When Restraints Are Removed

Transcript

GRM 1259
5/09/2021
When Restraints are Removed
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

I want to talk a little bit about what’s going on in the world, where we are and where we’re going. We have concerns, but in another way, as believers, these are very exciting times as we see unfolding things that may indicate and move us very close to the coming of the Lord. Let me put up the chart that you have not seen for a long time. I told Jeff we have to get some mugs so you can have one like I have on my desk. This is just the overview of the framework that God gives regarding His program for Israel, the 70 Weeks of Daniel. 70 weeks, that’s 70 weeks of years. It’s literally “seventy sevens.” As you study it, it’s clear he’s talking about 70 seven-year periods. So 490 years, and we’re not going into the details, but we start them in 444 B.C. and then it continues on down. 483 years brings us to the coming of Christ. Just after that, Christ comes, is crucified, and resurrected from the dead. That becomes a break point, if you will, in the 70 weeks. They ended here. This is before the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. We’ve looked into Daniel to see the indications of that break.

Then God began a new thing. We’ll be talking about this even more specifically when we pick up in our study of Ephesians next time. We’ll carry through the last part of chapter 2 of Ephesians and into chapter 3, of God’s work in building the church. This period, this is not part of the 70-week period, that 490 years. That pertains to Israel. The focus of God here is not on the nation Israel. They’re not totally out of the picture because they’re the nation God has made promises to. He’s going to pick up those promises after this colored period here, the Church Age, as you’re aware. Then when we get to the end of the church period, you have the rapture of the church, where we’re caught up to meet Christ in the air. Then we have a seven-year period. Remember we broke here after 483 years. In God’s working, we can’t say well that’s good enough and we round it off. No, when God says 490 years, it is 490 years. So there are seven years left in God’s program in preparing Israel—that’s what will happen in this seven-year period—for the coming to earth of the Messiah, and this time, when He came back here, they rejected Him. He was crucified. That brought Israel as a nation under the judgement of God, which has continued now for some 2,000 years. Individual Jews are saved, and they become part of the church. But God is not working His salvation through the nation in this church age period.

During this seven years, which the book of Revelation covers from chapter 6 to 19, and various Old Testament portions, it’s broken into two 3½-year segments. God’s wrath is being poured out on an unbelieving world. His judgement on Israel intensifies, and by the end of this seven years, Israel is ready and calling out for the Messiah to rescue them. Then Christ will come and we go into the Kingdom. 1,000 years, and then the eternal phase.

Now when we’re talking about what is going on in the world today, somewhere in here, where are we? We’re really evaluating what God says is going to take place during this seven-year period after the church is removed. So we want to be careful that we don’t get ahead of ourselves. I can’t tell you for sure where we are. Do we have three days until Christ comes? Do we have three months? Do we have three years? Do we have 30 years? I can’t say. We can say the more we see things taking place that God says will be happening here, makes us think that we could be getting close. Obviously Paul told the Romans, remember, now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. He was way back here at the beginning. Every day brings us closer to the coming of the Lord for the church, to call us to meet Him in the air. But some of the things going on in these days are important. The changes we see going on in the world among nations are important because it’s God who established nations, and it’s God who removes nations. All He is doing here is in preparation for what’s going to take place here. So we know what the final period looks like. We’re going to have one world government. Most of us, we’re not comfortable with globalism. You don’t have to get comfortable with it because before it gets in its final form, we’re leaving. There’s going to be one world dictator who oversees the world. Remember the Tower of Babel. When the people were united, they were one people. The problem was they wanted one focal point of religion. That’s what the devil wanted. The fall had already occurred in Genesis chapter 3. Satan was now using his position—in effect, Adam had been dethroned in sin and subjected to the devil. But the devil is moving toward the world being under his ruler. We call him the Antichrist, and he will rule during the seven-year period. Particularly this middle of this period is where he is in a position, 3½ years into the seven years, to assert full authority and full power. So as we look for things that may be pulling us toward this direction, again, these things are certain as far as what will happen in here, how much will be done here before we transition to here, and how much will happen after, we can’t say. But it is interesting to see what’s taking place in the world in these days.

There’s a pattern that goes on. I just want to note a couple of passages of Scripture. Obviously we can just highlight things. God in His plan restrains evil, but as evil progresses and people become more open in their rebellion, He withdraws His restraint. When God withdraws His restraint, that prepares the judgement that God’s bringing on them. That can happen in individuals, and that can happen in nations. That’s why we see nations come and go. They come into power, in the plan of God, but through the progress of their power they become more overt in their sin and rebellion and defiance of God, and that results in His bringing judgement on them. Part of that judgement is that the restraint on evil is removed. During this seven-year period will be the time when the restraint is removed in the greatest way. If we don’t run out of time, we will talk about that. It’s important to understand God raises nations and He blesses often because they’ve been victorious. And as sin becomes so overt, God says I’m going to put a stop to this. The stop is He brings judgement on that nation and it is replaced, overrun, or overpowered.

Let’s look for a couple of passages. Genesis chapter 6. Again, this is review, so I’m not going to try to fill in all the details. Here’s an example, the Flood of Noah. I just want you to see. Sin has occurred; the fall occurred in Genesis 3. In Genesis 6, the people of the world are still one people. There are no nations dividing the world. There are no languages dividing the world. Everyone is one big group of people, speaking one language. We’re told in Genesis 6:1, “Now it came about, when men began to multiply,” and so the population is growing, exploding if you will. Sin is getting greater. You know, it didn’t take long for sin to explode. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. What happens? One of their sons kills the other. That happened quickly. One of the sons of Adam and Eve killed the other son of Adam and Eve. It doesn’t take long for sin. We are really at the bottom. We don’t know the seriousness of it. What God says in Genesis 6:3, “’My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’” Judgement is coming. You see the picture here. My Spirit, so the Spirit of God’s presence there. He came at the beginning of the church in a unique way, but He’s also always present. He was present in Genesis chapter 1, hovering. His presence was there, over the creation. So the Spirit of God has always been present in carrying out the ministry. He came in Acts chapter 2 with the establishing of the church—remember that tan period on our chart—in a unique and special way. Jesus said I’ll send the Spirit to You when I go to heaven, to carry out a unique ministry in building the church. But here, the Spirit was striving and restraining man in his sin. Then verse 5, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Remember we’ve seen in our studies in Ephesians this is the problem. The heart, it’s deceitful and desperately wicked, as Jeremiah said. It’s from the heart that proceed all kinds of sin, Mark chapter 7, Jesus said. He feels our true condition. Every intent was only evil continually. “The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land.’” Down in verse 11, “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.” You look around in the world today and can see some of the progression, even happening in recent years, on a worldwide scale. How close, we don’t know. You see what will happen. It begins to disintegrate. The restraint of the Spirit, man persists in being worse and worse. These aren’t just in moral areas like sexual activity; the violence takes place, it recognizes no authority. So the conflicts grow.

Genesis 6:11, “The earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.” You note they’re responsible for their sin, their decisions. God told Noah, “’The end of all flesh’” is at hand, “’for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them.’” You see what has happened. Sin is built to the place God says “Enough. Now I am ready to bring punishment.” That’s on a scale, on that chart we’re going to build in that last seven-year period where God is saying to the world enough is enough. And as we studied Revelation chapters 6 to 19, we find that in that period, remember, billions of people are going to die in the various judgements God brings on the earth. Some of what are called natural disasters, wars, famines, droughts, all going to be affecting the world. Why? God says enough is enough. So that’s in the seven-year period. It’s where we’re building to again, but you see what happened back here.

Come over to Genesis chapter 15. You see it on a smaller scale. There we’re looking at the whole world, but this have been going on repeatedly down through history. God in His grace has restrained evil, so it hasn’t built to the point that the whole world is coming under that judgement as it did under the Flood. But we’re building back to that. In Genesis 15, look at verse 13. God has selected out Abram, whom you know as Abraham. God changes his name. He promises the descendants of Abraham will become the nation that He has chosen for Himself. What happened, we didn’t pick it up, but in Genesis 10 we had the Tower of Babel where the people of the world gathered together. We don’t want to be scattered so to keep ourselves all together, let’s make a worship center. Because remember, now the devil is in charge. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one, and what he wants is the worship that is due God alone. So this world empire now is to have its center worship, not the worship of the living God, but worship of the devil. Then God came down and divided the nations. He split their language, so they get up in the morning and you have all these different languages being spoken. So, people can’t understand them; we might as well leave. So they have their own little groups, family groups, and they go off to different places. That’s where the nations of the world came from. God’s intention is to keep the world divided because the devil’s goal is to unify it under his authority, focusing on worshiping him. So we don’t want to lose sight of where the world is going, what the situation really is.

So in Genesis 15 God is selecting one nation out. It’s not even a nation yet, but I’ll build the nation from your descendants, from your wife Sarah. So we have the Jewish nation. You’ll note in verse 13 of Genesis 15, “God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.’” And those are the descendants that are going to go down into Egypt, remember, with Joseph. The descendants will spend 400 years in Egypt enslaved and somewhat isolated. Remember, because the Egyptians didn’t like shepherds, so they end up isolated in their own area, and in that 400 years, one of the things God is doing is building the family descendants of Abram. 70 people go down into Egypt, and 400 years later, we have 2 million people coming out. That’s an estimate, but we know that there were 600,000 young men 20 years old and up that were qualified to go to war. So we estimate that with women and children, old men above age of war. 400 years… What else is going on while God is building Israel? Look at verse 14. “’But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.’” Verse 16, “’Then in the fourth generation they will return here.’” You know, God takes them out of the land of Canaan that He promised to Abraham, takes them down into Egypt where He’s going to build them into a nation, but there’s another issue. Other people inhabit the land of Canaan. Why do you have to go out for 400 years? Note the end of verse 16, “’The iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.’” So that’s part. You see ripening for judgement, moving to judgement. The Amorites inhabited Canaan, but their sin hasn’t built to the point where God is ready to intervene and bring judgement on them. But 400 years more of sin will bring them to that point. Then what does God say when He sends Israel into the land of Canaan under Joshua? You will kill every man, woman, and child in that land. We say whoa. You understand, it’s been ripening for judgement. Judgement comes. So what we want to see is God is dealing here in a more isolated way. The Flood of Noah encompassed the world; He works the same way then with nations. He works that same way with individuals, as we’ll see as well.

Come over to chapter 19. What’s going on in chapter 19 is the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. You’re well familiar with what goes on. In chapter 18, if you want to back up, look at verse 20. “And the Lord said.” He’s telling Abraham what He’s going to do because Lot, Abraham’s nephew, is living in Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 20, “And the Lord said, ‘The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.’” So now we come down to the city. Not just the land like the land of Canaan and the nation there, but the city here and the cities associated. You see, the sin is built. For Sodom and Gomorrah, the sin has built to the point it’s judgement time. So judgement comes and we’re aware. When the righteous ones, who are just Lot and his immediate family, even his wife doesn’t make it but his two daughters do and they’ve been corrupted by the sin that they’ve been raised in and that environment; God wipes out everyone. Fire rains down from heaven, judgements come, and Sodom and Gomorrah are reduced to ashes, just smoke coming up. Genesis 18:20, “’The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.’” That’s a way of saying it has come to the point where I will not tolerate it any more. A reminder that sin is always building to that point. Romans, we just studied that, so we’ll leave it, but we may come back to that if we have time at the end. We’re building to that. What did Romans chapter 2 and those opening verses say? You keep rejecting the kindness of God. You are storing up for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath. Something is always going on. The pursuit of sin is building and people who continue in their sin and their rejection of God are storing up wrath. It’s not like nothing’s happened. Look at me, I’ve had a good life and nothing’s happened to me. No, it’s stored up. Nothing had happened to the people of Noah’s day until it happened. Nothing had happened to Sodom and Gomorrah until it happened. Nothing has happened to sinners who’ve rejected Christ until it happens. So that’s what we’re building.

We want realize because we look around at the world and we need to understand we’re building toward that seven-year period described in Revelation 6 to 19. We look and see what’s going on in the world. For the unbelieving, they think it’s divided and you have Republicans and Democrats or you have conservatives and progressives, but you know they’re all in the same position. We don’t want to get caught up in that, cause we know God’s stake in it. The ground issue here, as we were talking about earlier in our study of Ephesians, is the sin of a heart that is in rebellion against God. This is not well, we’re more aligned here on issues, but they are insignificant issues as far as God is concerned. What He’s concerned about is the continued relentless rebellion against Him, and it grows and it builds.

So come over to Daniel chapter 2. Daniel chapter 2. I just want you to see the progression of nations. Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and Daniel interprets the dream as God has made it known to him, and what is it? The coming succession of nations. One will be raised up and then another will be raised up. One will conquer another and replace another. So Daniel tells the dream in chapter 2 in verse 36 and following. It’s in the form of a statue. You’ll have to go back. Most of you have been involved in our study of Daniel when we did it. Babylon, represented by Nebuchadnezzar, so that empire comes. It’s the first. Daniel picks up where he is. There are two preceding empires in Old Testament history: Egypt, where Israel went; and then Assyria; then Babylon. Daniel’s picking up because the revelation given to Nebuchadnezzar picks up where Nebuchadnezzar is. So we pick up with Babylon.

After Babylon, verse 39, “After you there will arise another kingdom,” and a third kingdom, the Medo-Persian empire. It replaced Babylon, and then Greece replaced Persia. Then the fourth kingdom, verse 40, is Rome. You see God is determined. He’s laid it out, but it hasn’t happened yet. Babylon’s going down and will intervene. Belshazzar the king, you note, the handwriting on the wall: MEN?, MEN?, TEK?L, UPHARSIN. Weighed, weighed, found wanting. You’ve built to the point where God says no more. That night, the Medo-Persian armies come in and conquer Babylon. Then you have Medo-Persia, and they’ll come and God will say with them that enough is enough. Greece comes, then God says enough is enough. Rome comes, and then the Roman empire, the fourth kingdom, strong as iron, symbolized by iron. More valuable metals… Babylon was symbolized by gold, but it didn’t have the strength of iron. You wouldn’t want to take your gold ring and smash it with iron, and you wouldn’t try to smash iron with your gold ring. There’s a strength in the Roman empire. Then you’ll note, there are the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron. And you remember our study; we have a break in Old Testament prophecy. Remember that colored period in the chart? The church age, it’s not there. So Rome is in power but that empire’s going down. It’s not going to disappear. It’s going to reappear with the toes, and then Daniel 2:42, “As the toes of the feet were of iron and partly of clay.” It’s going to be a revived empire, but it’s not going to have the strength of the old one because it’s mixed with clay, which is brittle. But, it has the strength of iron. That’s what it says. It’ll be partly strong and partly brittle. You don’t have to be a great theologian; just read it. It’ll be partly strong and partly brittle. It doesn’t mix because now you’ve put together this mixture. We’ll see a little bit of it trying to mix in our country. Then you have racial discord. When Satan puts together, if you will, the world, he just can’t overcome the divisions God’s put there. So there will be a unity to it, but there will be a division in it because God divided it. What happens when you put it together? You get unified worship. But that has to wait until God’s King is here.

Verse 44 of Daniel 2, “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom.” So that’s what goes on in that seven-year period. You have the rise of that ten-nation confederacy, the revived Roman empire. Remember it’s the iron. It doesn’t say the gold continues or the other metals; it’s the iron mixed with clay, the brittleness, the old Roman empire. That’s where we get the revived Roman empire, a ten-nation confederacy. “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom” that will never end. That hasn’t happened yet. All these kingdoms are earthly kingdoms. Nobody debates Babylon was an earthly kingdom. Medo-Persia was an earthly kingdom. Greece was an earthly kingdom. Rome was an earthly kingdom. But for some reason, some people who study the Bible say that the kingdom God establishes is not an earthly kingdom; it’s a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men. No, it’s an earthly kingdom because He crushes all the earthly kingdoms. That’s verse 45 and following. This kingdom, when it comes, comes like a huge stone and it just smashes everything. All other kingdoms are crushed and He sets up an eternal kingdom.

The same picture is over in chapter 7, and I just mentioned it. You have the beast instead of the metals and an image of a man and different metals in the different parts of the man, referring to different kingdoms. Now you have four wild beasts, and they come up and each beast represents a king or a kingdom. So the same kings—same kingdoms. Then you have ten horns. You had ten toes in Daniel 2. Here you have ten horns on the fourth beast, which is the most ferocious and powerful, which is Rome again. You’ll see the horns are on that beast, Rome. So it’s ten kings or kingdoms, and it’s explained. You can go on and read chapter 7 because we don’t have time to do that. They refer to kings and kingdoms. The Roman empire’s going to be pulled together with a federation of ten nations. Out of that we get another detail here we didn’t get in chapter 2. Daniel 7:8, “While I was contemplating the horns,” and there were ten of them, “behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them,” and replaced three of them. Then he becomes the power. He’s the one we know as the Antichrist. We see him in Revelation 13 when we talk about what happens in the middle of that seven-year period that is yet future. Then comes Christ to set up His kingdom, a kingdom that will not end.

I want you just to go to one other passage. I have some others, but we won’t have time for that, I don’t think. Come to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians 2. At the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, in chapter 4 then into chapter 5, in the end of chapter 4 Paul talked about the Rapture, the harpazo, that removal of the church from the earth to meet Christ in the air and be taken to heaven. Then we have the beginning of the seven years. He talked about that coming seven years in chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians. When you get into 2 Thessalonians, his second letter, he talks about the Day of the Lord, which is that seven-year period. We’ve done details of this and it comes out of a number of Old Testament scriptures and so on. But in 2 Thessalonians 2:1 he’s speaking “with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him.” That’s what he talked about in chapter 4 of the first letter. Chapter 4 as we have it, in that first letter. When the church is caught up, gathered to meet Christ… But that hasn’t come yet. We have to have verse 3, the departure. I take it that’s the Rapture, the apostasy. That’s just a word that means a departure. “And the man of lawlessness is revealed.” That’s that little horn that came up and replaced three. He’s called the man of lawlessness because that’s a basic characteristic and everything he does is in defiance and rebellion against God. He’s leading the world in that rebellion. He’s the “son of destruction” because he is doomed to destruction. He “opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” We studied, and you can read again Revelation 13. You’ll have a false prophet and you have the satanic trinity where the devil wants to be the replacement of God the Father. The Antichrist, a replacement of Christ. And the false prophet, you’ve seen in Revelation 13, directs all worship, just as the Holy Spirit today directs worship toward Christ; Satan will have a false prophet directing worship to the Antichrist.

You’ll note verse 6, “And you know what restrains him now.” There’s a restraint going on so the Antichrist cannot be revealed. Remember, that restraint, the Holy Spirit—we saw that in the days of Noah—was striving and restraining. God says I’m going to stop that restraint. That means sin breaks out in its fulness and judgement comes in its fulness. When the restraint is removed, then lawlessness will break out. We have the seven years in its fullest form. Verse 7, that “mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed.” I take it the Holy Spirit is restraining, because He’s the only one who can restrain the devil and sin and so on. When that restraint is removed, then sin will break out in its greatest fullness. That is a preparation for coming judgement. So the picture is consistent through Scripture. You go all the way back to that worldwide judgement in the days of Noah, and My Spirit will not always strive with man. Here we come talking about what will happen in the closing period of earth’s history. The Holy Spirit, who is now still restraining evil, but we may see something. You know, the progression of evil still builds. Every thought of man’s heart was only evil continually, we saw in Genesis 6. You begin to see more and more of that displayed more openly. With Sodom and Gomorrah, we say we can’t believe it.

I want to take a break here and read you something that was provided for me from the internet today. Some of you may have seen it. This is about a draft released in March, the past March. It calls for teaching children. This is for the members of the Nebraska State Board of Education. So the members of the Nebraska State Board of Education had a meeting, and it was an open meeting; people came. People came from both positions. What the Board of Education is doing is drafting health standards that they would teach to students as young as first grade about gender identity and gender stereotypes. This is the Nebraska State Board of Education, a draft that they put out, that was what they were considering would be taught to students beginning in first grade regarding gender identity and gender stereotypes. There were opposing groups here. Some were in favor; some were not in favor. That is not really relevant to what I want to share with you. During that meeting, different people that opposed having such things in that draft for educating grade school students spoke, and those who were in favor. Here’s a person who’s in favor, Abby Swatsworth. She is the executive director of OutNebraska. OutNebraska is a nonprofit that advocates for Nebraskans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. So she’s the executive director of this organization. She told the board, “Listen to science over fear.” Listen to science over fear. It’s in quotations here. That’s a quote from what she said. Here she goes on to say, “Young people are increasingly telling us who they are,” Swatsworth said, “and parents and educators and faith leaders must honor their truth.” Now wait a minute. We have to listen to science, not act out of fear. And parents and educators and faith leaders, other religious leaders, need to listen to the kids. They’re telling us who they are. We must honor their truth.

Are we in Alice and Wonderland here? In other words, there is no objective truth. These kids are telling us how they feel and what they think, and that is their truth. So adults, parents, educators, and religious leaders need to honor their truth and listen to science, not fear. Somewhere along the line, what science is, has it changed? There used to be things that could be put to the test and were done over and over again to validate studies. We did this with the virus, Covid-19, and what? Pharmaceuticals get in, then they had to do tests and repeat tests so that we knew science supported the results. Whether you agreed with it or not is not the point. That’s supposed to be what science is. Now when it comes to gender identity, I listen to a first grader telling me what his truth is. Would you want to be vaccinated with what a first grader thought a good vaccine? It might have been Jelly Bellies. Well, that’s his truth. We must honor their truth. Don’t be governed by fear. We must as parents, educators, and religious leaders. These children are telling us who they are. We must honor their truth and listen to science, not fear. Open your eyes. Is this a boy or a girl? Let’s test it again. Another one’s been born. Hmm. Well, put it over here with the one that looked like that. Put it over here. Hmm. Everybody that we would classify as female looks like this. Everybody that looks like male looks like this. Then we could do some more difficult studies. Let’s examine the chromosome pattern. Every boy will have this pattern. Every girl will have this pattern. Isn’t that amazing? Throw it out. Ask a first grader how he feels. He feels like he’s a puppy dog. Well, honor his truth. Feed him Purina. I don’t know. Where does this stop?

Now here’s what they want to teach. Here’s the draft released in March for teaching children as young as first graders about gender identity and gender stereotypes. We’re going to start before first grade. Kindergarteners would be taught about different kinds of family structuring, including cohabiting and same-gender families. You know marriage doesn’t need to be taught. You can just live together, cohabit, or you can be a same-gender family. That’s what your kindergarteners need to learn. Well, jump to fourth grade. Fourth graders would be taught the difference between sex assigned at birth and gender identity. In other words, you’re not necessarily a male, a boy, because you were born that way at birth. There’s a difference between the sex assigned at birth. They don’t even say the sex you were born with. That was something you were assigned with. Your gender identity is what you really are. See how they make a distinction between what you born as and what you are. They’re teaching fourth graders. This has to be taught in fourth grade.

Then fifth graders would be taught that gender expression and gender identity exists along a spectrum. So you know, you can be either both or everything in between. There’s a spectrum. You get to sixth grade and they’re ready for the big stuff now. Let’s see how many of these things… Listen. Sixth graders would learn what sexual identity is. Sixth graders! When I was in sixth grade, I was more concerned about making the Pittsburg Pirates baseball team when I grew up. Sixth graders would learn what sexual identity is and learn about a range of sexual identities related to sexual orientation. Among them, heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, two-spirit, asexual, and pansexual. They would learn the differences between cisgender, transgender, gender non-binary, gender expansive, and gender identity. Isn’t that what you’re sending your kids to school to learn about?

Now once this is built into them in the early years and you send them to school, day after day through grade school, now we’re ready for junior high. I don’t know what they’re going to teach them there. I hate to even think what science class will be. There’s disagreement over this, but this is what the Nebraska Board of Education is working on putting together. There are kids graduating that can’t even speak the English language, and we’re going to compete with other nations of the world in how to send a spaceship to Mars. Well, let’s ask the kindergarteners. All of this to say what’s going on. We see our world getting what? Are we any better than Sodom and Gomorrah? You know what the end of Romans 1 says. They didn’t only practice this; they give hearty approval to those who do. How long will it go on? I’m not saying that we’re there. We’re not there yet, but we could be getting close. Where do we get to the point? Read Romans 1 again. What does it say? God turned them over. God turned them over. God turned them over. You see the restraint loosening. You see man becoming more overt in fighting against the restraint and refusing to have any restraint. We will have it our way with your children in our schools, and our teachers will teach it. Could you be a Christian and teach this in school? You can be a teacher in a grade school now and you’re not supposed to refer to your students as boy and girl. They’re students. You don’t use gender identities. Already, they’re going to get this established. More and more, those who have a biblical basis for their belief, where do we fit? You’re excluded. It will grow to where in the Tribulation, what’s going to happen? There’s no room for you because the devil has no room for people in his worship system who worship the true and living God. So we have the breakout of persecution.

So as we look at what’s going on in the world, we may be disappointed, but we shouldn’t be surprised. We don’t want to forget where we’re going, and we don’t want to be denying the biblical truth that we keep teaching. If we want to talk about the world, yes, it is disappointing. But you know, it’s not surprising. In fact, what is going on, it’s exactly what God says would take place? You want to know a little more about what God says is happening and what the outcome is going to be? He’s already told us. You know, rather than jumping in, yeah, I hope we get this racial issue settled, or I hope we get these social things toned down, or I hope we get back to a conservative view of things; the world is going to globalism. The world is going to a one-world rule, one-world religion. I’m not fighting against it. You know what Jeremiah said, then I have to be done. He told the Jews the Babylonians are coming. They will conquer. He told Zedekiah you could surrender now and God will give you your life, or you could fight to the end and it will cost you everything. The king fought to the end and it cost him everything. So I don’t want to fight against what God’s doing. I’m not here to improve this unimprovable world. We are here to bring the truth of God to a world that’s living in darkness, and the time is closing. We want to be faithful. Let’s pray.

Thank you, Lord, for Your word. It is a true word. It is a clear word. And Lord, we are so blessed to be Your people through faith in Christ. Lord, to be raised up as a local church by You in these days, with other believing churches in this country and around the world, to be lights in the darkness. Lord, we must not lose our way. We must remain true to what You’ve called us to do as the world continues to deteriorate and seem to more rapidly move toward the judgement that You have clearly pronounced. Bless us in the week before us, Lord, strengthen us, use us. May we be faithful. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.