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Ephesians 5:15,17 -Walk Circumspectly- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2026-04-12
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Ephesians five fifteen through 17. So let's pray. Father, we come before you, Lord, and as my eyes are closed, people are slipping out of here already, Lord. And that's okay. Lord, I just pray that you minister to those that you've drawn here. I pray that you give us ears to hear and hearts to apply these truths to our lives. Lord, we thank you that we don't need to live in this period of time, this epoch of time as wimps, Lord. As weak Christians. But Lord, if we desire to, Lord, we can be strong. We can be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. And Lord, we pray as we approach chapter six, but before we get there, Lord, we need a lot of help in our marriages. We need a lot of help in in being parents. And and and so, we pray as we're moving in that direction that you teach us today what it means to walk circumspectly, to walk orderly in a time of great, great, great confusion. And Lord, we know that you're not the author of confusion. You're God of order. And Lord, we pray that you'd help us, Lord, to yield to the moving and working of your Holy Spirit today, that we'd not be fighting against you, that our will would be in harmony, that our will would be broken before you, and Lord, you'd be leading and guiding us into all truth. So be our teacher today, Lord. Open the scriptures to our understanding, and help us as we leave here today to be doers of your word, not hearers only. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Would you please be seated? Paul continues to exhort us on how to walk. You can be seated On how to walk. So we're to walk, first of all, to walk worthily. If you wanna stand the whole time, you're welcome to stand too. I've gotta stand. I've gotta stand. So you walk worthily. You walk not as other gentiles walk. We're to walk in love. We're to walk as children of light and we're to walk circumspectly. So to walk circumspectly is to walk number one, orderly. We wanna walk orderly. Verse 15, see them that you walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise. That word circumspectly is the Greek word acrobos which means careful, exact. You're looking, you're examining, you're investigating with great care and alertness. And so an orderly conduct. I'd mentioned before that I wanna be wise concerning that which is good and simple concerning that which is evil, but that doesn't mean I have I spend all my time in Fox News and the news media being lied to. I spend my mornings in God's word and also using the internet, going online, and I gotta be careful because this AI man, they're always they're always deceiving me, man. They're trying to deceive me and so, you know, it's it's it's crazy. Now, AI is like a library, and there can be information from AI that's good. I I wanna see the facts. If they're gonna present the facts, I want the facts. Somebody might say, well, hey, pastor, that was AI. Well, I don't care. I'm concerned about the facts that are there. But where did they deceive me? Where where were the where was the rat poison mixed in with the facts? You know? So we talk about rat poison, you know, 90% of the rat, you know, the rat poison is food, rat food. But the devil mixes in a tiny bit of poison and over a course of time, your body's permeated. So a little leaven leavens the lump and so I don't want any leaven. I don't want any lies to come into my life. So I investigate. I look. And, typically when big events happen, I say give it two weeks because they'll get caught in their lies. I can't initially believe what first comes out, you know. You gotta watch and be careful and investigate. And so I want to know, I don't like being deceived. I do not like being lied to. For a big part of my Christian experience, I enjoyed the ignorance. The ignorance was bliss. I didn't wanna know about anything. I bought into and believed every conservative Republican pastor and pundit. Those days are over. A long time ago, I learned, nope, I'm being lied to. It's left, right. They're all on the same team. It doesn't matter what side you're on. They're on the same team and they've been lying to me my whole lifetime. I'm not gonna trust in man. I'm not gonna trust in these guys. I'm gonna investigate. I'm gonna look at it. I'm gonna dig in because I want to walk with alertness. I wanna walk orderly. Let all things be done decently in an order. First Corinthians fourteen forty. Walking in an orderly careful decent manner is to be wise in contrast to being foolish. Oh, how foolish we are today. How foolish the church, the professing church is today. How foolish we look on the world stage. I mean, it's just buffoonery. It's clown time. It's just so embarrassing to be associated with false prophets that say stuff like, yeah, he's like queen Esther for such a time like this. What? To build the beast system? Come on. You know? Or another false priestess, you know? When he speaks, he's speaking. It's like Jesus speaking. It's like God speaking through him, you know? And then, you know, on Easter holiday, they're trying to build them up as this this super spiritual dude, you know? And then I see all these Epstein pictures of him with these little girls, and there's no shame. There's no accountability. Oh, let's make excuses. You're an idiot. You wanna make excuses? What about the word of speech you have? What about the amount of people that have died from the vaccine that nobody wants to talk about? Where did that emanate from? Where did that come from? Has it stopped? No. It hasn't stopped. It's the epitome of idiocy to continue and to go down that path. You gotta be set free. You gotta get your eyes on Jesus. You gotta say, you know, there's so much deception. It's so deep. There's so there's so many lies being told. I I've gotta find the truth. Where's the truth? Or you come to the place where Pontius Pilate says, what is truth? You know, you're just so cynical. But the Lord wants to lead and guide us into all truth, and the place that we walk in that way is to walk circumspectly, orderly according to God's word. We don't make excuses for people. We let the word of God judge. We let the word of God expose. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. You can keep your mouth shut and become very popular. And it's what you won't say, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would say, that makes you a heretic. You're afraid of the Nazis. You're afraid of being labeled. You're afraid of coming out. You gotta stand to the radar. And man, you can milk it. You can milk the church during that time of ignorance because people are cowards. And it's not till later. It's not till the allies investigate and open these camps where these Jews and gypsies and Christians and and the handicapped have been being systematically executed and genocided that the world's faced with the reality of what was really happening and they turned their ears from it. They turned their eyes from it. They knew it deep down what was happening, but they chose to ignore what's happening. Are you choosing to ignore the reality of the world in which we're living? Do you want to believe a fantasy? Are you looking for teachers having itching ears that'll tell you what you want to hear? Are you sick and tired of being deceived? All you care about is knowing the truth. And you're gonna investigate. You're gonna make sure that your life is patterned, that your life is in submission to the true living God. Jesus said, beware of false prophets. Beware of false Christ. You're living in a time of great great deception. What better way to deceive for your enemies to appear as an angel of light or a minister of righteousness. Oh, Christians, Christians, you won't need to vote again, you know. We got it all fixed. What's he saying? What? We're going to one world government? We're gonna crash the whole thing? And I'm Donald, Golden Donald, the wrecking ball. My job's to destroy everything of this present order with the help of the democrats and all the other kings and nations around me because the bankers are gonna roll out this new economic system that's so incredibly binding. You can't buy or sell. You can't think. You can't do anything. Your bank account will be shut off. Pastors like me will be thrown in jail. And what a privilege that'll be when that day comes because we're gonna know those who refuse to compromise by opening their mouth, by proclaiming the truth, by being like John the Baptist the courage to tell the king, hey, taking your brother Philip's wife's goes against God's law, Goes against his word. You don't just wink at. You don't just look the other way. Go along to get along. You're wise in contrast to the foolish. God is the God of order. The circumspect man seeks to walk in harmony with the order. God has established. Satan is the author of confusion, chaos and disorder. The new world order is a demonic order. Whether it's George w Bush or whoever out there, Claus Schwab, all these guys desiring a new order, build back better, hope and change, MAGA, it's all moving in the direction of a demonic rebellion against God. The fool takes no knowledge or care for God's order in the universe. He's humanistic, doing his own will, And he lives according to the appetites of his flesh central. And the church has been overwhelmed with the central of the body appetites of the souls of men, body and soul. We seek to in the church today, many churches are designed to make people feel good, to hide from reality, to be therapeutic. And Jesus is a he's a life coach and he's gonna teach you how to be successful and be a winner, you know, your best life now. It's it's a lie. It's a lie from the pit of hell, but people love it so. I wanna hear what I wanna hear. In reality, one day it's gonna bite and people are gonna be so incredibly bewildered and it's already happening. Many of the mega churches are falling apart because people are starting to feel. They're starting to experience the downturn of the economy, the price of food, of energy, of everything that's happening. And and you lose a loved one, you don't know how to deal with the loss of a loved one because you've never been taught about adversity. You have no verses in your repertoire. You have no knowledge of God's word where Jesus said, in this world, you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. My peace I give unto you, not like the world. You know, so you hear these peace guys, the the board of peace and all. Well, what's peace mean in The Middle East? War. It means war. It means it means you you've gotta fool the people and draft my grandsons and and develop more and more wars and rumors of wars. It's idiocy. For what? It's to establish the banking system to make sure there's no rogue nation selling oil or anything else outside of this new digital system. Everyone has to be in compliance in order for this to work from the standpoint of the tyranny, the control grid. Catherine Austin Fitts describes this digital currency effort as a as a concentration camp without walls. It's being built. The Stargate Project was the very first bill that president Trump signed the first day in office with Palantir, with Alex Karp, with the satellites and the surveillance that's being used to find every target in The Middle East that they're using to, find these guys that they wanna bomb. And they're spreading this over the whole world that the world can have a surveillance. And then the Genius Act and the Genesis Act, and so a reduction or a removal of the present economic system to make way for the new system. I read this morning where our administration's removing the national parks just like with Doge where they where they reduce the amount of employees. They're removing the amount of employees and the whole structure of the national park system in America. Now why is that? Because if what I've been reading is correct, every single material thing is gonna have a token value upon it. Every tree is gonna have a value. Every every bean of coffee is gonna be tracked and traced and have a value placed upon it. This is the collateral that the new bankers are demanding because the whole world is quadrillions of dollars in debt, and there's no way to pay them back. So they're gonna take possession of all the land and the resources in Ukraine, and then the BlackRock bankers are gonna rebuild. They're gonna rebuild in Lahaina. They're gonna rebuild Pacific Palisades. They're gonna rebuild in Gaza, and it's going to be built in such a way where the design is track and tracing and surveillance and all movements controlled. And if you don't in compliance, the social credit score of China, your bank account shut off. And what are you gonna do? They got you. And that's what they're moving. Cash is freedom. And the demonization of cash. Cash is king, gold and silver. But a digital system and the tokenization, these guys are gonna own it every national park. They're gonna own it all. That's what Claus Schwab said, you'll own nothing and be happy. Complete control that the devil is now you oh, he's crazy, man. There's no way that could happen. It's happening. It's happening right now. There's no stopping it until Jesus comes. JD Vance or, you know, the eyeliner dude or I don't care who you position in two years. He said there'd be no election. I don't care what candidate you think is gonna save us from this. There is no candidate. There's no way out of this. There's perplexity. And I hate to be the one that removes the hope, but you gotta remove the hope that you place in men so that we can hope in the true and living God, the God of hope. I love presently, I love Jonah chapter two verse eight. The way that the nation of Nineveh, who was not a Christian nation, a pagan nation, and God sent Jonah the prophet to let them know they got forty days or they're gonna perish. And the king of Nineveh didn't say, you know what, we need to, get the election thing going real quick and vote somebody else in. We we reject what God's saying. We reject what Jonah's saying. We if we can just get another champion on the stage, we can we can alleviate this and we can continue in our rebellion. No. He didn't say that. He took it serious. And from the king on down, they repented. They wore sackcloth and ashes. And we see in Jonah two verse eight, they that observe lying vanities. What's that mean? You're observing idolatry. You're observing lies. You're giving yourself over to the lies of the present age. The the humanism, the the the flow of ideas. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. The battles in the brain, the battles in the thought life, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. But if the church has been dummy down, the church has no working knowledge of the scripture, no ability to counteract the lies of AI, the lies of of the media, then you're a sitting duck. Then you're a sitting duck to be exploited and your freedom to be removed and and your dependence upon men. You're looking to government. You're looking to men instead of to God. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. You miss out on the mercy. God was merciful to the people of Nineveh. He gave them a hundred year reprieve, not because they fixed their voting machines, but because they repented. A pagan nation gets a hundred years reprieve before God takes them down. Because why? Because they returned back. They reverted back to their pagan practices. Wouldn't you love a reprieve? Wouldn't you love for the Lord to restore, to bring forth a revival in America, a true revival, earmarked or characterized by repentance? Where people are forsaking the Internet, they're forsaking their idolatry, they're forsaking their evil, and you know that you know that you know that they're truly saved. Why? Because of the fruit of repentance. They were once blind, now they see. They were once a a womanizer, a manizer. They were once adulterers for but they repented. They were once drunks or drug addicts. They repented. They stopped doing it. They didn't Christianize. I'm a Christianize. I'm a Christian pot smoker. I'm a Christian Buddhist. I'm a Christian adulterer. It's just an affair. Who are you to judge? No. They repented. They quit lying to themselves. They quit giving into the lies. And you see, hey, that guy was messed up. Well, how did he reform himself? He didn't. God transformed and changed him from within. He's a new creation in Christ Jesus, and the evidence of God's power is the power of God unto salvation. To deliver people from themselves, to deliver people, deliver us from the tyranny of our own fleshly fallen nature. I need to be a new creation in Christ Jesus. I need to be born again. Nick, you must be born again. And you know that you know that you know that you shouldn't be going along with this world. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what's a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You don't Christianize this world. This world system, that's compromise. The bible says in Psalm a hundred nineteen one thirty three, order my steps in thy word and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. The fool takes no knowledge or care of God's order in the universe. He's humanistic. Existential humanism, if it feels good, do it. Doing his own will. The word wise here is the Greek word sophos. The definition is a fear of God. You have a fear of God. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. If you're prideful and you think you already know, then you're gonna miss out. You're gonna be like the Pharisee and the publican. In Luke 18, the Pharisee prayed thus with himself. His prayer isn't even reaching past the ceiling. I thank God that I'm not like the rest of these wretches. I go to church and I fast and I pray and I tithe. And the publican wouldn't so much as even lift up his eyes to heaven, but smote his breast and said, God be merciful to me a sinner. And Jesus said, this man went away justified just as if he'd never sinned. And so many are intoxicated with self and filled with pride and they're religious, yes. Maybe even religious leaders, but they're far from God. They're gonna hear God one day say, away from me, I never knew you that practice iniquity. The fear of God and understanding of his ways. How am I gonna know God's ways if I'm ignorant of God's word? If I don't have a bible that's worn out, if I don't have a bible that I read on a regular basis, every day, it's like food. How often do you eat? It's your spiritual food. And if you don't indulge and get into God's word, may you say, well, pastor, I can't read. Well, it's in audio form now. You can listen. If you can't read, you can listen. There's no excuse today. Plenty of bibles. Avail yourself. Allow God to transform and change the way you think. Allow God to to make you new in the way you think. Understanding of his ways. Wisdom signifies a certain adeptness or practical ability, the ability to apply with skill what one knows. Can you apply with skill what you know? Now you may know how to split an atom. Are you gonna use it in a wise way to produce energy or you're gonna use it in an unwise way to exterminate a whole people. We're gonna exterminate a whole well, not the exact words, but are you a crazy man? Really? Fastest growing church in the world is in Iran? The Christians in Nigeria over Easter slaughtered? Anybody care? Can you hear me now? Mind boggling. The ability to apply with skill what one knows. Psalms thirty seven twenty three says, the steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord. Job two verse nine, does thou still retain that integrity? Curse God and die. Job's wife said to him. After all he'd been through. And he said, you speak as the foolish women speak. Shall we not receive good at the hand of the Lord and not also evil? Naked came into the world, naked I'm gonna go, the Lord give it, the Lord take it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Job's a worshiper. Are you a worshiper? Maybe you're a whiner like me. You challenge God. You you fight with God. Not so much anymore. I used to think if I prayed hard enough and lived holy enough and gave enough and was good enough that then God answered my prayers. That I'd get what I want. Prayer, the definition of prayer, the purpose of prayer is not to get our will done, but God's will done. That his will be done. So surrender. A surrender under the will of God. And Job surrendered. In second Samuel 24 verse 10, David, he sinned, you know, with Bathsheba and that was a bad thing. He's a murderer of Uriah. He's a liar. He tried to cover his own sin. Did a lot of heinous things, but one of his greatest sins, probably even greater than the adultery and and all that with Bathsheba was the numbering of the people. He numbered the people which kings were not supposed to do and God cause David to have a choice. You can run from your enemies. There can be a a famine, or you can let me send the angel of death and in one day deal with it. And David chose to get it over quick and 70,000 people in Jerusalem died and God stayed the hand of the angel of the Lord, lest they all be done. And David saw this and he said, I have done very foolishly. In first Samuel twenty six twenty one, king Saul was chasing after David, angry, jealous about David. And David and his men were out in the field, in the wilderness and king Saul was encamped with his soldiers and they were in a trough. They were in a ditch like World War one where his soldiers were around him protecting him. There was a spear there, Saul's spear and a cruise of water. And David said, who wants to go in the camp of, you know, the Israelites? And and Abishai says, I'll go with you. And Abishai and David, the Lord, it says, put a deep sleep upon Saul and his men. And David stepped into the camp. No trip wires, nothing there. And he was able Abishai says, the lord's given the king into your hand. I'll take that spear and I'll thrust it through him and we'll be done with this. You'll be king. And David said, no. You're not to touch the Lord's anointed. God can kill Saul in a myriad of different ways. It's not gonna be by my hand. And so what David did is David grabbed the the spear and the cruise of water and then they left and then they went across onto another mount and yelled across over to the other side in the morning and pleaded with the king. King, what are you doing? And he's got the spear, got the cruise of water. I coulda killed you. Why are you chasing after a little flea? Why are you chasing after me like I'm some partridge that you're you're scampering after in the wilderness? Why would you do that? I'm not a threat to you. I'm not your enemy. If I wanted to, I coulda killed you. But I don't wanna you're the king. You're the lord's anointed. I respect that. And king Saul confessed, I played the fool. I played the fool. How many men? How many women? After decades of marriage play the fool? For what? For what? A fling? And you find out what a nut job you are later? And the realization you've been deceived. You played the fool. You had what God's best all along. The very best, a faithful woman, a faithful husband all along. And now you wanna play the fool. You wanna believe the lies that there's something better out there. Better than the woman, the man that God brought to you in marriage. Really? You're smarter than God? So foolish was I and ignorant. I was as a beast before thee. In Matthew ten sixteen, Jesus said, behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Very important that we're wise. Very important that we're aware of what's going on, that we're not seduced by the age in which we're living. Walking circumspectly in an orderly manner, building your house upon the rock upon Jesus. It's the five virgins with oil awaiting the Lord's return. The foolish have no oil. They have no holy spirit. They build on the sand. They're on the road to Emmaus. The two on the road to Emmaus and they're not students of prophecy. 2% of the church today studies prophecy. One third of the bible is prophetic. I gave you a prophetic lesson this morning just in my introduction, just in my announcements. You learn more about what's going on prophetically in the world today. In ten minutes, opening the bulletin, the 98 of the people that attend church, only 2%, you're in the 2%. We don't neglect 27% of the bible. Jesus said to the two on the road to Emmaus, oh, foolish. You're foolish. Don't you know what Moses what the bible says about me? And from Moses and through the prophets, he spoke unto them. He expounded unto them all the scriptures in the old testament pertaining to himself that he'd be crucified and all. 300 prophecies fulfilled in his first coming. And these guys were clueless. Their hope was dashed. We had hope. We thought. And there he is resurrected talking to him. And his description of them, he says, oh, fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory. Isn't this consistent with the old testament revelation that God revealing his son in the old testament? And now, for three and a half years, you've heard of the prophet of Nazareth. All that he's been doing and yet you didn't connect the dot that he's the messiah, that he's the Christ, that he's the anointed one. According to Daniel nine, if you've been a student, you'd have known that he was gonna be cut off. That he would be crucified according to Psalm 22. According to Isaiah 53. God told you in advance what was gonna happen, but you couldn't see it. You couldn't connect the dots because you were not a student of prophecy. Except the prophecy that appealed to your heart and mind, which is Jesus, the Messiah would come and overthrow the Romans and give us back our kingdom. No mention of sin. No dealing with sin. We just want our kingdom back. We just want our country back. We wanna make America great again without repentance, without revival, without any kind of real change. And it shows our hearts. It shows the greed of our hearts. The fools are like Esau who sold his birthright, like Samson who lived after the flesh, like Anais and Sapphira in acts five that lied to God. Like king Agrippa, letting Paul know almost thou persuaded me to be a Christian. Agrippa, you're a fool. What do you mean almost? You can't come halfway. You gotta come all the way, dude. What do you mean almost? Thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Yield to the holy spirit. Give in. Don't live like a fool. You have your opportunity. That door can shut. To walk circumspectly is to walk orderly. Secondly, to walk opportunistically. Verse 16, redeeming the time because the days are evil. The word redeem is means to buy up, to ransom, to rescue from loss. Making most of the time. Now this word time, there's two Greek words for time. Pay close attention. It's not the chronos definition of time which means the continuous time measured in hours, minutes and seconds. So redeeming the time in hours, minutes and seconds. No. It's instead it's the Greek word kairos which means a measured allocated fixed season or epoch, a period of opportunity. And that's the days we're living in. Days of opportunity. At the end of the age, at the end of the church age, we as Christians have the opportunity to proclaim the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and savior. We have the opportunity to shout from the rooftops that his kingdom is coming. We are political. We believe in politics. We just think the constitutional republic has reached a place where it's too corrupt. It's a wholly inadequate form of government for an immoral people. And we believe in a monarch monarchy where Jesus is gonna return as king of kings and lord of lords. Not like the antichrist, not 10 kings. We believe in the return of Jesus Christ where he's gonna rule and reign for a thousand years. We don't interpret the millennium as allegorical or it already happened. A preterist view that it all happened in seventy AD. It's all in the past. We're not interpreting the millennium as the church has to, submit the world to dominion or kingdom now theology of a golden esoteric new age up ahead. No. That's demonic. That's a deception. The church, the world is gonna fail. And without Jesus intervening, nothing would be saved. It would all perish because man is inept. Man is demonic. Man is fallen. And apart from God, as Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. And so Jesus allows these players, he allows these globalists, these technocrats, these billionaires to attempt their utopian age for seven years. But he's pouring out his wrath upon them and they're hiding like these wimpy guys in the bunkers that they've been building deep beneath the earth in Revelation six, trying to hide from the wrath of the lamb. That's reality. They know what's coming on the surface of the earth. Why do you think one of the biggest businesses happening is deep underground military bunkers? Billionaire bunkers in Hawaii that that Zuckerberg's building and all these folks trying to know they gotta get underground because on the surface of the earth, all hell's about to break loose. When people lose their pensions, when they lose everything they work for, you've manipulated them to the very edge promising them more because you're tapping into the idolatrous nature of more and more and more and comfort and pleasure at the expense of what? Truth and righteousness. And now, right underneath your nose, it's gone. You will own nothing. How angry do you think the people are gonna be? Why do you think they're trying to poison everybody in the food and the air to reduce the population because these 1% are globalist guys that wanna rule the world. The Bilderbergs are meeting right now. They're ahead of schedule. These demonic entities are ahead of schedule. The the deception is almost complete. Why? Because the church is asleep. It's your responsibility. Be light and expose the darkness. But instead, we compromise with evil. We compromise with it. We're not redeeming the time. We're not taking the opportunity at this epoch, this period of time to be salt and light. To preserve the culture from putrefaction, from corruption that's overwhelming. It's a measure allocated fixed season or epoch, a period of opportunity. Those who walk circumspectly before God are opportunists. They have a sense of urgency knowing what time it is, always ready to seize the moment. And I have to applaud you guys. I have to thank the Lord for the opportunity that God's given me and my family over the last thirty one years to come here and be a part of what the Lord is doing in and through this little tiny fellowship. Lot of churches out there doing their part, but we have a part. We're a living organism. And with James and Brian and Sally and others when Kathy and I first started, and those the Lord's brought and moved and brought moved a cycle of people. We haven't quit. We continue to persevere and we know what time it is. We know it's the end of the age. We're living in the last days and we're participating. We're working together as a body to bring forth the truth in our community. And as far as we can send the truth of Jesus Christ through evangelism and discipleship, the teaching of God's word. And that's our bent. That's our that that's God's call upon us as a fellowship. That's what he's called us to do. And you're like minded. We're like minded in the objective and the goal and the opportunity that we have in the last days to proclaim the good news, not just of how people can get saved, but the good news of his coming kingdom. We're not afraid of exhorting people that Jesus is coming soon. That is a huge characteristic and the hope that you have in believing and trusting in what the bible says. You're not trying to negate prophecy and and extend your love of the world and stop Jesus from returning. No. You're recognizing in all honesty that we're at the very edge of human history, of the church age, of the what the Bible calls the times of the Gentiles. The times of the Gentiles is almost over. What's that mean? It means Gentile world rule. As God described in Daniel two and Daniel seven, that there'd be four dominant gentile nations. The first would be the Babylonian empire. The second would be the Medo Persian empire. The third would be the Grecian empire with Alexander the great. The fourth would be the Roman empire, global empire, an imperial form of government where the where the Caesars became deity. And then the rebirth, the fifth global empire would be the rebirth of that Roman empire during the beast system, during the last seven year of that tribulation period. And then the antichrist, he would destroy three of those 10 and they would give their sovereignty over to him and we'd see the sixth form of government, the worship of the of the beast system. And then Jesus returns and he's king of kings and he's lord of lords and it's no longer gentile dominated, it's Jewish dominated. We're not anti semitic. Our savior is a Jew. Whether people like it or not. And the promises to Israel are yay and amen. They're unconditional promises. Does that mean we we approve of all the immorality? No. God doesn't approve of their immorality. God's gonna spank them harder than any nation's ever been spanked and he has been spanking them. His hand upon them during the tribulation period, two thirds of them die. Only one third is preserved. So blindness in part is happening on Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become in in the church age. And we're preaching it. We're teaching it. We're letting people know that Jesus is coming and that's our opportunity. Now, if I were around during the first coming of Jesus and I missed the reason for being alive at that time, which was what? Anna and Simeon were in the temple and they're waiting for the consolation of Israel. They were aware. The wise men that came from the East, they were aware. Where's the king of the Jews? They knew the time. They saw his star. And when Mary and Joseph came with Jesus into the temple to dedicate the babe, Anna knew. Simeon knew they were students. They were rare. They knew what time they were living in. They were looking for the consolation of Israel. After he's crucified, there's only a 120 in the upper room. 120. What happened? What happened? There there could have been so many more people. And he's weeping over the city. They they didn't know the time. They didn't know the time of their visitation. If you'd have known in this thy day, according to Daniel nine twenty five, that Messiah would be cut off and that he would return from the time of the command to go and restore and rebuild Jerusalem and to come into the messiah, the prince. In Nehemiah chapter two verse one, that Artaxerxes would give that command on March. There's gonna be sixty nine seven year period of time of of his coming. And with the Julian calendar, that's a hundred and seventy three, eight hundred and eighty days later according to the mathematics of sir Robert Anderson that computed this. And we see in Luke 19 that on April, one hundred and seventy three, eight hundred and eighty day later, on Palm Sunday, Jesus walked into Jerusalem offering himself as the Messiah. Some are crying out, Hosanna, Hosanna, save now. Psalm a 118. But the vast majority of people were seduced and coerced by the demonic forces in the religious leadership of Judaism. Four days later, they're crying out, crucify him, crucify him, let his blood be upon us and upon our children. Even his sheep, the shepherds spent and the sheep scatter. The disciples couldn't comprehend. Jesus' own brothers didn't believe until after the resurrection. Who knew the time they were living in? Who were aware prophetically of this moment of time of the presenting of the Messiah under the nation? The nation was unaware. Is the church asleep today? Does the church know what time it is? We're on the brink. We're on the verge of the rapture. We're on the verge of the return of Jesus Christ for his church. We're watching the beast system be developed. It's irrefutable. And when you see these things begin to come to pass, then look up for your redemption draweth nigh. So those who walk circumspectly before God are opportunists. They have a sense of urgency knowing what time it is, ready to seize the moment. I don't wanna go to sleep. When in second Kings, when Naaman the Syrian came and heard that there was a prophet Elisha in the nation of Israel that could heal him of his leprosy, he came and Elisha didn't even go out and greet him, just told him go dip in the Jordan and you'll come out okay. And you know the story he did. Indignant and all but he did. And Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, he was covetous. Naaman wanted to reward Elisha. Elisha said, no, freely we've received, freely we're gonna give. No mercenary action here. But Gehazi being covetous, like Aiken at Jericho at AI. Gehazi ran to him and lied and told him, hey, we've got a couple guys came down from the school of the prophets and and they need some clothes. They need a talent of silver and some garments and all and and Naaman says, well, give them two talents and give them, you know, two garments each and all and and the Gehazi tried to hide it and unaware of Elisha. And Elisha said Gehazi, like the Lord said to the devil, where have you been? Oh, I've been walking to and fro up and down the earth. Gehazi, where have been? Did not my heart go with you? And then he says, is this a time? See, there are times that are appropriate to dig down and build. There is a time when the children of Israel are released by Cyrus from seventy years of captivity to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls. That's the time frame. This is a time to build. But now the nation is in a place of apostasy and in that apostasy and that rebellion against God, it's not a time for pleasure and prosperity. He says, is this a time and he's looking into his heart. Is this a time for money? Can you serve God and mammon? It's one or the other. Is this a time for men servants and maid servants and vineyards and olive yards and sheep and oxen? No. This is a time of apostasy. This is the time when a prophet should be shouting from the rooftops to save many people. And behold the leprosy of Naaman's upon you and upon your children because he didn't know what time it was. Mordecai came to Esther and he says, if thou altogether hold thy peace at this time, then shall you remember the story? Haman has a has a plot to kill all the Jews and Esther won the beauty contest. She has access to the king. If thou altogether hold thy peace, notice that, hold thy peace. Holding your peace can be sin. You're missing your opportunity, especially if you are a spiritual leader in a country. To hold your peace about what's happening, To try and convince people to take the jab because you're more concerned about your travel ability and your ministry, your brand, and you put two doctors there on stage and try and convince people to give in to the jab? Maybe you even take the jab and then you have myocarditis heart problem. And you still won't warn people and admit what happened, you were duped. Now you're doubling down. Now you're telling the president, you're telling everybody, for such a time as this, God's raised you up. Really, Franklin? To build the b system? No. That's not how he's gonna articulate it. He's gonna play with Paula White and they're gonna try and boost the ego of Trump that, hey, you're here to save Israel, justifying the war with Iran. Really? Bunch of cowards. Then shall their enlargement deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, But thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed. The how do you know whether or not the kingdom for such a time as this that god's brought you for such a time as this? And that's what Franklin's saying concerning president Trump. For such a time as this, god's raised you up. Well, Jesus said, you'll know them by their fruit. What's the fruit? The beast system. Is that really a godly thing? Man, I don't know where. What planet am I on? I should have went to Artemis, to the moon, around the moon or something. On April fool's day. A sense of urgency. The word redeem means to seize the moment. Not a time to be pulling down barns and building bigger barns when this not your soul be required of you. Napoleon, he once said, there's a in the midst of every great battle, a ten to fifteen minute period that is the crucial point. Take that period and you win the battle. Lose it and you will be defeated. We've already been defeated. We missed that point. We cannot, there's no way that you and I can wake people up. They don't wanna hear. Don't waste your time with them. Preach the gospel, preach his coming kingdom, the Lord will add to the church daily, but the vast majority of people have already made up their mind. And it's gonna take something catastrophic to shake them, to shake them to their core that they've been deceived. They won't believe. They refuse to believe. They will believe every puppet, every pied piper, every Trojan horse, every false promise. No matter what facts, no matter how hard you try to reason, as Jesus said, you'll know them by their fruit. They will spin it. They will say it's three d chess. It's not his fault. Those are doctored pictures of Epstein. Doctor pictures, it wasn't him. Never ever ever hold these people accountable for their evil. It's easier to go along to get along because in the short run, I can make more money. That's what it's about. Church Incorporated. Judas missed his opportunity because of 30 pieces of silver. Noah's generation saw the door shut, the rain began to fall. They had a hundred and twenty years to get in the boat to get into Christ. It's appointed on all men once to die and then the judgment. Are you seizing the moment? Are you using your time wisely? Are you playing games with your eternity? Eight people saved in the ark. Jesus knew what time it was. He had a sense of urgency. He said in John nine verse four, I must work the work of him that sent me while it is day. The night comes when no man can work. The nation of Israel missed their opportunity of entering into God's promises. Jesus wept over the city. How often I would have gathered you as mother hen does gather a brood under her wings, but you would not you would not. Why? Because you knew not the day, this very day, a single day. That day he wrote in, the day that was prophetized. You didn't know that day. We don't know the day or the hour of the rapture. We live with a doctrine of eminency that he could come at any moment, but we need to be ready. We don't need to be those that go back into the world and say, well, you know, I saw the Tim LaHaye stuff. I saw the Left Behind series. I've heard this stuff for fifty years and I I wanna fulfill prophecy by being a mocker now. I wanna be a scoffer. Where is the promise of his coming? Everything continues. It always has. Of this, you're willingly grant not knowing that one day is a thousand years thousand years as one day with the Lord. He's long suffering not willing any would perish. You're a fulfillment of prophecy because you deny the eminency of the rapture of the church. The rapture doctrine is under such incredible attack by the church, by people professing to believe the return of Jesus Christ, the set of his kingdom is under attack. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. It's a strange world we're living in. Are we are we discerning the time When these things begin to come to pass and lift up your head for your redemption draws nigh, Jesus said. Walk circumspectly, redeeming the time because the days are evil. That word evil is a Greek word. The days are pornographic, poison thoughts. The pornography poisons your mind. It's corruption, paralyzing you, neutralizing you, neutralizing us, Weighting us down, impeding our progress. And that's the times we're living in, the times of Sodom and Gomorrah. As Jesus said, as it was in the days of Lot. We're living in pornographic times, filthy evil images everywhere and they poison our minds. It poisons our progress. This week, was looking at a flip phone. I'm getting sick and tired of stuff that appears on my phone. And it's like I block, I block, I block, I block, I I block. But enough of it gets in that as Paul as described of Lot, his soul was vexed. Well, he didn't make a move. He didn't cut off his hand or pluck out his eye that which was causing him to sin. Sometimes we have to make a move, make a change. How's this stuff getting into my head? How's it? How how am I seeing it? I I don't watch the mainstream media. Now there's a certain amount of good content that I'm trying to find and be aware of, but there's this other stuff that's, you know, like like women wanting to be my friend, you know. And I I click and I look and I I've learned, do they have any Christian friends? How many friends do they have that I have? And if they don't have friends, if if we're not like minded, then click, you're gone. On the other hand, I'm looking at them, I'm thinking, well, maybe they need the gospel. Maybe I should let them be a friend. But I've learned, no, I gotta block them. That's a that's a troll. That's somebody that's trying to trying to get in my head. To this morning, I got one. She was a lottery winner and if on my messenger, if I click back to her, she's gonna give me a $100, you know. Crazy. So I go online and I I'm looking for flip phones. I'm looking at flip phones. I'm gonna go old school, man. I'm gonna go old school. I'm gonna I'm gonna use pigeons if I have to. What do I gotta do? And I was almost gonna click on an Amazon flip phone until it said they they describe it as the seniors phone. What is that? As soon as I saw that, I said, no. I I don't identify as a senior. That's the wrong phone for me. I gotta find a hip cool one, you know. So I'm gonna keep looking. There's gotta be a way to protect ourselves from the filth. Because once that filth hits, it's like, oh gosh, pollution, pollution, pollution. And so the days are evil, man. They're evil. So Hebrews twelve one is where I love to go. Let us lay aside every weight. That's a weight. That filth is a weight. Let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so easily besets us. So the picture is you're a runner. You're betting on the horses and the handicap on these horses, some of them are weighted. Well, you're a runner. You don't need to be weighted. You don't need any weight to weight you down running this race. So let us lay aside the the weight and the sin which so easily besets us and let us run with patience the race that set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and the seated down at the right hand of the father. I need to do my part and evaluate, walk circumspectly, seize the time and make sure that I'm not being neutralized at a crucial time in this battle. Do you know how many churches are closing? Do you know how many Christians are falling? So a thought, reap an action. We gotta nip it. We gotta cut it off. We gotta we gotta be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. There may be usefulness and and and constructive things we can do with Vicky recording, Brian recording and getting the gospel out there in these various social media sites and stuff, reaching people the gospel, but at what expense? Does it mean I have to wade through the sewer to get there? If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It's a difficult evil time in which we're living. To walk circumspectly is to walk orderly, to walk opportunistically, and thirdly, to walk obediently. Verse 17. Wherefore be not unwise but understanding what the will of the lord is. What is god's will for our lives? Unwise means the Greek word means senseless, stupid. Speaks of the apostasy, the the lack of study of God's word. If ever there was a time of stupidity, it's now. Wounded them that call good evil and evil good. There's very few people that I can have fellowship with anymore. I used to be mediocre and intelligence, now I'm an absolute genius. Because people are so incredibly dummy down. You can't have an intelligent biblical gospel bible conversation with very few people. You that have been studying God's word your whole life, it's getting harder and harder to find like minded people. Because it's so syrupy. It's so this is I I can't do it. I'm ashamed. I'm embarrassed. I don't wanna be associated with those nut jobs. That's not Christianity to me. Guys prancing around like clowns, know. Give them the word of God. Why do people there's a show that we watch and I'll mention this show. I hope there's nothing bad in it. It's called the tracker. And what I love so much about the tracker is he he doesn't try to kill people by talking to them. As soon as he finds the person that abducted a child, boom. No talk. No reasoning. It's over. I can't stand pastors that just talk in circles. I got I gotta listen for five minutes for them to get to the point. I'm not a idiot. I'm not a blooming idiot. I'm not dumb as a stump. Get to the point. Some people, they speed it up, you know. They speed it up. And then I noticed as I was I've been studying Revelation 18, so I'm listening to a couple other pastors teach it during the past week. And they got a lot of good ideas. But it's their ideas. They're intelligent men and they know it. And they tell you what they think. I don't wanna know what you think. Why won't you cross reference? Why won't you tell me what Jesus thinks? Why won't you go back to Genesis ten and eleven? Why won't you connect the dots biblically? How many verses of scripture do I give you each week? I'm all over the place because it's God's word that's gonna teach us. I don't wanna dance around and give you all my opinions on stuff and finally get to the point at the very end. All the way through, there should be scripture. The Lord should be speaking to you through the teaching of the of his word. And so I I like to use God's word to prove the point. God's word to interpret. God's word to apply it. And so I think that's really weak. That's weak teaching. I can't survive on that kind of teaching. That's not gonna nourish me. I I need to be fed. I need to be fed the word of God. I don't wanna buy your book. I don't wanna buy your series. I don't care how many degrees by your name. I want the word of God and I want it now. I don't want you with your introduction or your and then next a few minutes later. And it's like, why can't you stay on track? I know we're coming to a point. I know there's gonna be something in this message that I've been waiting for, but man, I gotta wait forty minutes to get there. How about all the way through? How about build to a climax or something? But they they joke with themselves and they're all over the place and so I listen to pastor Chuck. He gets to the point. A lot of people won't listen to pastor Chuck anymore because they say he speaks too slow. Well, I can speak fast or slow or whatever, but I know you're saying, hey, get on with it. You're doing what you said you don't like. But I'm trying to explain something here. God's will is that all men would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. God's will is this is the will of God even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication. You wanna know God's will for your life? Abstain from fornication. Abstain from Panoras. Abstain from the thought. Abstain from the lost. Abstain from because Jesus said, if you look upon a woman, you've already committed the act in your heart. Oh, no. No. I think we're in love. I think we can we can do this because we're in love. No. He says, you wanna know the will of God's sanctification, be holy. Don't continue in a pattern, a lifestyle of fornication. That's God's will. It's an absolute. You don't need to think another minute about it. You know what God's will is right now. You're not the exception. And you're not gonna produce the immaculate conception. Not gonna happen. First Peter chapter two thirteen and fourteen, that we should be submissive to authority. Well, have a hard time with that. I'll obey God rather than men. As authorities in submission to God, I'm in submission. What's the greatest authority in this country? The higher power? The US constitution, not the president. He has a limited authority, not unlimited. They can't just make it up and do whatever they want. They're chained to the constitution. I have no intention of disobeying the constitution. If they're gonna change out the sheriffs in Kitsap County who have sworn to uphold the constitution, then somebody's violating the constitution that seeks to do that. The higher power is the constitution. We're not in a democracy. We're in a constitutional republic. It's not up for debate. It's also God's will according to first Peter two verse 20 that we suffer. Oh, I can't grow a church like that. I can't tell people it's God's will for you to suffer. But what I can do is when you do suffer because you all will, we all do suffer, I can let you know that you're normal. That you're not an anomaly. Just because the prosperity gospel didn't work for you, you're real. Jesus suffered. You're gonna suffer. He promised you're gonna suffer. The disciples suffered. We all are going to suffer. And I want to teach you and encourage you that in the suffering, you're gonna become more like Jesus. That he's gonna be your best friend, that he's gonna be there with you in the midst of that fiery trial, in the midst of that suffering. There you're not suffering because you did something wrong. You're not suffering because you are evil. It may be, probably is, you're suffering because you did something good. You became a threat to the kingdom of darkness and God's allowed the kingdom of darkness to target you. You see? And then there's the peace. Hey, I'm in good company. I'm in God's will. And God's will for my life is that I go through this fiery trial of suffering and this too shall pass. First Thessalonians five eighteen, and everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. God's making us worshipers rather than whiners in everything. I'm supposed to be given thanks? What is God's specific plan for your life? So in a general sense, now specific. Jesus said, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. He knew what his objective was. He sees the opportunity. He knew what God's will was. He wasn't gonna be unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is. He was tempted to turn the rocks into bread. He said, no. It is written, thou shall worship. Shall man shall not live by bread alone, by a very word that proceeds in the mouth of God. So we are to obey God's word both written and spoken. God may have spoken to you something that he didn't speak to your neighbor, your family, your friends. I'm up here in Bremerton because I believe God spoke to my heart to step out in faith. And that God used the train of circumstances to bring my family here and every single day, no matter how weird it it's been over thirty one years, I know I know that I know that I know of what a privilege it is to plant a church and not do it alone, but to do it with you. That we collectively are a part of what God is growing, still growing in this community, the body of Christ. And our function may be unique, it may be different than other ones. They're doing a better job at this, that or the other, but we have a unique function that God's given us to be faithful in. And all we can do is to be faithful. So some of my friends, some of the guys are gonna build new buildings right now with the economy the way it is. I have no vision for that. I see things way different. I believe we're at the brink of a collapse and I don't wanna get caught in debt. I don't wanna go there. I have no inkling. But when I first came to town, I looked at everything to buy and to build a church and to buy sound system, everything I had. And and and I didn't do it alone. People jumped on board. We had a vision. We had an opportunity and we went for it and we seized the moment. And I look at it and I think it's glorious. It was wonderful to watch God move and work. Had I stayed in California, I had never been able to experience that. I didn't know what I was doing. Neither did anybody else. We just stepped out in faith. And we saw God move and work and it was so incredibly exciting. And it's still exciting to persevere, to not quit, to keep going even as it's gotten more difficult. We're to obey what God puts in our heart. Are you in God's perfect will for your life or his permissive will? He'll give you over to your permissive will but you'll be lukewarm. You'll experience a spiritual leanness rather than a fullness in the abundance of the spirit. God will quit trying to convince you. He'll quit trying to lead you when you insist upon your own will. When you finally hear him say, not my will, but your will be done. I didn't want my will. I still don't want my will. My will is the beach, pleasure, comfort, familiarity, God's will, which I'm in 100% agreement. If I get to choose, I got to choose back before. He didn't force me in the ministry. I got to choose. I reached the place where I knew that it wasn't fulfilling me and I wanted to serve the Lord. My pastor always talked about how God wants to use your life. And I took God at his word and I said, alright, Lord. I don't know what you can do with me, but let's do it. And I don't regret one minute. I would never never never have seen God move and work the way I have and the way I continue to see him work had I not been willing to walk by faith. I wanna continue to walk by faith, not by sight. Do you understand what the will of the Lord is? That word understanding is the assembling of individual facts into an organized whole as collecting the pieces of a puzzle and putting them together. Do you have understanding? Are the pieces of the puzzle falling into place? Philippians two twelve, wherefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed not in my presence only but now much more in my absence, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which work with in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. So God is putting in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You're working out your own salvation as you discover God's will for your life. You're delighting yourself with the Lord. He's given you the desires of your heart and my greatest desire in my heart is Lord, hear my, use me. And the Lord put those desires within my heart. He's putting those desires within your heart. He says, look on the fields, they're white under harvest but the labors are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest. They send forth labors into his harvest. We got a big job to do at the end of the age here. There's a lot of work to do. There's a lot of people perishing. And the Lord saying, can use you. It's not ability, it's availability. Here am I, Lord, use me. And the Lord's putting that desire, that faith in your heart that hey, I can use you. I want to use you. Step out in faith. Be used of me. So exciting. Is everything in order? Have you seized the opportunities God has brought into your life? Are you obeying him? Maybe you're a Jonah. Maybe god needs to use a big fish. A big fish right away to to get willing. I don't know. Jesus was able to say in John seventeen four, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave it me to do. Paul could say in second Timothy four verse seven, I fought a good fight. I finished my course. I kept the faith. When the son of man comes in the last days, will he find faith on the earth? A lot of people are abandoning their faith in Jesus Christ. They started out well, but they're quitting. We just need to persevere. We need to press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. It's always too soon to quit. Don't quit. Keep pressing. Keep moving forward. I finished my course. I've kept the faith and there's now therefore laid up for me a crown of righteousness and not for me only, but unto all them, you and I, who are watching, who are loving his appearing. There's a crown of righteousness awaiting you. A crown of life if you're a martyr, a crown of glory if you've been suffering, a crown of rejoicing, an incorruptible crown that fades not away awaiting you. Where the king of glory is gonna reward you and say, well done, thou good and faithful servants. You've been faithful over a few things. I'm gonna make you in the millennium. I'm gonna make you rulers over much. You're gonna be kings and priests ruling and reigning with me from Jerusalem for a thousand years. That's reality. That is reality. Artemis, I don't know if that's a reality or not. But I know you and I ruling and reigning with Jesus for a thousand years is a reality that I believe now and I can see up ahead and you can bank on it. Because it's God's word and God keeps his word. No regrets. Have you left anything undone? Have you left anything on the field of battle? Can you walk off the field knowing you've expended everything you had as a human being for the kingdom of God? If Jesus came today, are you ready? Are you walking circumspectly? The Greeks came to Jesus and say, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? In John six twenty eight, Jesus said, this is the work that you believe on him whom he has sent. In John, first John two seventeen, the world passes away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abides forever. Are you doing the will of God? Are you walking circumspectly? James said in James one twenty two, be doers of the word not hearers only. Deceiving, you can be self deceived. Being a hearer of the word but not doing, not applying it. Deceiving your own selves. Be not deceived. Big test of exposure is coming. In Matthew seven twenty four through 27, Jesus previously said that religious people are gonna come unto him knowing the words that Christian needs, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, do all these wonderful things. And he said, away from me, I never knew you that practice iniquity. And then he taught on that. He jumped off of that and he differentiated between those who are hearers of the word and those who are doers of the word. The hearers of the word only are those who build their house on sand. We don't know if you're a doer until a storm comes to test your profession of faith. A storm is coming. A radical, radical storm that our generation has never seen before is coming. And we, the church in America, are fat and happy. We are the most prosperous generation in the history of the world and it's coming to an end. And we are going to face a time of suffering that we're just not ready for. We we we don't know how to navigate this. So our reasoning faculties and everything we've trusted in as it collapses and fades, we're gonna have to grab hold of Jesus with every ounce of faith. And he's grabbing hold of us, and he's gonna lead and guide us through a very difficult time and it's gonna be proven to people that are watching that you in fact are a doer of the word and not a hearer only. Kathy and I and some of you have already experienced this. You've already experienced a demonic assault, a demonic, and that's what this is. You're not gonna face this because you've been evil, you've been good, You paid your taxes. You worked hard. You did your part. But this b system is such that it has to gain control by collapsing everything and God's allowing it all to collapse. And when he does, as Kathy and I have experienced and many of you experienced, when you lose it all, when you lose everything, the first thing you do is you say, what did I do? Did I do something evil? Was I about evil? What was my sin caught up with me? Am I reaping what I've sown? And then you then you work through that whole condemnation period. And then you realize that God's ways aren't your ways, they're past finding out. That God is incumbent upon you and I to continue to walk by faith because we can't don't understand many times. There's no way you could understand. And I've been I've been searching and seeking and trying to understand, but I can't. And that's what the bewilderment. Job was bewildered. You're gonna be bewildered. But when it happens to a bunch of people at the same time, it's way different. Because now you can connect and comfort one another. But when you're the first one or the second one or the third one and and now you become the leper in the group, people are afraid of you. It might be catchy. They might catch it too. And now you're the weirdo. You're the you're the one with the prodigal daughter, the prodigal son. You're the one that went through the horrific physical ailment. You're the one that went through the financial, know, reversal. You're the one that went through the divorce. And the others, they're still plugging along thinking the reason the secret of their success is they're so incredibly tight with Jesus. Somehow you're not. That's a lie from the pit of hell. Just simply continuing, just simply loving on the Lord and being a worshiper is gonna prove that you built your house upon not sand, but rock and Jesus is that rock. He's that rock your life is built upon. The wind, the waves, the storms, things can come, but your faith in him remains. Jesus prayed for Peter. He said, Peter, Satan desires you that he may sift you as wheat to beat you. But I'm praying for you Peter that your faith fail not. Jesus is praying for you and I that our faith fail not. Be a doer, walk circumspectly, walk obediently, walk opportunistically, and walk orderly in these last days. Knowing the time, knowing God's will. Let's pray. Father, thank you. And Lord, we pray that you would ever more strengthen us in our inner man that the fluff, the things of the world would just fade away, that all the marshmallows and all the the puff that lacks substance. The false heretical doctrine, the false heretical living, Lord, as it's exposed, as the storms, as the as we as Christians are put in hot water, Lord, we pray that our hearts would reveal not bitterness, but a sweetness. We pray Lord that as like the church of Smyrna as we're crushed, as a flower is crushed, Lord that the fragrance of Christ would emanate from us. That there'd be a sweetness a sweetness of worship as those that have gone before us, Lord. Those slain in the coliseums, those who have been slain in Nigeria and Iran and all over, Lord, their unwillingness to compromise with the world, uncompromised with the devil. The tribulation saints up ahead that refuse the mark of the beast. Lord, you've made them worshipers. They choose to worship you and you alone. Lord, help us to resolve. Help us to pre meditatively ahead of time as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. As Daniel, help us ahead of time to purpose within our hearts ahead of time that we will not compromise and eat the king's food. Lord, that we're gonna stay with your word, that we want your perfect will, not permissive will. Teach us, Lord. Help us, Lord, to walk orderly, to walk circumspectly in these last days as the world is facing mass confusion. And give us your peace as we know that we know that we know that we're in your will. That we're right in the palm, right in the pocket, right where you've designed for us to be, Lord. No doubts. Help us, Lord, we pray. And while your heads are bowed and your eyes are closed, if you're still here, if you don't know Jesus, you have an opportunity this morning to surrender your heart and life onto him. Seize the moment. Seize the opportunity to be right with Jesus. Know that you know that you know that if you died today, you'd spend eternity in heaven cause your name's written in the lamb's book of life. As you call out to God, God, be merciful to me a sinner, as he hears that cry of your heart and as he responds by coming into your heart and life, he's gonna transform and make you new. You can't do it on your own. You'll never be good enough. You have to trust completely in his finished work, in his righteousness. Anyone here this morning, just lift your hand up. We wanna pray with you. We don't want you to go away from here unsaved, lost. Anyone this morning? Father, thank you. Thank you for the sweet time that we could spend together. And Lord, now as we partake of communion, as we draw near to you, we pray that you would draw near to us, Lord. That we'd experience the intimacy that you desire as you prayed in John 17 that we'd be one with you even as you and your father are one. Let us experience and enjoy fellowship now, Lord. In Jesus name, amen.
About This Podcast
Calvary Chapel Bremerton - Sunday Service
Listen to Rick Beaudry, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Bremerton, teach the Word of God cover to cover, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse. Be edified and built up in your faith with solid Bible teaching. New episodes on Mondays in the Pacific Standard Timezone.
