Video from Walking in Truth Ministry
"John MacArthur shows us how we as followers of Christ are to behave during the current environment of change in America. Gal. 4:19 "My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you " Books and Reference: Biblical Doctrine: https://amzn.to/3jPdDyV" from video introduction.
The kingdom of darkness is the kingdom of lies even humanity recognizes the importance of truth. Plato said no one is more hated than he who speaks the truth. George Orwell said the further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those who speak it. The line that came out of the Nazi German era those who burn books will soon burn people because they have to stop the truth. The truth is the only power against the lies this is not new to us this is essentially the indictment of Isaiah against Israel back in chapter five. It says among the indictments chapter 5 of Isaiah verse 20 what are those who call evil good and good evil who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter that's what happens the evil kingdom switches everything everything is inside out and upside down I'm going to give you an axiom that you need to remember a society is defined by what it will not tolerate did you get that a society is defined by what it will not tolerate when god wanted us to know his will he didn't say let me give you suggestions of what would be good behaviors he gave us 10 commandments because life is always going to be defined by what you tolerate in the past even in our country there was a traditional Judeo-Christian biblical conventional morality and there were laws against certain kinds of behaviors and when you violated those traditional laws drawn from scripture there was shame those of you who went to college probably read the scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a look at 1850 viewpoint from Nathaniel Hawthorne of early America and the sad story of Hester Prine who committed adultery and had to go through the rest of her life with an a stamped on her forehead. That was the old culture where biblical morality still had sway and shame was connected to the things that The bible assigns shame and that culture and the cultures that followed adultery was scorned fornication was looked down on homosexuality was hardly talked about lesbianism was rare because women have a natural instinct to bear children with a husband transgender beyond imagination these kinds of things were virtually unacceptable and unimaginable. Then came the rejection of God then came the rejection of scripture and so the transcendent sacred authority whose law was a standard for everyone gave rise to what Carl Truman calls the "modern self" where sovereignty goes from an external sacred standard of God to the individual and now we have self-styled sovereignty everybody's a sovereign over his own life and can declare himself to be anything he wants to be God was rejected the bible is rejected and with it biblical morality everything goes to individualism. As a result what our society will not tolerate is exactly the opposite of what it would not tolerate in the past so we are now in an overturned morality this society is making laws to normalize justify sins, blatant sins since the new king has come to power. I'm sure no previous ruler has been so consumed with lgbtq transgender perversion when you have the swearing-in of the new secretary of state and in being sworn in he vows to put a gay pride flag on every u.s embassy on the planet there's some kind of perversion that has literally turned our culture upside down if you disagree with this you're a domestic terrorist you're an extremist. Now if you disagree with this you're a danger you're breaking the law you're homophobic transphobic you need to be silenced you need to be terminated you need to be marginalized maybe you need to be silenced altogether or removed. Laws are being made to criminalize righteousness, laws are being made to silence terminate truth speakers. Half of the states in america have such laws. An air force chaplain was removed from his duty because he gave a message against sexual immorality he was dismissed. You either bake the cake or go to jail. The new king can't stop making rules can he you say why are calling this a monarchy because of executive orders that are just endless. That's unilateral rule the king and the kingdom of lies will not tolerate the truth. To speak the truth is the greatest threat they define it as hate speech personal animus and now as I said domestic terrorism and to sort of create theater about that they put fences around the capitol building and 30 000 troops as if we are such a frightening enemy but they need to arm washington to defend themselves. There can be no civil liberties for those who tell the truth there can be no freedom of speech for those who tell the truth because they invade safe spaces they trigger people. So the king and his lying agents must demonize the truth tellers then they need to demonize the past they need to kill history they need to go back so past moral standards don't crawl up out of the grave and offend somebody strong societies have their foundation. In sacred truth they have a transcendent standard when that is removed what you have is barbarism according to one writer barbarism means paganism lack of civilization so the trend here is exactly what romans 1 said it's ungodliness and unrighteousness godless paganism. Hating God hating Christ hating the scripture hating the true church and fearing the truth. There was a Taiwanese general who was asked a question by a medical doctor about how taiwan escaped the pandemic initially and this taiwanese general said this "We have an entire department in the taiwanese government that does nothing but monitor chinese social media and everything they censor." We know to be the truth Satan is the liar king, he's the liar king he has a massive supernatural force of demons against whom we wrestle. His children are liars the kingdom of darkness is known by its lies this has penetrated the most sacred halls of our government supreme court . In 2013 the united states supreme court struck down the defense of marriage act to make way for homosexual behavior and marriage and actually declared in their filing that religious objections to homosexuality come from hate, God is out, prayer is out, the ten commandments are out get those off the wall the bible is out blasphemy is in immorality is to be protected in fact laws are be are to be made and enforced to normalize perversion cancel all dissent there can't be any dissent that's why people are getting canceled, that's why their twitter accounts are being taken down and big tech is in cahoots with this paganism and for the first time in human history they can shut down anybody they want. This leads me to draw your attention to second corinthians, chapter 10, your watch is irrelevant this morning, stop looking at it, i know what you're doing in those pauses second corinthians 10 3 though we walk in the flesh and it doesn't mean sin but humanity though we're human, we do not war according to the flesh we can't fight. This spiritual battle with any human strategies the weapons of our warfare are not human but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses we we've got to realize that we're we're assaulting fortresses that's the word for palaces forts prisons and tombs we're assaulting massive stone edifices we have to destroy them and we don't expect to do that with human ingenuity and human strategy what are these fortresses he says in the next verse we're destroying ideas ideologies philosophies speculations we are destroying lies because they are defined further as every anti-god idea, every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of god we as a church in the world have the responsibility to assault the fortresses of lies why we're here to smash down every idea raised up against the true knowledge of God. And then on the positive take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ that's magnificent language isn't it we turn people from lies to the truth that's why we're here so do you understand what a threat we are we exist in the world for one purpose and that is to expose the lies and to bring the truth and when lies dominate the kingdom at every point and when they are basically the foundation of the society's laws we are not tolerable but we are the kingdom and the kingdom is here because the king is here God is our king. Psalm 47 7 god is the king of all the earth psalm 74 12 god is my king psalm 45 6 your throne oh god is forever and ever a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom psalm 10 16 the lord is king forever and ever jeremiah 10 10 but the lord is the true god he is the living god and the everlasting king the nations cannot survive his indignation Isaiah 33 22 says the lord is our judge the lord is our lawgiver the lord is our king he will save us he's a king that doesn't need investigating except to find the truth about him on the pages of scripture he is holy holy holy so we are we are unique people first peter 2 can't resist verses 9 and 10 you're a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for god's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light that's why we're here did you get that so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his lights his marvelous light and those excellencies are intolerable in the kingdom of lies, intolerable you're aliens you're strangers keep your behavior excellent even when they slander you even when they persecute you so i would suggest that this is what we do. And blessed are you when you're persecuted but that's evidence you're in the kingdom there's one other thing i want you to do and i want to show it to you from first and second timothy first timothy chapter 2 this is very straightforward now first of all then priority i urge that in treaties and prayers petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men are you ready for this for kings and for all who are in authority. So what are you supposed to be doing for the evil king and the evil empire and all his evil agents what's your responsibility proclaim the truth and do what pray what are you praying for you're praying for their salvation. For God it is good and acceptable in the sight of god our savior to do that because god desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of what the truth so we have to proclaim the truth we can't hedge we can't compromise we can't hide it we can't soften it we proclaim the truth and we pray for the salvation of those in leadership from the present and on down.
Second timothy 2 26 i'm sorry 22 to 26 flee youthful lusts pursue righteousness with those who call on the lord from a pure heart be a part of the family of god.
The fellowship of those who are calling on the lord from pure heart refuse foolish and ignorant speculations don't get caught up in stupid arguments like evangelicalism is right now refuse foolish and ignorant speculations they just produce quarrels the lord's slave must not be quarrelsome but be kind to all able to teach patient when wronged with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. If perhaps god may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive by him to do his will so there we are again we're going after people who are caught in the snare of the devil that requires obedience to the commission prayer and the truth because we're leading them to the truth we're bringing every thought captive to christ one more time turn back to revelation. Chapter one verse 5. this is the benediction now verse 5 to Jesus Christ the faithful witness he's our model for faithful witness the first born from the dead we followed him we were dead and we live the ruler of the kings of the earth and we reign in him to him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood and he has made us to be a kingdom priests with access to his god an father to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen
and by the way i need one more amen for verse 7 behold he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him even those who pierced him and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him so it is to be let's pray...