The Dangerous Christian
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· 25 viewsWe need to be dangerous spiritually if we are to be effective in the Kingdom
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greet Congregation
Honor Pastor & Sis. Parker
Segue into sermon
Body
Body
Have the congregation stand for the reading of the Word
17 Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.
18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
19 Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
20 Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
21 Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.
Have the congregation pray and be seated
Before we get to the heart of the message, there is some groundwork that will need to be laid, so please bear with me.
First Point: Everybody is lost without God
First Point: Everybody is lost without God
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.
The Depths of Human Depravity
The Depths of Human Depravity
This is something most Christians pay lip service to, but don’t really believe in their heart of hearts.
I’m going to go through some examples of what we consider to be especially heinous and terrible sins. These will be only as detailed as they need to be to drive home the point that human beings without God are desperately and utterly evil.
• In Germany during WWII:
◦ They killed 6 million Jews, and an equal amount Poles, Russians, Gypsies, the handicapped, etc.
◦ Battalions of police scoured the countryside rounding up people to imprison, torture, and kill.
◦ Thousands upon thousands were stripped naked and shoved into ditches and killed. Newcomers would be forced to lie on top of the dead bodies before being killed, and on and on it went.
◦ Sweltering railcars, families separated in gas chambers.
◦ Auschwitz’ ovens could cremate 4,765 people a day.
◦ In 1994 they had identified 10,005 camps, ghettos and brothels positively.
◦ The major camps (Auschwitz, Dakow, etc.) each had hundreds of satellite camps.
◦ The people working at these satellite camps worked for companies like:
▪ Daimler-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen
▪ The Bayer corporation (the ones that sell aspirin). They sold the camps the Zyclon-B gas that was used in the gas chambers.
▪ Administrators, typists, rail workers, Policemen, truck drivers and factory workers worked at these camps. They and their families all knew what was going on.
• Are these things inhuman? Is it inhuman to want to kill all the Jews in the world? NO! It was humans that perpetrated these acts! We will discover that this is what humans do without God. This is all people can do without God.
• In the Soviet Union:
◦ From 1917 to 1989 between 20 to 26 million people were killed or died in camps.
▪ In the Ukraine in 1932-1933 they sealed off the borders of the Ukraine and sent in soldiers with dogs to remove every bit of food. 5-7 million people starved to death during this time.
▪ One soldier later reported that the worst part of this was watching the children starve to death. Their thin limbs and their bloated bellies were not the worst part. It was their eyes. They were utterly expressionless and no longer human.
• Is this inhuman? Is it inhuman to starve 5-7 million men, women, and children to death? NO!
• In 1937 Japan invaded Nan King, China. What they did there is called the rape of Nan King.
◦ 300,000 people were tortured, raped or killed there.
◦ Chinese men were used for bayonet practice, for stabbing or for beheading contests.
◦ Up to 80,000 Chinese women were raped. Afterward, some of them were disemboweled, body parts were mutilated, nail them alive to walls, fathers were forced to rape their daughters while family members watched.
• Is that inhuman? Is it inhuman to torture rape and kill other human beings? NO!
• Let’s not forget about torture in South Africa under Apartheid, what’s called “the Disappeared” in Argentina, the horrors that went on in the Sudan, Romania killed about 300,000 Jews on their own, they didn’t need Germany’s help, dismemberment in Liberia, Mexico killing its indigenous people, all kinds of horrors in Uganda.
• How about the United States?
◦ Since 1973, over 55 million babies have been suctioned, scraped, or scalded to death.
◦ Who keeps that legal?
▪ Your neighbors
▪ Your co-workers
▪ Genocide, mass murder, torture, are done by the collected average, normal people in the United States.
◦ Every one who researches genocide, and every survivor of genocide who has been interviewed, every one of them agree, 100%, that its the average member of a population that commits genocide.
◦ Adolph Eichmann, the administrator of Auschwitz, was captured and tried in Jerusalem for war crimes. Hanna Arndt chronicled the trial and said of Eichmann, “The main trouble with Eichmann is that there are so many like him. Neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.”
◦ The Auschwitz survivor, Elle Wazell, said “Deep down man is not only an executioner, not only a victim, not only a spectator, he is all three at once.”
• The hard truth that we need to come to terms with is that we, all of us, are born Auschwitz enabled.
• We are not all basically good people who happen to make mistakes! We are inherently, and completely degenerate.
The Difference Between “Good” and “Nice”
The Difference Between “Good” and “Nice”
27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
What would prevent two non-Christians from having an extra-marital affair?
Because they are naturally good and understand it’s morally wrong?
Or is it rather because they don’t want to deal with the messy consequences?
Disease, pregnancy, social stigma, possible divorce, etc.
The threat of punishment is what keeps people “nice”, but what if that threat were removed?
Defund the police!
When you understand the depths of human depravity you begin to see worldliness as God sees it, and you’ll begin to hate it just as God hates it.
When you understand the depths of human depravity you know the answer to the question, “why do bad things happen to good people?” There are no good people.
Second Point: We are Morally Free Agents
Second Point: We are Morally Free Agents
You can’t give someone free will and then not let them use it wrongly.
Natural laws must work in regular ways if our actions are going to mean anything at all.
• Our choices have real and largely predictable consequences.
• Why did God allow hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans?
◦ We built a city below sea level.
◦ The walls keeping the water out are rated to hurricane category 3.
◦ We know that cat 4 and cat 5 hurricanes exist and are a part of our normal experience.
◦ Proverbs 19:3 (KJV 1900) — 3 The foolishness of man perverteth his way: And his heart fretteth against the Lord.
◦ Proverbs 19:3 (ESV) — 3 When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.
God created man with free moral agency. We decided to use that free moral agency to rebel against God. While keeping free moral agency in the picture, God is using the natural consequences of man’s rebellion against God to teach us the horrors of living a life that is in rebellion against God.
Third Point: Only a Dangerous person can make a difference
Third Point: Only a Dangerous person can make a difference
By “Dangerous”, I mean someone who understands these things:
the lengths that fallen humanity can attain to.
Who understands they are capable of the same atrocities
Have chosen a life of surrender to God and obedience to Him.
Understands just who they are in Jesus Christ.
In this message, we’ll be focusing on the spiritual connotations of being dangerous. Dangerous to the enemy of our souls.
13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.
14 And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so.
15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?
16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
Here we see someone who was NOT dangerous and the enemy knew it!
They recognized the danger Paul presented
They certainly recognized the danger Jesus presented
They knew that the sons of Sceva were not a threat, and so the enemy did what they wanted to do.
We read in the gospels that when demons were confronted by Jesus, they trembled and were afraid in His presence.
Lets go over those points in more detail
We’ve covered 1 and 2 already
What does it mean to choose a life of surrender to God? What does it mean to be obedient to Him?
Our desires, our dreams, our comfort, our wills are now subordinate to Jesus.
He tells us what to do with the lives He’s given us, where to go, and when.
It means death to our old natures every day
Just who are we in God?
We’re more than conquerors!
We’re sons and daughters!
We’re Christ’s body on earth!
Now on to the Sermon: What are we to do with All This?
Now on to the Sermon: What are we to do with All This?
Watchman:
Stood guard at the border provinces of a nation
Was charged with knowing when the enemy was attacking, and was responsible for giving ample warning when they did.
Church, God has appointed you a watchman, and a warrior, over your families, your places of work, and this city.
God gives us the warning of what the enemy is doing to your families, your places of work, this city.
God gives us the message to give to those who have rejected God.
God gives us every weapon to engage the enemy and push him back.
This is the end times, and the revival God promised us will soon be upon us, and indeed already is overseas. What will we do to facilitate that?
6 And Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?
We can’t expect our brethren in other countries to engage the enemy and we sit idly by and enjoy the blessings of God!
1 And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.
It was when David failed to go out to war and stayed “in the rear with the gear” that he got in trouble. Our place in on the front lines!
God is with us Church! God is with you! Do what He commands.
When we submit to God and do those things He tells us to do, no matter what, we can only have victory in our lives.
9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.