Be Strong in the Lord #5

(Overcome Self, Society and Satan)

Fred R. Coulter—September 1, 2007

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Know your enemy! We're going to examine and how we can resist and fight against sin and overcome:

• self
• society
• Satan

Stop and think about it, those of us living in the end-time have so many things that busy us that there are a lot of people who never, never have time for God. That's why at the end-time you have what is called the Laodicean Church.

Let me read an e-mail that someone sent to me, which is very interesting that they pass on to different people in the world, and so forth. As I was watching the news, I saw on Fox News that they had a 10th anniversary celebration of Princess Diana. They made a big church deal out of it and had public services and they were singing the hymn: Follow the Great Redeemer. It panned the audience of people and about half of them were singing, and half of them were not singing, and I suppose in each half that there were people who were sort of muttering a little bit.

I thought about this e-mail that was sent. It starts out:

Subject: Proud to be His child

This is a wake up e-mail for me. Read it only if you have time for God.

So, whoever wrote this said to read it from beginning to end. It starts out this way:

God, when I received this e-mail I thought I didn't have time for this, and this is really inappropriate during work. Then I realized that this kind of thinking is exactly what has caused a lot of the problems in our work today.

We try to keep God in church on Sunday morning.

Or in the cases of the Church of God, on the Sabbath.

Maybe Sunday night…

Or we could say Friday night.

…and the unlikely event of a mid-week service. We do like to have Him around during sickness, and of course, at funerals.

However, we don't have time or room for Him during work or play, because that's the part of our life that we think we can and should handle on our own.

May God forgive me for ever thinking that there is a time or place where He is not first in my life. We should always have time to remember all He has done for us.

Every time you breathe, God has made that possible!

If you aren't ashamed to do this, please follow the directions. Jesus said that 'if you're ashamed of Me I will be ashamed of you before My Father.'

Not ashamed? Pass this on only if you mean it!

You could say that this is a perfect Laodicean.

Yes, I do love God. He is my Source of existence and Savior. He keeps me functioning each and every day. Without Him I would be nothing, but with Christ He strengthens me.

This is the simplest test if you love God and are not ashamed of all the marvelous things He's done for you.

Do you have time to pass this on, or not? Make sure you scroll through on your computer screen to the end.

Easy vs hard:

Why is so hard to tell the truth, yet, so easy to tell a lie?
Why is it that we are so sleepy in church, but right when the sermon is over we're suddenly wide awake?
Why is it easy to delete Godly e-mail, yet, we forward all the nasty ones?

Of all the free gifts we receive, prayer is the very best one. There are no costs, but wonderful rewards; God's blessings.

Notes: Isn't it funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world is going to hell. Isn't it funny…

And we should put tragic, because it's not funny!

…how someone can say, "I believe in God" but still follow Satan, who by the way also believes in God.

Isn't it tragic how you can send a thousand jokes through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing them?

Isn't it tragic how when you go to forward this message you will not send it to many on your e-mail address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them?

Isn't it tragic how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me?

I pray for everyone who sends this entire message to their full address list. They will be blessed by God in a special way for them. Send it back to the person who sent it to you, to let them know that it was sent out to many more.

There was a survey taken on Fox News as to why different nations hate America. They hate us mostly because they can't understand why a nation would be so wrapped up in worshipping God—the majority of the people, and that means Jesus Christ and God the Father, howbeit the majority is on Sunday—because they have be 'liberated' from that sort of thing. They're all now secular.

Really, it's a hatred toward Christ and a hatred toward how God blessed this nation because of the blessings that came from Abraham. We are truly the last place in the world where the Gospel is preached, whether fully in truth or partially in truth.

The other thing they hate us for is because we're hard-working. We work 40 or more hours a week. They can't understand that because they work, if they can get away with it, four days. Some like to work three days and most work four days. In Europe they get nearly six weeks vacation. It's made them almost broke!

When we get down to the thing concerning this coming election, if it goes to Hillary we're going back to an Americanized version of communism, pure and simple! Instead of relying on God, the secularists want you to rely on the government, which is filled with corrupt men from the TOP to the bottom. There are varying degrees and kinds of corruption. I'm not talking about sexual corruption. There is:

• loyalty corruption
• treasonable corruption
• secret deals at the highest levels

though denied publicly, that are going on.

We, in the end-time have a lot to fight against, more than any other generation. Also, another thing that is true is that you need to understand that being a Christian is not easy.

If you lived in a country where everyone did the same thing, had the same laws, believed the same thing… Israel started doing that, the 12 tribes of Israel, but God had to take 40 years and purge them in the wilderness before they finally got to the mindset that when they came into the 'promised land'—when Joshua brought them in—they were willing to follow God.

How long did it last? As soon as Joshua and the elders died, everyone forgot about God because they were out doing their pleasures and things, what they wanted to do! They soon got involved with the gods of the other lands, they were intermarrying when God said don't intermarry. That's the same sin that came before the Flood, and it wasn't demons and women before the Flood.

So, the whole situation is entirely different because now instead of living in a nation, the true believers are scattered in all nations throughout the whole world.

This creates special problems. Here is why it's different: If you live in a nation where everyone obeys the same laws, has the same rule of faith, the society will be—if they're obedient at higher level… You won't eliminate sin, but there will be less sin, crime and so forth.

When you do away with God, you end up with lawlessness, and that's where we are coming to, and that's why I wanted to give these sermons Be Strong in the Lord before I dump upon you all the things that are going to come.

You will be strengthened by the Feast of Tabernacles to know what is going to come and replace it. But here's how it's different.

Now the Gospel goes out into all the world, all societies, which have different laws, different norms, different gods and different ethics. Yet, we are to live within that society and be a light to the world, and show the kindness of God and the Truth. The Protestants have it that you show the goodness of God in a mushy self-righteous attitude.

Another way you show the righteousness of God is standing firm for the laws and commandments of God! That's what He's given us to show us how to conduct our lives.

Here's how it's been from the beginning and what Jesus is explaining to His disciples when He sent them out on their missionary trip. Starting with the preaching of John the Baptist, God was beginning to turn the whole nation of Judea upside down in preparation for turning the world upside down.

Now you no longer live in a society where everyone, as a norm, generally kept the laws of God. Now you live in a society where you keep them in the spirit, and your loyalty is not to any government, but your love and loyalty goes to God and Jesus Christ, before anything else! That's why it is difficult for us!

• Once a Catholic always a Catholic. My mother and father were Catholics, if that's good enough for them, that's good enough for me.
• Once a Buddhist always a Buddhist. My mother and father were Buddhists, if that's good enough for them, that's good enough for me.
• Once a Muslim, always a Muslim…

Yes, let me have Jihad and kill everybody I can and I will show my righteousness that way.

No! That's not what God wants! Your love and loyalty is between you and God the Father and Jesus Christ. It's going to create conflicts in many cases in your daily life. It's going to create conflicts in how you view the society in which you live when you see the society's standard of living and God's demands on how we need to live.

Matthew 10:32: Now then, whoever shall confess Me before men, that one will I also confess before My Father Who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny Me before men…" (vs 32-33). You deny God in wicked works (Titus 1), as well as saying:

• I deny Christ
• I do not believe Christ
• the Bible is a pack of lies

Or as someone just gave me a clipping of 'Brother Robinson' of the Episcopal Church, the homosexual who was ordained as a bishop. Yes, it split the Episcopal Church. It should, because there are some people who don't go along with the homosexuality that he embraced. Now he's going to 'marry' his longtime partner and still be a bishop.

But it's not of God, because he's serving Satan the devil! That's part of the society that we live in. This is why God demands this kind of love, obedience, faith and loyalty.

Verse 34: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth…" It began with His ministry. His ministry—we can look back on it now and say, 'Yea, wonderful, right and good. But viewed then He was a rebel, against the establishment. That's why they killed Him!

I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (v 34). A different kind of sword. Not an Islamic sword to lop your head off. A sword of division that cuts deeper than anything. It separates you from everyone else!

You are blessed if both husband and wife are in the Church. Many are not. Here's the sword:

Verse 35: "For I have come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's enemies shall be those of his own household. The one who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and the one who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And the one who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me" (vs 35-38). Totally different standard of behavior!

Verse 39: "The one who has found his life shall lose it…" That is if you find your life in the world, you're going to lose it.

"…and the one who has lost his life for My sake… in Christ and the way of God, to live God's way] …shall find it" (v 39). You shall find eternal life.

Verse 40: "The one who receives you receives Me, and the one who receives Me receives Him Who sent Me." No longer are you dealing with a priest who 'represents' God. A true minister represents God the Father and Jesus Christ as long he's preaching the Truth. When you reject the Truth you're rejecting God, because that comes from God. It's an entirely different story. The stakes are a whole lot higher.

Because God is merciful and kind, even in goodness, v 41: "The one who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet; and the one who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive the reward of a righteous man. And if anyone shall in the name of a disciple give to one of these little ones to drink a cup of cold water only, truly I say to you, he shall in no way lose his reward" (vs 41-42).

Now let's see what sort of difference this is going to provide for us. Jesus is talking about John the Baptist in Matt. 11. This is why Jesus came and all the miracles that He did as the spiritual stamp of approval of God. God was going to destroy the nation that He created, of which the remnant was the Jews at that point. Later the blessing of the end-time would come to Ephraim and Manasseh, of which the greater part of that today is the United States of America. We need to keep that in mind.

Jesus was talking about John the Baptist because John was in prison and he heard about what Jesus was doing and he sent his disciples to Him.

Matthew 11:3: "Saying to Him, 'Are You the One Who is coming, or are we to look for another?' Jesus answered and said to them, 'Go and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised, and the poor are evangelized. And blessed is everyone who shall not be offended in Me'" (vs 3-6). That's particularly true in the Jewish society of that time, and is particularly true of the ongoing Jewish society scattered around the world that rejects Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact, I was reading a very interesting article on how in the 1890s a Jewish man was reading the Old Testament and Isa. 53 was missing. He asked the rabbi why Isa. 53 was missing. 'That's because the Christians take that and apply it to that renegade Jesus.' They actually removed it from some of their Scriptures. Amazing!

Verse 6: "And blessed is everyone who shall not be offended in Me"—because He requires all of you! Not just part of you, all of you!

Another thing to remember is that you cannot appease other religions to go along to get along. It's like in the Netherlands, there was a Catholic priest who started out the prayer, 'Our Father' as 'our Allah!' So, they're being Muslimized! They're coming and they will not stop, they will not cease, because the people of Israel won't repent!

Verse 7: "And as they were leaving, Jesus said to the multitudes concerning John…"—because everybody goes to gawk and see, and that was something to see John: long hair, long beard, great flowing eyebrows and piercing eyes. If you looked at him it would pierce right through you. He told them all to repent! He called the leading ones from Jerusalem and the priesthood—the Pharisees and the Levites—vipers! He got away with it because he was the son of a priest, but he didn't get away with it totally. It was finagled for him to die.

People like to go to God, people like to go and see, "…'What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments?….'" (vs 7-8). No! You went out to see a wild longhaired priest clothed in camel hair and he ate locust and honey.

Today you would call that 'weird.' And many people were offended because of John. Sometimes God does things just to show the complete difference that something greater is going to follow. That's what He did with John.

"…Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses" (v 8). Yes, they have all the finest garments, all the matching colors, jewelry, crowns, shoes. Like Amelda Marcos, you open up her closet and 3,000 pair of shoes and she has 'nothing to wear.' The king has all of these garments. What will you wear to see the king? Well, I've worn that once… Or the queen, 'This is not quite the right perfume for me.' Could you image talking this way to Queen Elizabeth? You would be run off.

Verse 9: "But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and one more excellent than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written… [Jesus is telling them Who He is; they all knew Mal. 3] …'Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who shall prepare Your way before You.' Truly I say to you, there has not arisen among those born of women anyone greater than John the Baptist. But the one who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he" (vs 9-11). You think about that whenever you get a little discouraged. God has something so fantastic and great for you.

Verse 12: "For from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven is taken with a great struggle, and the zealous ones lay hold on it."

It's not that you're born into a 'religious' family and now you are a good person because that is a 'religious' family. It is not that you are born in a country where they all have the same laws and standards, and now you're just fine with God because you're living there. It is no longer who you are, it is what you are! You belong to God!

Verse 13: "For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John." Let's see the parallel of this. This tells us why it is more difficult. Being a true Christian is a struggle against self, society and Satan! It's a constant warfare spiritually that must be empowered by

• love of God
• the Spirit of God
• the Truth of God
• with God's Spirit within you

Luke 16:13—this is apropos today: "No servant is able to serve two masters… [that's why you can't compromise with evil] …for either he will hate the one… [showing a process of time] …and he will love the other; or he will hold to the one and will despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

• you cannot serve God and self
• you cannot serve God in the wicked society
• you cannot serve God and compromise with evil

Verse 14: "Now the Pharisees, who were also covetous, heard all these things; and they ridiculed Him." Notice Jesus answer, and is the reason that they hated Him. He told the truth!

Verse 15: "And He said to them, 'You are those who justify themselves before men…'" Read any news and anyone caught in trouble. Everyone is right! We'll talk about self and the deception of it a little later. You're supposed to let God justify you, not your self.

"…but God knows your hearts…" (v 15). That's one of the names of God: the heart-knowing God! God is not just looking down to a nation—though He does to the nations of the world because He has to judge them—but to each one individually, and God knows the heart!

"…for that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination before God" (v 15). Those are strong words! You can apply this to anything. Look at the current morass of all of these young starlet women who are in the news, who are nothing more than walking wanton women seeking their own pleasure. Everything they do they justify themselves.

God says that it's an abomination! The news justifies them. Look at the situation with the dog fighting with Michael Vick. Justifies himself. He has to admit what he did a little bit because he got caught so deeply. But they justified him because he was such a good athlete; he is redeemable and he should play football again.

Verse 16: "The Law and the Prophets were until John; from that time the Kingdom of God is preached, and everyone zealously strives to enter it."

Here are the qualification to follow Christ. You never have these qualifications at all just to live in this society. He's talking to those who followed Him; let's see how this all came about. He was invited to eat at a Pharisees' house on the Sabbath and so forth. After Jesus told them that none of them are going to be in the Kingdom of God. Whoa! They thought they were the Kingdom of God, of which the Roman Catholic Church thinks that it is today.

The Catholics view it as the Kingdom of God is the rulership of the pope over the Catholic Church. If you belong to the Catholic Church you're in the Kingdom of God now. The Kingdom of Heaven is where the souls go that are righteous, when you die. In order to keep people held in fear, they've had to create purgatory and hell.

That's not what God wants! When you watch any religious network you will find very few ministers bring this up, because they throw out the great welcome sign: Everybody Come! Here's what Jesus said:

Luke 14:25: "And great multitudes were going with Him; and He turned and said to them, 'If anyone comes to Me and does not hate…'" (vs 25-26). If you love God more than… And there is the sort of variance between your father, mother, brother, sister and everything. They believe you hate them. So, you love God more than:

"'…his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers and sisters, and, in addition, his own life also, he cannot be My disciple'" (v 26). That's the strongest Greek form of the complete inability to be His disciple.

You actually love them more if you follow Christ, because in the long run then you'll be able to help them into the Kingdom of God in the second resurrection, if they don't repent in this life.

And everything will be happy from then on and you just go an attend your local church, and 'when the rapture comes you'll be saved.' NO!

Verse 27: "And whoever does not carry his cross…"—showing troubles, difficulties, trials, tests, anguish. That's why you have to strive zealously to enter in. That's why you always have to:

• combat the self
• combat the society
• combat Satan

"…and come after Me cannot be My disciple" (v 27)—the impossibility of it! Jesus said that He is 'the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one can come to the Father except through Me.'

Recently there was an add on television trying to foster understanding and cooperation between 'religions.' It shows a Catholic praying with his hands together pointed to heaven, a Jew doing the same thing rocking back and forth at the Wailing Wall, a Buddhist doing the same thing rocking back and forth wherever he is praying. I don't know if it showed a Muslim or not, but the Muslims pride themselves in that they do not commit idolatry; they have no idols 'like those dirty Catholics and we need to behead all of them because they have all of those.'

And the Buddhists: Remember what happened in Afghanistan when the Taliban came in? Here's this big Buddha carved into the side of a mountain and the Taliban went up there with dynamite and blew his belly and head clear out. Then the Americans said, 'Well, we'll rebuild this with concrete.'

The truth is that if you try to get everyone to co-exist and please each other without the Spirit of God, without the love of God, you're false prophets daubing with untempered mortar, and it's all going to fall apart. That's what's going to happen in the end-time. Then is says that you have to 'count the cost.'

Here is the world we live in and what we are confronted with. Satan doesn't think of it this way, because he is the 'god of this world.' He is proud that he has all the nations of the world in the palm of his hands.

1-John 5:18: "We know that anyone who is begotten by God does not practice sin…" It doesn't mean you don't have sin, but you can repent of those sins. You don't live and practice sin!

"…for the one who has been begotten by God keeps himself… [and the only way he can] …by the power of God, and the wicked one does not touch him." (v 18). It doesn't mean that he can't cause contrary problems and circumstance.

Here's what we need to know, and ask this question of yourself, and you have to answer it before God, v 19: "We know that we are of God…" Isn't that something? You know by keeping His commandments, and by His Spirit that is in you!

"…and that the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one" (v 19). Let's see how He accomplishes this.

Can you imagine, brethren, that for all these years, though we've had the Truth of God, most of the Bibles we've had—until we did The Holy Bible in It's Original Order, A Faithful Version—followed the pattern set by Jerome. So, the clutches of the Catholic Church, even in that much, reached into the Churches of God.

God made sure that they didn't get rid of Scriptures. Some versions added more, some versions took a little bit out, but they didn't eliminate the Scriptures altogether. God made sure that that was always there.

We need to understand how this society is the way that it is:

Ephesians 2:1: "Now, you were dead in trespasses and sins." This is before God calls us and up to the time that He calls us.

Verse 2: "In which you walked in times past… [notice the past tense] …according to the course of this world… [this society] …according to the prince of the power of the air…"—Satan the devil! That's why no single nation or community can ever, ever, ever set itself apart and create a righteous community on earth so that it will always be righteous, because Satan is always there and human nature is always there.

Granted, you can get away from some of the more evil things, but you can never create a truly righteous society because that's the business of Jesus Christ when the Kingdom of God comes.

(go to the next track)

The prince of the power of the air has a lot of help now, and a lot of technology. That can be used for good or evil. But he's able to project sin everywhere in the world over and over again in this society that we are living in today. No society has ever been confronted with all of the imagery and sin coming right into your very own home via television, iPhones, cell phones, Black Berries, TV players, music that you can mainline straight into Satan and his music, pounding into your ears—or you could listen to Scriptures as you're going along, true. But nevertheless, all of those are there and you go out to just the ordinary store, your local supermarket, and what you have is various degrees of pornography on every magazine, and they're 99.99% geared toward women.

Satan knows—beginning with the Garden of Eden—that's who to get to first. That doesn't mean that women are sinners more than men, it just means that a woman's nature is easier to get to than a man's.

Hold on, we do use the Internet to get God's Word out, so those things I'm talking about are for good or for evil. They could also have a Bible for sale right there, or a children's Bible coloring book for sale right there. They could also have how to overcome self and sin right there. But they don't! They have how to indulge in self, how to indulge in sin, and it appeals especially to women because women know instantly. They have a view that men do not have. When they see another woman, they know exactly what she's wearing, whether it's color coordinated, whether she is skinny, fat, good looking or not, and all of vain good looking women all sort of cloister together and talk with each other and look down upon all of those ordinary kind of stout and somewhat fat women.

I've seen this happen over and over again; that's just the way it is. Men have their own secret little things that they do, too. Men have their clubs, sports and things like this. That's just the way that the world is.

What I've just said, don't think that's an attack upon women, but is that not the way that the society is. Satan knows this, and it's true, that's why God said:

Leviticus 19:29:[transcriber's correction]: "You shall not prostitute your daughter to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness."

When sexual freedom—so called, because it's actually sexual bondage—was given to women, women are the ones whom God wants to protect the morality of a society.

When the greater number of women are given over to adultery, fornication and other sexual sins, the society deteriorates rapidly. Don't anyone think that I'm excusing men's sins. I'm not! But that's just a fact, and if you're not willing to look at facts the way the world is, then you don't really understand what is going on.

That's something that needs to be considered. Women know how to have all men's heads turned; the way they dress and what they expose. That's why God put the morality on the women, because if they are moral the men will be moral. If the women are not moral, the men won't be moral. So don't think I'm attacking women, because 55% of women have had many so-called partners. Every woman's magazine that you want to find going out of your local supermarket will have some article on how to compromise a woman's sexual morality, teaching them how to 'hook up' with men. That's where the word 'hooker' comes from.

Living in the world today, it all boils down to individual responsibility, but what I'm saying is that this is part of the society that is out there. Watch every television show and what do they have? Everything against God! What do all of the soap opera series do? They're all involved in adulterous triangles! Sooner or later! You're going to see more and more open sex on television, but there are 33-million women hooked on porn, to say nothing of the men.

Sex is the first tool that Satan uses to begin to turn people away from God. It starts at an early age. He's the 'prince of the power of the air,' and when that happens and you begin to think these thoughts then it is:

Ephesians 2:2: "…the spirit that is now working within the children of disobedience… [because as you think, so you are] …among whom also we all once had our conduct in the lusts of our flesh…" (vs 2-3). We have all had sin, some to greater degrees or lesser degrees. We will see that sin is a part of human nature and what that does to the society.

"…doing the things willed by the flesh and by the mind… [all the sin, wretchedness and all the things that come along with it] …and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest of the world" (v 3).

Here is our first defense against it, and we will see why, 1-John 2:15: "Do not love the world…" Who is the 'god of this world'? Satan the devil! We are to love God the Father and Jesus Christ first!

"…nor the things that are in the world…." (v 15). I don't know if you've seen this ad, I'm sure you have because I'm sure that Mercedes-Benz has put it on every channel in the world. It starts out showing a woman hugging her Mercedes-Benz. 'I love you, I love you, I love you.' Then it shows a man, 'I love you, I love you, I love you.'

They worship the things that their hands make. Have you ever seen an ad saying, 'God, I love You, I love You, I love You'? or 'Jesus Christ, I love You, I love You, I love You'? No! But a car!

The obviously implication is that if you love any other car… Things that are in the world, whatever it is! And all of those who have all the wealth in the world and have all the things in the world, what have they found out? They never satisfy! And they strive for more and more. It's just like drugs, once you start you need more and more, until it comes to the point that it blows your mind, and you know you've got to stop! It's like Solomon said, 'All is vanity and vexation of spirit.'

Verse 16: "Because everything that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pretentious pride of physical life—is not from the Father, but is from the world." We're not to model ourselves after the world.

Verse 17: "And the world and its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God abides forever."

With all of that, let's see what kind of world it has created and see the reasons for it. We'll put it all together, and combine everything that we have said together. The whole point is that in order to be strong in the Lord you have got to be able to have the spiritual strength and courage to fight and resist these things; to know the things that are right and wrong and avoid the things that are wrong.

That's why one of the greatest things that they have invented is the remote control for televisions. I use it all the time. No one can watch television with me, because if there's an ad I don't like, I'm out of here. Even when I'm driving in the car, when a commercial comes on, down goes the volume. I don't listen to commercials. I don't need all that nonsense in my mind. A lot of these commercials that are on television I don't need to see them. We'll talk about what needs to be done and especially for men.

2-Timothy 3:1: "Know this also, that in the last days perilous times shall come…. [They are here!] …for men…" (vs 1-2). Men are not to be slighted in all of this just because I happen to bring out the sins of women, and women sort of 'raise the flag': 'you're against women.' No I'm not! The Bible talks more about the sins of men than women.

Verse 2: "For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, braggarts, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, savage, despisers of those who are good, betrayers, reckless, egotistical, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" (vs 2-4). I just read to you the evening news and society! Lovers of self and lovers of pleasure!

Do we not have more things, more gadgets, more boats, more planes, more clothes, more sports! You've got so many sports that you watch, rather than God!

Verse 5: "Having an outward appearance of Godliness, but denying the power of true Godliness. But as for you, turn away from all these." That's a start of what we need to do.

Verse 6: "For from men such as these come those who are worming their way into houses, and are gaining control over empty-headed gullible women given over to various sins, being driven by all kinds of lust. They are always learning but are never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth" (vs 6-7).

Now let's look at the complicity of human nature. Here are some Scriptures that we should have memorized:

Proverbs 14:12; 16:25: "There is a way, which seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death."

Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"

Jeremiah 10:23: "O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his steps."

That's why all the humanism in the world, rejecting God and His laws and commandments is going to fail. Look at the political system in any nation of the world. It may have some degrees of success, but it eventually fails. Look at all the ancient empires of the past. Where are they? Archeological wonders of destroyed temples and ruined civilizations, and underground cities as they have it today.

Romans 8:7: "…the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God..."

What lies in the human heart? What did Jesus say lies in the human heart? When Adam and Eve said that they wanted evil and we want to choose our way, God said, 'All right, I'll put a little bit of evil in you. Now let's see how you do.' That's called 'the law of sin and death.'

Let's see what Jesus said is the innermost driving force of all human beings that affects the society.

Mark 7:20: "And He said, 'That which springs forth from within a man, that defiles the man.'"

Everything about you comes from the inside out. Yes, the outside going in can affect you in two ways:

• you agree with it, you accept it, you adopt it, you live by it and make it part of you
• you reject it as not right and evil and don't go by it

We have choices of everything that we do. But here is why all societies go wrong. Let's understand that when there was Cain and Abel, there probably not many sisters and brothers of Adam and Eve around at that time. Josephus says that they had 56 children, so you cannot say that the society affected Cain to make him kill his brother. That came from within and motivated by Satan.

Verse 21: "For from within, out of the hearts of men… [that also includes evil thoughts] …go forth evil thoughts…" A lot of evil thoughts sound pretty good: 'Let's go to a ball game on Friday night. That's good, that's fun, yes, let's do it.' No! That's breaking the Sabbath!

There are a lot of evil thoughts that appear good, so you have to sort it out, what is the end thereof? Notice after evil thoughts, what comes next? Sex sins!

"…adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickednesses, guile, licentiousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness; all these evils go forth from within, and these defile a man" (vs 21-23).

That's our human nature. That the nature of every human being on earth. Whatever degree they follow God's way, they have a little semblance of civilization. But in most cases where they don't, you have evil, evil societies. If you think ours is here in the United States of America, you ought to compare it to some of the other societies of the world that are in the grips of Satan the devil.

Let's take this on a personal level and how our choices are affected and how our choices affect what we do and affect God.

Proverbs is written for young people, men and women. We have choices. Sometimes we do things that are dumb and stupid and we escape without too much of a problem. If we learn the lesson we can go on and not do that.

I remember one man who said that when he was a boy he wanted to find out what would happen if he dropped a match into a can of gasoline. It was a five-gallon can of gasoline. It had a little spout on it and he took the cap off the spout, lit a match and dropped it in, but it went out. Had it not gone out, he'd no longer be here.

Another man said that when he was a kid he took a 22 shell and he attached it to a board and then pressed down on the board hit where the firing pin was supposed to go, and yes, it went off and it blew up. It wasn't like in a barrel of a gun where the projectile would go out, it just blew up in pieces, and didn't hurt him.

In both cases they lucked out. Let me just say this, and we all know this as adults; young people growing up have yet to learn this. Most kids, if they are taught right from wrong when they are little, they grow up and are relatively decent until they start hitting the teens. Then when they hit the teens they are beginning to mature into adults. They are neither children—though some of their behavior is still childish—nor adults. With this new sense of development and observing the faults of adults, which they didn't see in the same perspective that they did before, now feel empowered to go choose their own way.

This can happen as early as 12 on into 13-17; dangerous, dangerous years because you feel more adult than you do a child. Plus, you also have all of the sex drives now beginning to pound in your body and in your mind, which did not affect you when you were a little child.

All of this presents you with problems and choices. Years ago when they were taught to honor father and mother they did not have nearly the problem. Nevertheless, I know, you know and everyone else knows—and even all the young people know—that when you get with your friends apart from your parents, you always do things that you wouldn't do at home. Nearly always!

Note that 30-40 years ago it wasn't so bad. You had the wild boy or girl and it was an exception. Today, 80% are wild, because that's how they're taught in school. That's what they feed into their minds with their music. That's because they have kicked God out of the society.

Here we have why all young people need to study the Proverbs. And all adults need to study the Proverbs to get your head screwed on right. If you don't, you're going to reach a point that there will not be help.

Delores and I saw a special on dying for 'meth'; once you get into that, regardless of the age—man or woman, child or adult—and get hooked on it, most of them say once you take it, once is enough. Satan's way is 'try it, you'll like it.' It actually is so caustic to the system it changes the physiognomy of the face and of the body, knocks out all the teeth. They showed a dentist opening a 'meth mouth.' Dentists are making a fortune on it now: rotten teeth, missing teeth, gaunt, can't think, hooked! Barely able to function, set to die at an early age.

What I want to do is show you the consequences of the way that the society is today. It still affects people in the churches today, because they're coming out of this, and some are going back into it.

Proverbs 1:24: "Because I called, and you refused… [this is wisdom coming from God, even just basic wisdom of right and wrong] …to hearken, I stretched out my hand, and no one paid attention; but you have despised all my counsel…" (vs 24-25). Think of our whole society:

• you can't mention God
• you can't pray to God
• you can't praise God

You can't even stand up and say when someone says, 'Why are you successful?' Because I believe in Jesus Christ! They look at you as a strange freak.

This is a true story: because of the educational society today, since they don't want to have one valedictorian, because that would hurt somebody's feelings and after all we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings today. So, they had many, many, and each one had to write a thesis, so is one girl wrote her thesis, and it had to be approved by the school. She gave her speech along with here thesis, in which she didn't mention Christ in it at that time, but when she gave her speech she added it in and they withheld her diploma for graduating.

There's no knowledge of God in the land! That's what we read! Sin has consequences for everybody, and sin affects your neighbors and your society, and the region and province, state or country in which you live. It affects it!

When people come to the point that sin rules, and righteousness is ridiculed, and everyone is bent on sin, then there comes a point of no return.

The reason I'm mentioning this is not only to help those to keep them from sinning because of the transgression that we so easily fall into, but also to help us understand that only God, with the return of Christ can change the world. But nevertheless, we are all held responsible for our conduct. There comes a time in anybody's life—man or woman, young or old—whether you accept the Truth of God even in the good principles of the world called Proverbs or not.

Here's what happens, v 25: "But you have despised all my counsel and would have none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity…" (vs 25-26). No one is going to help you.

"…I will mock when your fear comes; when your calamity comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when trouble and pain come upon you, then they shall call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me" (vs 26-38).

We can just witness two things to show that that is true: 9/11 and Virginia Tech—the massacre that happened there.

Verse 29: "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, they would have none of my counsel; they despised all my correction. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices" (vs 29-31).

• this is why God calls us out of the world.
• this is why God offers repentance

You cannot regard the laws and commandments of God, and all the counsel of God.

Verse 32: "For the waywardness of the simple shall slay them, and the complacency of fools destroys them….. [Amazing! Quite a society that way!] …But whoever hearkens to me shall dwell safely and shall be secure without fear of harm" (vs 32-33). Because you will know how to go against evil!

• we've seen human nature
• we've seen individual sin
• we've seen society's sin
• we've seen some of the things that Satan the devil does

We have all of these things multiplied and expanded upon us in this age, such as never, never before. If you lived in the time of say Lewis and Clark, and you wanted to get away—there were always Indians, bears and things like that out there—you could go away someplace nice and quiet. Just think of it: no television, no traffic, no deadline to meet. You could sit down and watch the creation of God, praise God for the great things that He has done. Satan wouldn't be there.

Everyone would like to have that setting, but I'm telling you it's not the 1800s! Someone said that he went up into the mountains in Colorado just like that and it was really, really nice. You always remember that.

Comments were made that there was this television show showing this man who went out into the wilderness and had his Bible and his own little worship place and he would get out his Bible and read and stand out there and sing with a loud voice and one time this woman came by and started to make fun of him. It took a little while and then she understood why he was doing that. Today, we have a lot of people just the opposite; they're not in the wilderness in the woods, or in the mountains, they're in the wilderness of sin in the cities!

You don't have a private place upon a rock to look out and see the heavens and everything around, but you have a place to live—an apartment—and you can do the same thing there. You can study your Bible, you can sing your songs. Don't stir up your neighbors or have the whole neighborhood against you, because it will all come down to your personal conduct in order to be strong in the Lord!

All Scriptures from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version by Fred R. Coulter

Scriptural References:

• Matthew 10:32-42
• Matthew 11:3-13
• Luke 16:3-13
• Luke 14:25-27
• John 5:18-19
• Ephesians 2:1-2
• Leviticus 19:29
• Ephesians 2:2-3
• 1 John 2:15-17
• 2 Timothy 3:1-7
• Proverbs 19:12; 16:25
• Jeremiah 17:9
• Jeremiah 10:23
• Romans 8:7
• Mark 7:20-23
• Proverbs 1:24-33

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

• Titus 1
• Isaiah 53
• Malachi 3

FRC:bo
Transcribed: 1/14/16