It's good to be here and good to see you here. I know our crowd is a little thinner than usual, and it's not because we cut back at Christmas time, but it's because we're thinned out from flu and all of that stuff. So pray for those who have not been feeling well. And I got to experience that flu this week, and it's not pleasant, not at all.
So I appreciate your prayers this morning as we look into the scriptures. Let's turn to the Lord for a moment and ask His help. Father, thank you this morning for the Lord Jesus, our Savior. We thank you for that day when we sing, Behold, He comes.
And the songs that we've been singing this morning that are pointing to the one who is coming back for us. But Father, what's exciting about Him coming back is that He came the first time to save sinners. And I pray, Lord, that our hearts would be turned to Him. Our thoughts would be filled with Him.
And if there's anyone here this morning, and I'm sure there probably is, just in a number of people that we have here, there is very likely somebody here who has never come to know the Savior, the Lord Jesus. Lord, through the Holy Spirit, and through the power of your Word, may you work in their hearts, that they may come to trust the only Savior of the world. And we thank you for all of these things in His name. Amen.
Now, this message, I was going to give in September. Then I was going to give it in October. Then I was going to give it in November. And now here we are in January.
And then I was working, and I thought, this is kind of actually a good way to start off the new year, because I find a year goes by, and you think, well, when I was at work, I was at work for about five minutes this week, and I realized there's nothing new about this year. The same problems that I had on the 22nd of December just recycled in their back. The stuff that was urgent then is now really urgent. So it's just kind of the way it goes.
The only thing new in my office was a calendar. So, but I thought, you know, we get ourselves into a bit of a slumber as we go through a year. And things go along. You think everything's just going to go the same, and it's going to go the same, and you just kind of fall asleep, and just go through the motions.
You just click the mouse again, and you do this, and you do that, you scroll down, swipe right, swipe left, and you get into that habit. And you just kind of spiritually fall asleep. This passage that I want to look at this morning, if you turn your Bible to Romans 13, this first spoke to me when I was a newly married man, and my wife and I were in a Bible quiz. I love Bible quizzes, I wish we'd do more of them.
We should do like just a Northbrook set two teams up and just quiz the faces off each other and just, you know, make it a real great competition. I remember when we had one group from here, and we were already HCA, sorry, Clyde and Stephen, but we went over, here's a homeschool group, and I was working with them, I was kind of coaching this team. And we started off with 10 people, we had to get down to five, and I thought, these 10 are all so good, what are we going to do? So we called HCA and said, we put two teams in, and they said, unusual, but yes, go ahead, so we put two teams in.
And then we went over, we played all these schools, school from Sussex schools, from PEI schools, from Halifax and all of this stuff, and in the end, it came down to the two Northbrook homeschool teams playing each other for the championship. So, and we won, so of course we won, we had both teams. So we won first and second place. Anyway, we had a Bible quiz back in the day, and Romans was the book, the whole book of Romans.
And I had Romans chapter five to eight to memorize. And my wife had, in the middle of all of this, is Romans chapter 13. And I can actually tell you the turn I was on on the cabotrail, and she's reciting to me these verses. And she came to these verses from 11 to 14.
And she recited them as we were going along on the cabotrail. That's what we did, we drive around, and we'd recite our verses to each other, as we tried to memorize these passages. And I thought, oh, wow man, that is impactful. Boy, that is hard.
And so that's my first time in this. And I've come across these verses a number of times, and recently I went through a study of the book of Romans on my own, and I came to this again, and I thought, well, this, this reading has spoken to my heart. And I'm hoping it continues to speak to my heart, and we'll speak to yours. So let's get into it.
Back in the day before these things, my first job was working at a hotel as a bellhop. And if you don't know what a bellhop is, and you probably have a stand at an old hotel in the 70s, or whatever, and it used to be there was a bell to go ding. And that meant that somebody was there, you would over and took their bags, and you took it to the room. So as a kid, teenager, I made 25 cents a bag.
Like I was profoundly rich, especially when the bus tours came in. I had to be at work at six in the morning. And I would load up the buses, carry the bags from, and then I had to go home and come back for four o'clock in the afternoon when the buses came back in. So there's two of us that we did this.
But what was interesting was when I was there at six AM, I wasn't a whole lot of action at the hotel at six AM. And we had, I'll never forget her name, K, I'll never forget her voice, it was the most gentle, soothing voice in the world. And K was responsible to do the wake up calls. Now, nobody knows what a wake up call is now.
But a wake up call, you use the phone, the front desk, and say, can I have a wake up call for 6.15? I've got an important meeting tomorrow. Sure, they would write it down or whatever, and somebody would come into the wake up calls. They would literally sit there like this operator, and they would, not operator, they would call your room.
Good morning, Mr. McDonald, it's your wake up call. And then you would, like that, other recipient of the wake up call look like that. In reality, this is what the wake up call felt like.
The phone would ring, it was usually like sold out, and your wake up from a dead sleep, and this phone is ringing in the corner with a light flashing on it. You're probably back in the day, experienced a few wake up calls. But now we have cell phones that wake us up. I actually have a little thing on my wrist that vibrates nicely and gets me up slowly.
But a wake up call was like, okay, okay, get at it. You didn't get two, you got one. There's no snooze button on a wake up call. You couldn't call back to K and say, hey, listen, K, thank you, can you call me back in the 15 minutes?
I want to just sleep for a few more minutes? No, because K had a list of people she had a call. You got one wake up call. So I'm gonna call this passage, a wake up call for Christians.
If you turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 13, verses 11 to 14, how about that? I understand we have a couple of guys who have just moved here from Mexico. And I speak too fast for them to understand that they don't understand clearly my quick English reading. So I put this up for them.
Hopefully I've picked a version that is suitable. Is that okay? Perfecto. Well, no.
All right, so Romans chapter 13, verse 11. And do this knowing the time that it is now time to awake out of sleep for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent and the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness.
Let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day. Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. You see, this wake up call says right at the start.
And do this and do this. It's an imperative, do this. So if I'm in the middle of struggling with something and I'm going, oh, what am I doing here? What am I doing here?
Because you know what, do this. Oh, okay, I better just do this, do what she says. It's the way it's going to work, it's imperative. Why?
It also gives us the answer to that because knowing the time, it points to the end of our days. So our motivation is to be ready for the end of days. Time is short and time is running out. Now I have a question for you today.
If today is your last time to come and sit here, would you change anything? If today is your last day, would that change your plans for what you have for the rest of the day? Would that change anything about the way you think? Would that change anything about your priorities or your desires?
John reminded us at the Lord's Supper this morning that we, we, we, we, we, we, we, like that kid that you mentioned Maxwell's kid who goes into the store and said, the dad said, you can have anything you want in the store, but just want to know by it for you. You pick it. It took hours. And I thought, yeah, it hasn't had a kid.
And then I thought, no, it's not me. Isn't that me? I mean, that's just kind of the way we are. We would just be racing around with millions of things going through my mind.
But I find you this was my last day. That the time is that short. Would that change what my priority is? Would that stir me up?
Would that wake me up? I know when a person, and it hasn't happened to me, and I pray that it doesn't, but they go to the doctor and they think they're going in for just the routine results of a blood test. And the doctor says, you know why I brought your wife in with you? Uh oh.
You know, that changes things. It's a wake up call. Everything is going to have to change from here on. I got to think differently.
So this is a wake up call. Do this. Change your thinking because your time is short. It is running out.
It is high time to wake out of sleep. We are in a day when it's very obvious that our world is a fallen world. It's very obvious that our world is not getting better. The crimes that are committed are more shocking.
The headlines are a little more depressing and a little more horrible each day you pick it up. I get the daily news, Halifax news. And that's local. On my phone every day it arrives around two o'clock.
And I was scrolling through yesterday and I thought, I need to unsubscribe to this because like, you know, robbery this, stabbing that, shooting this, charged with that. It's just like constant. That's the day we're living in. The moral lines in our world have become so blurred and get more and more blurred that even Christians are confused on what's right and what's wrong.
That's the world we're living in. The days are short. It's high time to wake out of sleep. The night is first meant the day is at hand.
In Timothy, we read these words. But know this, that in the last days, perilous times will come. And this describes what the perilous times will be like. For men, it says, really means mankind, will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God.
I'm sorry, but that describes 2023 to a T. It describes exactly what we are going through right now. Romans, chapter 1, verse 29, verse 32, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undisserning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who doeing the righteous judgment of God, and those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but approve of those who practice them.
That's the day we're living in. I read this, and I'm thinking, am I reading the Bible or the headlines? I mean, this is what we're living in today. The Bible says that there is none, righteous, no, not one.
Romans 3, verse 10. So this should not surprise us. This is not just the heart of the world, this is the heart of every sinner. This is the way man is born with this bent for all of these things, to hate God, to love themselves, to despise the things of God, to love the things of evil.
That's the natural bent of mankind. But you see, in all of that, and despite all of this, the God has sought you out, God has sought us out, and provided a way for us to be forgiven of these sins and to be saved forever, and have our hearts changed forever. That does not have to be the end. You see, God has provided salvation, and today is that day.
Today is the day of salvation. As I said, in the passage that we looked at, it says, it is now high time to wake out of sleep. If you have been going through your life asleep, and not caring about your eternal soul, and not thinking of your eternal destiny, and not thinking at all about the eternal God, wake up. We need to wake up out of that, because you have an opportunity today.
The Bible says, in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 2, where he says, in an acceptable time, I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation. There's an urgency to that.
It's today. Sorry, Acts chapter 17, verse 30 to 31. It speaks of the times of ignorance that God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and this he has given assurance by raising him from the dead. Find it awkward to read the ESV because it doesn't capitalize the he's when he's speaking of the Lord Jesus.
But it's speaking of the Lord Jesus. He will judge the world in righteousness. He has risen from the dead, so that he can forgive you of your sins, and you do not have to stand in judgment. But it says, God is commanding all men everywhere to repent, and today is that day.
If you are just going through your life thinking, maybe someday I'll think about these things, wake up and do it today. There's an urgency to it. Peter's great first sermon. Acts chapter two, verses 38, 40, 41.
If Peter said to them, this is speaking to the whole mob of humanity in front of them, he says, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And with many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation, then those who gladly received his word were baptized in that day, about 3,000 souls were added to them. Today is the day of salvation. For the Christian, we live knowing that Jesus could come at any moment.
That is the hope that we have, but sometimes we kind of fall asleep waiting, and we are to be watching. We are to be watching for this return. You see, how do you respond to the fact that Jesus could come at any moment? I'm going to give you this.
There's a couple of ways that people kind of respond. First of all, some are distracted by it, when they should be inspired by it. And they disregard their responsibilities, just simply waiting for his return to get them out of this mess, and focus on this mess that we're in, and not on looking at when things are going to happen, not looking for his return. It's just distracted by that, and it's difficult.
And sometimes people will look at it, and I was thinking the other day. Sometimes you sit there and think, oh, I wish the Lord would come, but that's always not always. But sometimes it's when you're having a bad day. When you're reading bad headlines.
When life is just difficult. When you're sick, when all of this stuff, I think, oh, I wish the Lord would come and just get me out of this. But you ever walk along on a beautiful day, sun shining. The birds are singing, and you're going by a lake.
And everything is just perfect. And you're thinking, wow, this is going to be an awesome time for the Lord to come right now. People don't tend to think that way. But you know what?
I was thinking, that's when I should be looking and saying, yeah, you know what, Lord? I'd love this to be the last scene I see before I see you. We should be looking no matter what it is, whether we're walking down the street, whether we're home lying in our bed in sickness, whether we're in despair, or whether we're having great hope in what's going on in that day. We should be looking for the Lord's return.
And there's others that ignore it. They are secure in their eternal destiny, and they think, man, whatever. You know what? If it happens, it happens if it doesn't, it doesn't.
We're told to watch. We're told to be ready. We're told to be working for the Lord's returning. We need to be awake spiritually.
We need to put off the works of darkness, and we need to put on the armor of light. There was my introduction. So now, we need to wake up. We need to wake up.
Paul was addressing these believers, and in other places throughout the scriptures, he also tells, he gives a wake up call. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 34, he says, awake to righteousness, and do not sin. For some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.
Awake to righteousness, he's telling them in the Church in Corinth. The Church in Ephesus, in chapter 5, verse 14 and 16. Therefore, he says, awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
We need to wake up from spiritual lethargy. We need to wake up with a sense of urgency of our days. The world desperately needs Jesus Christ. We desperately need to be focused on him.
We need to be looking to him and looking upon him. First Thessalonians 5, 6 to 8. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do. Let us watch and be sober.
For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk at night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober. Putting on the breast pain, play the faith and love. And as a helmet, the hope of salvation.
So, the other reason we need to wake up. Let me, yeah, okay, go here. We need to wake up because our salvation is nearer than when we first believe. So what does that mean?
What do I mean by that? Your salvation is nearer than when you first believe. It means that time is getting close. Your time is getting close.
You are closer to the end of your time on earth today than you have ever been before. Now that you say, well, that's a stupid comment, because that's gotta be true, because every second that goes by. Yes, that's true. You are one second closer.
Like Warren said sometime when we had prayer meeting, he said, there we go, one more time, one less. And it is, it's true. We've met for prayer one more time. Break new bread this morning.
We've met one more time, but we've also met one less time. You see, time is getting close. You are closer to the Lord's return or your time on earth ending than you have ever been before. It's getting close, personally for you.
And maybe globally for all of us. We become aware that our time is getting shorter every day, especially as we age. I mean, I realize that. I look at the calendar and I think, I know when my grandfather passed away, I know when my dad passed away, and I know how old I am.
And seriously, I can, I don't even have to put the high beams on to see how far down the road that is. It's close. As you get older, you're gonna realize that. I know, like, you're looking here, holding your little baby, you're thinking, oh, this is gonna go on forever.
It won't, just so you know. Billy Graham was asked one time, what's your biggest surprise in all of life? He said, that's easy, the brevity of it. How quickly has it gone by?
There's a man who lived to 100. But how quickly his life went by. Don't be fooled into thinking that just like, let's just slumber on through. You know, the message of Ecclesiastes, chapter 12 is, remember now, your creator, in the days of your youth.
More difficult days are going to come. If you are young today, you have a great opportunity to serve the Lord. You have a great opportunity to be effective for him. You have a great opportunity to make him the number one priority of your life.
And do it when you're young. Don't push off your responsibilities. Serve the Lord. Don't wait until you're older.
Wake up and serve him now. Paul's call is also urgent. He says, the night is far spent. Time is running out so quickly.
He says this 2000 years ago. How much more quickly today is it running out? It's running out. Your time is going past you.
If you're a believer, you have a limited amount of time to serve the Lord. If you're not a believer, you have a very limited time to come to him. Today is the day of salvation. I can't emphasize that enough.
You see, when you look around and you see the trends developing, I just read the book of Daniel. And I thought, oh man, when I read the book of Daniel, like we're there, like there's stuff that, I mean, we may not be there. You know what, the Lord might not come back. I'll be honest with you for 150 years.
But I have to live today as if he's coming back this afternoon. That's the message of the whole Bible. That's the message of future event prophecy, that they could happen tomorrow. But when I look around and I see what's going on, and I see an increase in the whole world monetary system, when you see all of the things, the political climate of the world, looking for a universal leader.
When you see increase in drug use and sexual perversion and violent crimes and false religion and believers just falling away from the church, increased isolation and hatred of Israel and the Jewish people, an increase of natural disasters. We got this morning, phone buzzed, what's this? Oh, big earthquake. So, you know, now I don't recommend you going, get an earthquake happen, start counting how many earthquakes and say, oh, the Lord's coming back next year, because we just had more earthquakes than last year.
Not necessarily. But the Bible talks about the things, the birth pains, that will happen and they'll increase in severity as we get closer to the Lord's coming. See Luke chapter 21, we're here to be watching, not waiting, watching, there's a big difference in watching and waiting. Let's say you are going to the airport and you're going to fly somewhere.
John, you're doing that tomorrow. John can do one of two things when he gets to the airport. He can be watching or he can be waiting. He can just stretch out somewhere, close his eyes.
He's going to shut everything out and he might miss the flight. But what does he do? He watches the board, is there any change? Oh, is there any signs that that plane is coming in?
Is there any signs that it's going to be late? Is there any signs that it's going to be early? You watch. You don't just wait.
That's the way we are with the Lord. We are to be watching for his return. We're going to be actively watching, watching for the signs, watching for opportunities to share Christ with others. Not just sitting here saying, I hope the Lord comes back, Zoom, where's the chair?
That's not what he has in mind. Our time is short. I like what Mike Winger, the Bible thinker has to say. He says about this whole thing, it's not a call to evangelism.
This whole section here in the scriptures, not about evangelism. Because before you wake up the world, you need to wake up yourself. The people who are awake are the ones who go out to wake up the world. If you're asleep, you're likely not going to go out to try to wake up the world.
We need to be awake. Here's a description of what's going to happen, how it's going to take place. It could be this afternoon, it starts. But at the end, the day of the Lord will come.
After the, after the, what we believe and we teach is the pre-tribulation rapture where the church is taken and gone from here. And Jesus Christ comes back, the day of the Lord. When the day of the Lord comes, it will come as a thief in the night. In which the elements of heaven will pass away with a great noise.
The elements will melt with fervent heat, both the earth and the works that are in it burned up. Therefore, since these things will be dissolved, notice this next part, and if I could speak Spanish, I would underline it in your version as well, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? The fact that time is short and we're near the end should stir me up, shake me up, in the way I act, the way I conduct myself, the way I live. I should live a godly life.
Next, we are to put off darkness. Romans chapter 13, verses 12 and 13. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.
Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. I put some pictures up there, just clip art stuff, walking in darkness. Very difficult, isn't it? Wandering around in darkness.
We're not to be walking in darkness. Let's cast off the works of darkness. You can't do anything in darkness. I mean, I was amazed the other day.
I was working in my office and I reached up and I thought, okay, it's 5.30, I gotta go upstairs. And I turned off my light in my office and I thought, uh-oh, my office is in the basement, at the far end of the house. I have to somehow get from there, through the basement and upstairs to upstairs. And well, now that you have a wake up call, and you also have a flashlight, I didn't realize that.
But anyway, I decided to walk and stumble through and I hit my knee on a table that's down in the, what happened there? Well, it got moved a little bit from my path. But it was very, very hard to navigate. So, deeds of darkness, put them off.
I put a picture of a, of a bar up there. This is not for me to get up here and slam alcohol. This is more for, these lights on, it's hard to see it. But typically, and I don't know if you've ever been in a bar, if you haven't, then don't bother.
It's now you've seen a picture. But they're typically dark. They're dark. I heard a story about a guy who was a, was a contractor, and he went in, they hired him to do something on an electrical job or plumbing job or something.
And even into this bar and it was full. People was crowded and everything else, they had to get up behind the bar and, and do some work and he gets in there. Oh man. Click and turns on all the lights in the place.
Well they scattered, people just got out of there. I don't want to be in the light. I'm doing deeds of darkness, man. I want to be in here, in the dark.
Or it's comfortable. The Christian should not be comfortable in living in deeds of darkness. We should not be comfortable living deeds of darkness. The scriptures say in other places in the scriptures, Ephesians chapter four verse 20 and 25, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to, deceitful lusts.
Therefore, putting away lying, let us speak. One of you, each one of you speak truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another. Colossians chapter three verse eight. But now you yourselves are to put off these things.
So the whole idea is the deeds of darkness are something that you take and you put off. You take it off. Get rid of it. It's like a coat that's stuck to you.
Remove it. So in Colossians, but now you yourselves put off these things. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Hebrews chapter 12 verse one.
Therefore, since we surrounded by so great a cloud of witness, let us lay aside every weight. Throw it aside. Cast it off. And sin, which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
In James, we read James chapter one verse 21. Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. Therefore, in 1 Peter 2, 1 and 2, therefore laying aside all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you make grow there by. You see, these are all the things that we are to put off and you're saying, yeah, but I'm a Christian.
Really? And you don't struggle with these things? You don't struggle with these deeds of darkness in your life? I'm afraid.
I mean, I went to a thing one time. It was for men only. And the speaker was a guy named Dr. John White.
He had written a book called, I think it was called The Race, and one called The Fight. And this particular night, he said, OK, this is a guest speaker. He came from the States or something. And he said, OK, this is for men only.
I don't want women here. Just men, because I want to speak directly to you. Five women showed up, so he had to send them away. And that didn't go over well.
But anyway, he did. So he said, all right, let's get started here. If you have never struggled with lust, please stick up your hand. You don't want a few men stuck their hand up.
So you might say, I'm a Christian. I don't deal with anger or wrath or malice or blasphemy or filthy language or lust or any of these things. Don't lie to yourself, because you can't lie to God. He knows where to take these things and put them off.
These have no place in the Christian. But they unfortunately make their way into your life if you focus on the wrong things. Peter says, as I read, therefore laying aside all of these things as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow by, thereby the more time you spend in the word of God, the less of these things you will struggle with. This will point you to Christ.
John spoke on sanctification a number of weeks ago. If you haven't heard the message, you'll want to face book and listen to it, because it deals with these exact things. The point here is that you should have a zero tolerance policy for sin in our lives. To buy shame, I don't sometimes.
We need to have a zero tolerance policy for sin. This is what we need to do in our own lives before we impact or point out somebody else's sin. Paul gave us three sets of sins that we should put off. He was very specific.
Revelry and drunkenness was the first one. The NLT calls it wild parties. You know what that is? I mean, these are words we don't use all the time.
Drunkenness, we all know what drunkenness is, but revelry. It's like wild parties devoting yourself to constant self-entertainment, self-seeking pleasures. Drunkenness, you know, drunkenness, and I'll add pot as part of it. If you're messing around with booze and you're messing around with pot, the Bible says an awful lot about drunkenness and not one good thing about it at all.
Drunkenness is a great offense to God. It's a hideous thing. I didn't say alcohol is wrong. I didn't say alcohol is the issue.
Drunkenness, altering your mind, is a very, very wicked thing before God. Read the book of Proverbs and see how many times it is called out. So if you're doing something to alter your mind, it is a wickedness before God. If I'm high or I'm drunk, I'm not so reminded as the scriptures teach me to be.
The scriptures in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18 so do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Ludeness and lust. What in the world is that? Well, we kind of know what lust is a little bit, don't we?
But lewdness, I'll give you the words that lewdness comes up in the dictionary. Bodiness, B-A-W-D-I-N-E-S-S, carnality, licentiousness, wantonness, sexual promiscuity, debauchery, and sensuality. You know what's interesting and very sad? That almost every word that describes sexual immorality in our society has been lost from the vocabulary today.
If I mention those words to most people today, they'd say, huh, licentiousness, what in the world is that? Bodyless, chambering, what in the world does that mean? You know, we're in a society that just talks more about sex than ever. They're obsessed with it, yet sexual immorality, what's that?
It's the words, they're totally removed from the vocabulary. It's great confusion in these days, sex, gender, perversion. We need to be aware of what the scriptures teach us on these things. We need to be aware of how the scriptures tell us to live in a world of sexual perversion.
It's all around us, and I'm sorry, but it penetrates all of our lives. It touches you and it touches me in some way. Whether it's a lustful look, whether it's an addiction to pornography, whether it's living together outside of marriage, sex outside of marriage, whatever it might be. These things are all around us, and it is drawing Christians into the middle of it.
We need to be aware of it, and we need to run from it. We are not to live by the world's standards for these things. The world is so confused and so lost on these things, we need to live by what the word of God says. Lust is an unchecked desire for pleasure, especially of sexual nature.
But you can lust after money and lust after things. You can lust after all kinds of things. It's just an uncontrollable and unchecked desire for pleasure in your life. But we get down to these two, strife and envy.
Like, OK, I wouldn't dream of having an affair. I wouldn't dream of being addicted to alcohol or drugs. Perhaps you're saying that. But you know what?
Perhaps it's no problem to tear other people down. Perhaps you don't have any problem with watching that neighbor pull him with a new currency. Like, why does that guy get a new car? When he lives that way, and look at me, I serve the Lord.
How come that guy got a raise? And I see him with his feet up on the desk more than anything else. And I'm there in those with the grindstone all day long, and his bonus is bigger than mine. You know, when we start thinking that way, we are falling to strife.
We are falling to envy. When our favorite thing is to say, hey, listen, oh, yeah, we don't get on the phone anymore. Hey, did you hear about Nick? Yeah, well, Nick's this.
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He said this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well, you know, stirring up strife.
The Bible, again, as I said, it really says a lot about drunkenness. It says an awful lot about stirring up strife among brethren. It really says an awful lot about that. It's a hideous thing.
Run from it. Put it off. Be fearful of it. Gossip is just as sinful as the other two categories.
Gossip in the church is destructive. First Corinthians 3-3, for you are still carnal. For where there is, for where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you. Are you not carnal and behaving like mere man?
Gossip has no place in the church. It has no place in the life of the believer. It says in Proverbs 6 verse 19 that the Lord hates when someone stirs up the scour. Be very, very careful.
All right. What do we do? We put on. We've taken off.
I should have brought two jackets. We've taken off the darkness. And now we're going to put on the light. Romans 13, verse 12, therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.
And then we'll get the 14, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, and its lust. Some verses on this. This whole idea that Paul uses of putting off and putting on, he uses it throughout the scriptures. In Ephesians 4 verse 24 it says, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.
We see when you're born again, you're a new creature, a new creation. We are given a new nature. Put that on. Wear that.
Live with it. Ephesians 6 verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Colossians 3, 10, and have put on the new man who was renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. First Thessalonians 5, 8.
But let us who are of the day be sober. The rest of the day of faith and love and the helmet and as a helmet the hope of salvation. Paul likes these armor things because he saw it every day all around him. People walking around in these big suits of armor.
We talk about armor and we're kind of thinking a bit of a fantasy thing from the gaming world. But for Paul it was real life. Every day he walked out the street. There were these Roman guys that were dressed that had more metal than anything on them.
And he would see it every single day. And from that he started looking and it comes up with all of these analogies using armor in the Christian life. You see, we live in a battleground. We don't live in a playground.
As Christians. It's a battleground. It's difficult. It's hard.
There are arrows flying at you every day. When you walk out of here today, now what I like, we can come in here and talk about the Lord all day long and it's wonderful. But as soon as you get out of here and go in to pick up that rotisserie chicken or something on the way home, something is going to bombard you. An arrow is going to come your way.
Is it going to hit you? Is it going to knock you down? Is it going to wound you or is it going to bounce off your armor because you're prepared? We need to be prepared.
Armor of light speaks of purity. It speaks of love. It speaks of righteous living. It speaks of being the light of the world going out and sharing the gospel with others.
We need to actively do these things. Put off. It's an action on our part. Put off the deeds of darkness.
Put on the armor of light. You see, if you are always living in a defensive situation, you're in a disadvantage too. Because you're in a battle, or sorry, yeah, the fender, you're in a battle and you're waiting for the next attack and you're hoping you survive this whole thing. You see, if we're dressed and ready for battle and go into battle, we choose when, where, and how to attack.
To actively be ready for battle, not just sitting there hoping that I hope that they don't get me in the back. I hope they don't get me here. Be ready for battle. The Christian life is going to be a battle.
Finally, three points for us to conclude. Paul says, make no provision for the flesh. You know, perhaps you know, I know in my life, perhaps certain people, perhaps certain places or activities or situations that have the potential to promote sin in my life. It can lure me into temptation.
What do I do? It says, make no provision. Don't set yourself up for that. Don't set yourself up.
If you know that, I'll go back to the bar thing. If you know that every time you go to a bar, you're going to fall into a drunken stupor. You know what? Don't make any provision for that.
It's allure on your flesh. If you're having a struggle with pornography, don't take your device at one o'clock in the morning and slip into a dark room somewhere. I'm going to entertain myself with my computer. If you're struggling with gossip and so are they, they feed it?
Don't call them. Don't feed that stuff in your life. Don't give provision for the flesh. Don't give yourself the potential to sin in your life.
The second thing is, in all of that, fight the fire while it's small. I've known a few firefighters. Actually, I lived on a street one time with three fire chiefs on the street. It was quite interesting.
And if you talk to them, nobody wants to go to a raging fire. They don't want to go to a big fire. I want to go and put out a little one with an extinguisher. They don't want to bring in a five alarm, six trucks, and try to battle a big building.
They'd rather put the fire out in the dumpster than put the fire out in the tower. So if you have these things in your life that you know is going to start a fire, put it out while it's small, deal with it before it gets inflamed, before it gets bigger and consumes you. The other thing time is short. Eternity is closer than you might think.
Satan knows there's a critical period in human history and he's stepping up his efforts. So let's wake up. Let's be ready. Let's be awake.
And finally, Paul says we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ in verse 14. We are called to clothe ourselves in the Lord Jesus Christ to make him what is seen in our lives. When somebody looks at you and they say, now I know that guy, he's a Christian. I know he's different from the rest.
I know her. She's different. She's always got the sweetness about her. We are to imitate him.
He has to be seen in our daily lives. Call upon him. Are we imitating Christ? And I thought to myself as a group of believers here at Northbrook Bible Chapel, what if we were to put on the Lord Jesus Christ?
What would it look like? That'd be awesome. And I thought, I'm taking the wrong way here. What if David put on the Lord Jesus Christ?
It has to start with me. We can't come and say, okay, so as a church, we're going to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're just going to serve him and live for him. And then I just say, yeah, that's great. I love that idea.
And then you're cussing your way home from here. You're just falling right back into the same old sins that have been on you forever. No, I have to put on the Lord Jesus Christ to me. And if I put on the Lord Jesus Christ, Henry puts on the Lord Jesus Christ.
So God puts on the Lord Jesus Christ. Sarah puts on the Lord Jesus Christ. Sam puts on the Lord Jesus Christ. If we do that, imagine what would happen.
Imagine how we would look as a body because you look like the Lord Jesus Christ as an individual. May God help us to do so. Father, thank you this morning. That we come and we know him.
Thank you for the Lord Jesus who died for us on the cross to take our sins. We thank you that you've given us the opportunity to be saved. We thank you, Father, for those of us who have come to simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and to know him. And Father, we have to admit we can doze off in our Christian life.
Sometimes we just go along as if everything is always going to be the same as it is today. And we get sleepy. Lord, wake us up. Help us to be awake in this world.
Help us to be awake to the issues in our own life and deal with them. Help us to be awake so that we can wake up this lost world around us. Help us, Lord, to put off any darkness that may be in our lives. Whatever that sin might be, help us to put it away and to put it off.
Father, you have provided all of the armor for us. You have provided the likeness of Christ. You have placed us in Christ so that when you look at us, you see him. May we take the reality of that and apply it into our lives, that we would look like the Lord Jesus Christ of the world around us.
Help us, Lord, to walk in such a way that is pleasing to you. Thank you for all the provision you make for us to do so. In the name of the Lord Jesus, amen. We will sing a song.