside marriage.

Three men and a woman is is wrong.

It's sinful. It's dishonoring its destructive and a lot of other issues morality but working to be forced to be tolerant which then turns to intolerance.

So first you reject the Bible, then you turn morality upside down any demand tolerance and then for the people who don't provide that tolerance you become intolerant of the message of Christianity becomes hostile and that leads to the final step, which is persecution. Persecution. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to look down the road and say we are the only people in the world have the message and where liable to be persecuted for it, which is going to raise the stakes on your commitment, the price is going to be higher. I can it be a benign sort of Judeo Christian tolerant culture that you work and live in ahead of you. It's gonna be hostile.

It's gonna be aggressively hostile and when you speak the truth that I can like to hear it because you're going against the grain and that can be, even if I am someways that the most self-righteous people, so hostility will come even from those who who want to be our friends, but it's level to come in greater measure from those who are anti-Christian thought.

I think it's gonna be tough for us in the future. In a sense I wish this could be more like a boot camp here because I think you're not just going to be going into the world of your parents are not going to be going into the world of of my world where I grew up my parents world, which was favorable and open to Christianity and affirming of the biblical morality that's all changed so now you have a message that is the truth. The only hope of the world and they're not going to like you for it.

Which raises the stakes on your commitment. Just look at the world the way our Lord told us to look at the world everybody's on the way to death. Everybody's going to die then on the control of when when they die they do face judgment are all living on borrowed time. You're their only hope. Make your life count for the gospel. Father, we are so grateful that you've given us insight, simple insight, memorable, unforgettable to the urgency of life. We live in a world that is a mad over recreation, entertainment satisfy itself with very little concern about an eternal hell, but you have said much about it.

And may we see people the way you see them it made you weep and you were in control of it.

May we with equally sad hearts live in a dying world of people on borrowed time making sure we do everything we can with urgency to make Christ known. The only hope the only Savior use us Lord for the gospel's men. This is grace to you with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us.

John's lesson today was on how to think and act in evil days. Now this studies a timely reminder about our high calling as Christians that we are commanded to communicate the gospel to a dying world. And of course it's really no secret that the world is growing less tolerant of God's word and more hostile to Christ into the church and so John has Christian ministries likely face even greater challenges in the years ahead. What role do you see grace to you having in a culture that tries to silence people who publicly teach biblical truth.

Well we we know the enemy of our souls. The enemy of God. The archenemy of God, Satan and all his demons and minions and all of his human agents who make up the kingdom of darkness in this world are set against the truth. Satan is a liar and the father of lies, and he's a murderer and all of his kingdom, and all of his children by into the lies and the murder so we expect assaults on the truth they've always come but I had. I think it's fair to say in the day in which we live. There is an escalating hostility toward the truth that I think we are protected for some generations by a kind of cultural Christianity, cultural morality that was sort of baked into our country and our heritage and so what we have is just this existential generation, living in a vacuum where they've cut themselves off from the past dominated by their own sin and without any cultural Christianity. Any sort of external expectations to conform them to some kind of normal old standards of good behavior. They run amok. What that means to mediate into grace to you is is pretty simple. We have to keep doing exactly what were doing because the stakes are higher now, and I even believe churches are capitulating to the expectation of this generation to soften the biblical truth to set sin aside to not confront evil I was reading some things about John Calvin and how urgently Calvin and the all the hundred and 20 pastors and ministers in Geneva were engaging in church discipline, that there they were, they were involved in the details of people's lives to make sure they were living holy lives that doesn't seem to be an interest in many many churches. So what grace do you does is bring back the unmitigated un-adulterated unaltered truth of God's word because we know this is what people need more than they need anything else. So on behalf of all of you who support us. Thank you for standing with us as we continue to unleash God's truth one verse at a time. That's right, friend. Thank you. We are seeing God's word draw people to Christ and help believers grow spiritually all over the world and it's the support of friends like you that allows us to have such a far reach to partner with us getting touch today you can make a one-time donation or set up a recurring donation when you call 855 grace or you can donate when you visit our webpage TTY.org. Thanks again for helping us connect people around the globe with biblical truth that changes lives to express your support call 855 grace or go to TTY.org and when you're at TTY.org. Make sure you take advantage of the thousands of free resources. You'll find there you can catch episodes of this broadcast. You may have missed or watch grace to you. Television. You can also read helpful articles from John and from the staff here on grace to you at our blog where you can download any sermon from John's entire sermon archives. That's more than 3500 messages all free to download an audio or transcript format.

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I'm Phil Johnson encouraging you to be here when John continues his series titled how to think and act in evil days with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on the next race team