Reprobates and Trembling Nations - Part 2

A fashioned Christ that is made to work for one's own goals. You think of oxen that pull so that farmer can prosper. And many people have this view of Christ. I'm going to take him home and I'm going to harness this truth and I'm going to make it work for my own goals. You see, I've got something in my life I want to achieve. And if all this power that I hear about is in Christ, then I'm going to take him home, I'm going to hitch him up to my plow, and he's going to be the beast as it is. That gets me through to this destiny that I feel that I'm deserving in my life. Or, also to be killed and carved up to satisfy one's own appetites. That's what people do. With cattle, they first use them to plow, and then when they have done their usefulness, then they carve them up and they devour them. And also, he says, changing the image of God into creeping things. Now, you think about this. It's something that is to be trodden underfoot, or just flicked away when the conviction of God gets too close. You'd say, I'd never treat Christ as a creeping thing. Well, I'm going to tell you how many people now, even sitting here today, if things start getting a little hot, if God starts speaking to something in your life, you just reach out and just flick him away like a creeping thing. He's getting a little too close. I don't like the proximity of this Christ. I'm just going to flick him away from me. And that's the way a lot of people treat Christ. The end result of these casual treatings of Christ, verse 24 and 28, says, God gave them up to uncleanness, to the lust of their own hearts. And in verse 28, he says, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not convenient. Giving up to the lust of their own heart, and giving up to a corrupt thinking. That's what reprobation is. It's an undiscerning mind. How many people today don't know who God is anymore? They travel the circuit all over the place, and is God here? Is this the voice of God? Is that the voice of God? Is this the Christ of the Bible? Is that what the Holy Spirit looks like? Is this a man of God? Is that a man of God? I see these packs of people running all over North America today, and they don't know who God is. And the scripture says, when you unrighteously hold his truth, that's one of the fruits of it. It's an inability to discern, folks. If ever there was an hour that you and I need to be discerning, it's now. We need to know who's speaking for God. For the Bible says, there's going to be false Christs, and false teachers, and false prophets. And we have myriads of them already today in America. Oh folks, if you're going to pray for anything, say, God Almighty, give me a discerning mind. Help me to know who's speaking for you, and who's not speaking for you. The scripture calls a reprobation, in the original text, a mind void of judgment. An inability to judge what is right and what is wrong, beginning first in one's own heart. This waffling around where all the lines are now gray. There's nothing right, nothing wrong anymore. It's all gray. And it also speaks of an abominable mind, a mind that should be abhorred by man, and is abhorred by God. Now you and I, when we think about reprobation, we immediately think of Sodom, in Genesis chapter 19. You don't have to turn there. Sodom is the litmus test. We say, now that was a reprobate society. A society that had roving packs of people, young and old, so given to lust, that even when someone or something bearing the image of God showed up in their midst, they thronged to the place where they are to satisfy their own lust upon them. That was Sodom. And in case you think that we are far from this, I want to remind you that a few years ago, almost 80 men bunched together in Central Park and started ripping the clothes off of women and tackling them to the ground and assaulting them. Men who are not even related to one another, of various professions, all through, some of them in various parts of the tri-state area. Oh, we're not far from this, folks. If you think we are, then I'm sorry that you think that way because we're not that far away from this. And you see these roving gangs of people just given to lust and these two angels show up in Sodom. And are they afraid? Are they curious? Why have they come? Do they have a message from God? What do they do? They come to where they are only to satisfy their lust. And I can't help but think about the volumes of people in the last 10 to 15 years that have traveled much of the western world looking every time something or somebody rises up that seems to have some measure of God upon them or they have something of the image of God, they travel to these places, but have they really come to surrender to the will of God or just to satisfy some lust that's in the heart? And the scripture says they wearied themselves to find the door. They never ever ever walk away satisfied. They can't find freedom. They can't find purpose. They can't find life. They're traveling looking to satisfy this lust. That's exactly what was happening in Sodom. Now go back in your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel please with me. Ezekiel chapter 16. Have the courage to stay with this message today because it is leading to something that will give you heart and give you hope. Ezekiel chapter 16 beginning at verse 48. Now Ezekiel the prophet is among those who are in captivity and he's showing the people now in Babylon why God's own people have gone into captivity and the captivity actually is going to be all encompassing. Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. And in spite of some that were saying this is only temporary Ezekiel was saying no it's not temporary. It's going to last a long time and the destruction of Jerusalem is going to be total. But Ezekiel identifies the sin, the root sin. When we think of Sodom we're always thinking of this lustful gang that's running the streets. But God goes deeper says now I'm going to show you the root of this unbridled lust. And Ezekiel 16:48 As I live saith the Lord God Sodom thy sister has not done she nor her daughters as thou hast done thou and thy daughters. He calls Sodom the sister actually of Jerusalem. Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters and neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy and they were haughty and committed abomination before me therefore he says I took them away as I saw good. So the Lord identifies through Ezekiel what was the root sin? Folks what was the root sin of Sodom? What caused this break out of lust and darkness to come upon this society? Firstly pride exalting itself above the knowledge of God. Genesis 19:9 When Lot Abraham's nephew came out and said don't do this wicked thing these men have come here for a specific reason they're guests in my house the response was oh this fellow came in to sojourn and he will now be a judge over us there was a pride in their folks they could not be reproved anymore I don't know if American can be reproved anymore I don't know if a great volume of the church can be reproved I don't know if we've moved across that line anymore I pray God that you understand that what you're hearing this morning is a pleading from the heart of God I've not come to condemn anyone the Lord has not sent me to condemn this is a pleading from the heart of God because very difficult days are ahead for everyone folks and you've got to be on the right side to be able to get through this and to be able to make a difference in our society now it now falls at the door of the church folks he says also fullness of bread Paul says in the last days in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 7 there's going to be a people who are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth they have a form of godliness but they've not allowed the power of God to grip their lives and their lives have not become an expression of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ fullness of bread folks you can turn on Christian radio anytime you want you can go buy tapes you can stop at churches on almost every corner but the learning is not bringing many to the knowledge of who Christ is and what his church is called to be abundance of idleness in Matthew chapter 20 Jesus is giving a parable about the kingdom of heaven and he says about the 11th hour he went out in verse 6 and he found others standing idle and said to them why do you stand here all day idle and they said in verse 7 because no man has hired us in other words no one's called us no one told us what we're expected to do and there's an abundance of idleness today people come into the house of God they walk out into the marketplace and kind of just stand there with their hands in their pockets and might pass a tape around to somebody but there's just this fullness of idleness because nobody's told them voices are not speaking for God and saying this is what God has called you to do who preaches today as Paul did or the writer in Romans Paul said it is a reasonable thing that we lay our lives down as a living sacrifice for the purposes of God which is a reasonable service tell me who is preaching that today where do you hear that I know there's got to be some