The Darkening of Understanding

Hi. This is Dave Olson.

I'm the senior leader of Hartman church located in Ankeny Iowa.

I hope the following message, challenges, and courage, has and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us, we're

going to jump into something and I don't know where we're going

to end up. I've got four passages.

I want to look at we went. And how many of you have seen

the Jesus Revolution movie, raise your hand.

How many of you have not seen it yet?

Raise your hand. I would highly recommend.

Amend it. I would recommend going.

I remember those days. I was just a little kid.

Don't look at me like that. Like you did.

You could save their know, I was little, but our church in Duluth

was really impacted by the Jesus people movement and a bunch of

then came into our church. A lot of them, their minds were

scrambled, But as God restored them, they became leaders all

through the north up there and our pastor was open and receive

them and it was an amazing thing.

But And I wept through most of the movie and the biggest reason

was not because of memories. Although they had some good

music man. I'm telling you peace baby.

It was it was awesome but the biggest reason that I wept is, I

could feel what was in the air at that time.

And I've felt that at various times in various places that

there was just an openness to the gospel.

I believe, the movie opened with this scene, it was near the

beginning and that's when I started crying, but all the

staff was with us. So I'm trying to keep my, you

know, if I watch a movie alone then I know I can really get

into crime, but, you know, you got to keep your masculinity

intact, you know, with staff. So but this this scene where

there's a bunch of these young hippies and just people in

general, General. This, this crowd of people and

they Crest this hill and I don't believe that opens up the ocean

and there's this massive baptismal service going on.

And then the next scene that I that I felt that same thing was

that the same idea, but they're all this throng of hippies were

making their way to what looked like a circus tent because

they'd outgrown their building and there was just this Buzz

this expectancy in the air. And I was just so impacted the

bike by that because I have felt that before If you have ever

been in a season of Revival, you know what that feels like?

It's like the air is alive and even unbelievers, begin to say.

Wow God. Dwells among men, there's this

possibility of meeting their creator and if there's just a

buzz at the end of the movie, I want to ruin it for you and this

is just a little piece, it'll be good for you.

But at the end, these, these young people show up and there's

Greg Laurie sitting on that Cliff that same cliff and they

said, hey, is this where everybody?

Gets baptized and he said, yeah. And he's they said, well, we

didn't know how it worked. We want to come and get

baptized. You said, where are you from?

They said Texas. Now, this is Southern

California. They drove across the country.

I remember when the outpouring happened here in 08, it started

on a Tuesday afternoon, I came out of my office.

I had been dealing with a conflict.

I came out in there were bodies laid on the floor by Saturday

night. It was standing room only.

There were One Pastor was from Montana.

I mean, people come in from multiple States, when God is in

the air, people will flock there.

I'm telling you, they're there are hungry people in this nation

and all it's going to take as a spark and it's God's going to

ignite something. And so I was just, I was so

touched by that and just I remember watching Doc back in

the Brownsville day. Some of you were involved in the

Brownsville Revival and I remember on the news they were

interviewing people in this one guy.

He was he said yeah. You know, I've got an issue with

drugs where you from, he was from Michigan, didn't know

Jesus, but he said, I heard about these meetings drove from

Michigan to the panhandle of Florida because God was in the

air. There was something that

awakened within him. And so I've been just chewing on

this and contemplating this and, and just asking myself.

What is that? What is that spiritually?

What is that? Because make no mistake about

it. There is an atmospheric Dynamic

to Revival like that. There's something that happens

in. The atmosphere.

In the spiritual realm, something takes place, and all

of a sudden people are aware of God, even though they don't know

them. People that don't believe in God

suddenly are in his presence and God happens to them.

And they become Believers before they even know the fact, the

facts because they've encountered him.

And so, I was just thinking about that Lord.

What is that dynamic in the air? What, what happens in those

seasons of outpouring. And I think it's important for

us to Define that because that's what we're praying for.

I'm not praying, just for individuals to awaken, I'm

praying for something to happen in the atmosphere over this

nation. So that's people suddenly become

aware that. There is a living God and that

they can, they can meet him. But there's things that happen

in the spirit when that happens and I want it.

So I want us to look at that this morning and so pause there.

That's the first thing we're going to talk about another

element of this. I don't know which one we're

going to dive into. I'm a little I'm we're just

going to dive in and we're going to try to figure this thing out.

The other thing I've been contemplating is this is the

fascinating reality that there is the micro.

Move in the macro move, there is the individual encounter with

God, there's individual Revival. There's Individual Awakening.

Where we all of a sudden encounter, God, our eyes are

open. We become aware of his presence,

and we get saved, and then there's this macro cultural

corporate encounter that can happen over a nation, where a

nation is shook by the power of God.

Both of those are realities and both of those are something we

need to contend for, but I'm telling you, this is what I

want. I want the macro, I want the

corporate I want the And wide Awakening.

And, and the interesting thing is, is the Dynamics to these two

things are the same. It's just applying it on a much

larger scale and we can see this in Ephesians chapter 4 and

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 1. And so we're going to look at

Romans 1 · chapter mention

those two passages this morning. So guys, if you want to put up

Ephesians chapter 4, we're going to look at that passage.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And and the other thing I want to say is my apologies to the

intercessors. We I process my Theology and

prayer and so often they get the they get the first wave of a

message during the week as we meet up front and then we unpack

it the rest on the weekend. So I just I so appreciate the

intercessors. You know, it's almost 3 years

now that we've been meeting Tuesday through Friday every

week. Crying out to God for this

nation and I think it's important that we remember that.

What was the Catalyst for us to start to meet?

and what it was is it was a Sunday morning and we were

talking about the state of this emerging generation.

My oldest son had given me a book.

He's always recommending all these eclectic books to me and

this particular one was called the Primal scream.

And it was by a Catholic sociologist by the name of Mary,

a bird stat know if anybody has any of you have ever read

anything by her but it is an absolutely fascinating but very

Godly woman. Brilliant.

You start reading what she says. She's absolutely brilliant and

the subtitle was something about the where it was more eloquent

than this but it was saying you know, where the heck did

identity politics come from. That's that's essentially what

the book was about. And her premise was that

identity politics come from the lack of identity in the emerging

generation and she traces that to the sexual Revolution, which

resulted in the the gist? The absolutely decimation of the

nuclear family. And she uses this phrase.

She said we are hopelessly communal beings as human beings.

We are made to be communal. Were made to be relational.

Were made to be in family, were made to have those

relationships. And the first place we find our

identity is Under the Umbrella of our family.

I am an Olsen, I Am the son of Jim and fails and I'm the

brother of several siblings and that's where my, my identity

began to be formed. But we see the the sexual

revolution of the 60s, the late 60s, and early 70s, which is

what that the timeframe that movie.

The Jesus Revolution is about That timeframe there was what

was known as the sexual Revolution that absolutely has

decimated. The family there were several

things that converge to cause that, you know, the the I knew I

was going to have this problem. My mind, I'm having a hard time

finding words this morning. We need to pray.

Father, Lord, I ask that you would Grace me this morning.

Lord give me the words to discharge what's on my heart.

And Lord, I ask God that you would speak through me.

Lord that you would awaken Faith Lord, that you would awaken an

ache within us Lord God, that we would not be the generation that

This is a move of God lord we want to see you move and great

power Lord. Our heart breaks for this

generation and Lord were asking visit it once again in Jesus

name. Amen.

Birth control pill. That's what I was looking for.

Can you believe that I'm tell we're in trouble?

If God doesn't ride in on this birth control enabled, people to

be, to begin to liberated sexually without the

consequences. And so, the breakdown of the

no-fault divorce, all of these things, converged to decimate,

the family and so she begins to look sociologically what that

did to the American Family, what and really globally?

That, you know, you have people with, you know, stepfathers and

their mother has a boyfriend that has siblings that move in

with them and are they related to them?

Or are they not? And if it's a, you know, just

all this confusion so people don't know who they are.

And so what's happened? And she, she traces this out

that what? And not finding our identity.

In our homes. We identify by our woundedness.

Then we look to a tribal affiliation with those who share

our woundedness. And then we go to war against

anybody that would disagree with our woundedness and that is

identity politics. It was fascinating about two

years later. I read the book by Carl Truman

and he went into how Wilhelm Reich was.

He was one of the fathers of CRT critical race Theory and he was

a vowed Marxist. And his, his ideology was this

he said capitalism has produced too much wealth for us to

overthrow the West. We can't, we can't pit the poor

against the rich anymore because capitalism has really raise the

water level of a society financially.

So he said we've got to find another way to cause Division

and one of the things he said is we've got to make war against

the family. We've got to do away with the

father's in the homes. We've got to do with gender

identity in the sense of, you know, the distinction between

male and female. We've got to create confusion in

these. And so, what was fascinating to

me is Mary a burst at she looked at the result in Reverse,

engineered it and said, Logically, this was the problem.

Meanwhile, route Wilhelm Reich many decades earlier had already

engineered it in advance. It said, this is what we're

going to do to reach our goals and it worked And the answer for

this is the family of God, God sets the lonely in families.

And if the world ever needed churches that can receive people

in love and wrap around them and provide the family, they never

had, if they were Liz ever needed that it's right now.

And so we were talking about that that morning 23 almost

three years ago now and as we were talking about that it was

like just this ache erupted and we went into intercession, I

didn't even get to finish my message.

Many of you were here and we just begin to cry out.

I couldn't stop weeping and and I remember around that time I

heard Lou Engel talking, he was saying that he was in a meeting

in California and he was talking about the, the, blight of Of

sexual confusion that has hit this generation and there's such

Brokenness not unlike what happened in the late. 70s, late

60s, early 70s. You know, Lonnie frisbee in that

movie, you know, how he met his wife, she was out.

She was out sunbathing in the nude and he was out street

witnessing. He just walked up to her, she's

laying there. And how you doing?

He preaches the gospel to her, led her to the Lord, while she

was naked, baptized her, and then they got married.

I mean, this was a crazy. Time.

Okay. We look at what's going on now.

We're like, oh my goodness. What is happening to our nation?

I'm telling you, this has happened before and God answered

with a move called the Jesus people movement.

So during that a couple years ago where we were talking about

all this, I remember Lou Engel talking about he was out in

California talking and he was talking about healing for

homosexuality in this young man, stood up and said, sir, if you

don't have the power of God to deliver me from my sexual urges,

you have no right to call me out of homosexuality and Lou was hit

because lose a man of tremendous compassion.

Now, melt most of us are well, that young man needed an

attitude adjustment. That's probably true.

But the fact is, there is truth that you and I are the ones that

are called to carry the power of God.

And until we carry enough power. We need to get in the closet of

our prayer closet and begin to cry out to God to get the power

to deliver people. Don't call people into the

repentance that you don't have the power to help him out with.

And so as we were talking about that, it was like a coal came

from heaven and hit us Bloom and we just launched into these

prayer meetings and the reason I bring that up this morning is

God has not changed his mind. I told you going to be all over

this morning just bear with me just prior to that.

I'd called a good friend of mine, Jeff Collins many of you

know, Jeff Jeff is a tremendous man of God, he's got the

craziest stories. And I called him, I said Jeff

what's the Lord telling you and he began to weep and he said

Dave, he said I was on my way to a prayer meeting I had in a I

had a prophetic astonishment. I'm thinking.

What is that? I'm getting my, you know,

dictionary out. What's a prophetic?

I said, what do you mean? He said I was on my way to

prayer at their church and Palestine Texas.

And he said the Lord told me the state of the church right now is

the two prostitutes before. King Solomon arguing over the

remaining child, when one had died and wanting one was left.

And the two prostitutes were arguing over the the child.

And when he said it, it hit me and I began to weep.

I said, Jeff, what do you think it means?

He says I don't know he was still praying into he said but I

know this there's no moral High Ground, we've all been

unfaithful, we've all been prostitutes and we stand before

the king and as I began to pray into that, I really felt like

the Lord stressed. One thing to me, That the

emerging generation. There were two children.

There were two prostitutes, both had children, they were living

together. And during the night, one of

them had rolled over on her child and smothered the child to

death. It had died, the other child was

alive. So the one whose child had died

quietly, lifted her dead child into the arms of the other

sleeping mother and took her living child and snuggle it and

went back to sleep. Of course, the the the real

mother woke up saw the dead child and began to wail.

She was so stricken with grief and then she looked at it, she

realized this is not my child because a mother knows.

She went over to the other lady and demanded her child back and

she said this is my child. They got a big argument.

So next thing you know they're before King Solomon it's that

famous story. Where Solomon says okay they're

both crying out and Solomon says okay let's bring over a sword.

We're going to cut the baby in half and you both get one half

of the baby. And of course, the real mother

said, no. No, let it live.

I don't care who raises it. And the other lady said, yeah.

Kill it because she didn't have the mother's heart for the child

and King. Solomon wisely said this is the

real Mother. And the picture is that half of

the emerging generation has already died under the weight of

the sleeping Unfaithful bride. And what's remaining is there

was this argument over it, but when it got Before the Throne,

the care of that child was awarded to the one who want,

it's life preserved. She didn't she didn't even care.

If she got to raise it, someone else can raise it.

But it's got to live. And I'm telling you God's

looking for churches. He's looking for people that

that's their heart cry. That we say, God, we can't

tolerate this state of this generation, you've got to let it

live. They have to encounter Jesus.

And I believe God wants to release a fresh.

Jesus Revolution, I really do the markers of these two

generations are so similar, and it was like there is it was ripe

for a move of God. Well, most were wringing their

hands saying, it's hopeless and actuality.

It's ripe for a move of God in reality Chuck Smith.

The pastor in that movie, he said to his wife, one day said,

these kids are too far gone, even for God.

And she began to weep and she said, Chuck don't say that.

That you're saying they're too far gone for God, don't say

that. It was she that carried the

burden and they began to invite these young people into their

home and God created a wildfire that burned across this nation,

tens of thousands of bombed-out. Hippies came to the Lord.

It was an amazing move of God. And I believe God wants to do it

again, but he's looking for those who will cry out for their

life and that's what launched the prayer meeting.

And I think we need to remember that that God initiated

something in this house and our heart cries godsend in a harvest

Lord. Visit this generation regardless

of who gets to raise it. Lord if you send it here we'll

do what we can to make room for it.

But Lord, if you've got to send it somewhere else, all we care

is that this emerging generation That they encounter.

God let's get into the word here.

Ephesians chapter 4. Want us to look at this.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Look at verse 17. Now this size say and testify in

the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do and the

futility of their minds. So Paul discuss describes this

way of thinking as feudal thinking it's there's futility

and that thinking that type of thinking and then he goes on.

He said, they are darkened in their understanding and

alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is

in them due to the hardness of their heart, they have become

callous. So Paul is describing this

phenomena and he in Ephesians 4, he's applying it to an

individual. Now, this is a heavy passage and

we need to feel the weight of it.

For two reasons, we need to understand what has happened to

others. And we also need to understand.

This is a warning from the Apostle Paul.

He wouldn't warn us about that futile way of thinking, if it

wasn't a possibility for us to slip into it.

And really, what he's doing is, he's giving us the downward

spiral of a backslider. And in fact, if you've ever

walked away from the Lord, if you've ever walked with Jesus

and then walked away from him, you'll recognize the steps.

And what he does is he reverse Engineers this thing.

He talks about the end, Result and then he begins to work

himself towards the root cause. So look at how he says this look

in verse 18. So he says, this is the futile

thinking that he's talking about Verse 18, their darkened in

their understanding and alienated from the life of God,

the NIV says, separated from the life of God.

One translation says, cut off from the life of God.

So that is the end result there there darkened in their

understanding and alienated from the life of God because of in

other words, the cause of which is the ignorance that is in

them. So there's this ignorance that

sets in that the next stage of which is the darkening of the

understanding and they're cut off from the life of God but

then look at what it says that is in them due to.

So the real Root cause of this thing, the do tooth, the

hardness of their heart, they became Callas.

What Paul is describing is a dangerous process that you could

call the hardening of the heart. The hardening of the heart is

never an event. It's an event that gives

Kickstart to a process that if you don't recognize, it will

endanger your spiritual life. And so the hardness of the

heart, it's an interesting word. He says, the due to the hardness

of their heart, they have become callous.

You think about what a calluses? I remember, I, when I was

younger, I worked in. I worked in this tomato farm and

we had 50,000 tomato plants and there were four of us guys.

And we would hold Tomatoes, fifty thousand plants every day.

We would hope I weight about 135 pounds, but I could arm wrestle

because I had all day long, I would do this.

This every year at the beginning, I would get these

huge blisters at the time I was homeless and so I remember this

one family. Let me live with them for a

while, not very long. Then they kicked me out too, but

I was in. I remember my first day, I had

these huge blisters and I peel the skin off and it's all pink

underneath in there was dirt in there and I thought oh I need to

get and I looked up on their there are sink there in the

bathroom and there was a bottle of alcohol.

I thought oh that'll work, that'll clean it out.

I poured it on that open wound. Now when you're at someone's

house you don't want to scream bloody murder because it'll

freak them out. So I went it was the Silent

Scream in the mirror it hurt but at right man, all said I had an

instant callous. So being the smart guy that I

was, I did the other hand. I really did a callus.

Is that because of familiarity, you lose sensitivity, that's

what a callus is. You become so familiar with

handling something that you no longer have the sensitivity.

You once did. So my hands would get like

leather I could I could handle things and it didn't bother me.

Some people do that with their feet.

You people? Freak me out.

Okay. I'm like a Tenderfoot I need

shoes on but there are people that tribes of people that never

wear shoes, do run run across rocks, not even feel it because

their skin can get calloused. Truly a good picture of what

Paul is talking about. The Greek word that he translate

Hardness of Heart Is porosus sounds like cirrhosis the

hardening of the liver, but it's porosus ancient literature.

There was a story that used that term, and it was of a

tremendously overweight, man, that was dying.

He kept going into this comatose state.

So they would take long needles and puncture him trying to wake

him up. And finally, they couldn't, they

couldn't strike. Like a nerve and they called the

phenomena porosus. It was like, he could no longer

be awake and he couldn't be, he couldn't feel he lost

sensitivity. It's the hardening of the heart.

I want to say it's Proverbs 28 verse 14 and if I'm right I'm

Proverbs 28:14

impressed with myself because I haven't looked at Versailles

palanca. But I say it's Proverbs 28 verse

Proverbs 28:14

14, it just popped in my head. It juxtaposes the hardening of

the heart, over against the fear of the Lord.

It shows that they are Polar Opposites.

You either fear the lord, or you harden, your heart, the fear of

the Lord is the hatred of evil, because you realize it is not.

Never worth it, sin will never deliver what it promises.

It'll always cost you much more than the price tag.

Says, and you realize the fear of the Lord will cause you to

not pursue evil, the hardening of the heart, on the other hand,

is ignoring the conviction of the spirit when God's dealing

with us. We ignore that.

But you see what? The next step is, the ignorance

that is in them due to the hardening of their heart.

So, when we ignore a given, Ruth, this thing called

ignorance sets in, we said again, when we ignore what God's

dealing with us about in the moment, then what sets in is

ignorance, those are two different things.

Ignoring means, I don't want to know, I don't want to deal with

this. I and it's like, we have this

mistaken mythology that we buy into that, we can

compartmentalize our relationship with God, God all

obey you in every other area, except this one.

But what I'm telling you based on the authority of God's word

this morning is, you cannot compartmentalize that when you

ignore a given truth ignorance begins to set in.

What does that mean? Ignorance means that you begin

to lose what you once knew. You ignore something and now you

become ignorant of what you once knew.

I was raised in church. I was a little.

Holy Ghost Boy. My dad was a Pentecostal

preacher. I was baptized in the spirit at

12 years old had, I'd had encounters with the Lord.

I'd seen the moving of the spirit, but I made some

conscious decisions that I was going to walk away from God.

And the scary thing was that when I was away from the Lord, I

could still explain to you sound theology, but it couldn't

penetrate my heart. In fact, I remember there.

Were times, I'd get drunk and I would preach to people and

they'd laugh you're going to end up being a preacher and they

would laugh at me and but one, one of my, I had a distant

cousin. He confronted me one day.

He said, Dave, you don't even believe that stuff.

I said it's true. I've seen the stuff he said, if

you believed it you'd live it and it cut me.

But even then it seemed like I couldn't grasp.

It was like, it would turn into a mist and to a shadow in my

hands. It was like smoke.

I couldn't grasp it. Ignorance began to set in.

I could describe it in a lecture Ali but I couldn't step into it

experientially. And then what happens, they are

darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of

God because of that ignorance. So, the way it works is this you

ignore what God's dealing with you on.

You think I'm going to compartmentalize?

I'm going to be open to God in these things that I want to be

open to him on but the things I don't want to that's that's for

me to take care of. I don't want to deal with what

God's dealing with me on. When we ignore the given truth

in front of us we set in motion a process.

Where ignorance begins to Set in and then we become what?

The Bible calls darkened in our understanding, what that means

is you lose the faculty to receive more truth, the organ

that by which you're supposed to receive truth.

It's your understanding, you can't receive any more.

It's like your diminished, you can't understand.

It's like there's a dullness, you can't make sense of what

God's trying to tell you. It's a demonic thing.

And Then you're alienated from the life of God.

Now that's what happens in the life of a Believer and let's

just pause there, that's what happens in a human life but also

this can happen in the life of a Believer.

That's why Paul says You must no longer live in the futility of

the thinking of the Gentiles of unbelievers, you've got to pay

attention to what God is doing because you can set in motion

this process. Everyone of us have known people

that once walked with God that don't anymore and it's because

of this very process. And so if you're there you need

to just cry out to God. When I got saved.

I there was like a window of time and there were there were a

bunch of praying little old. Ladies, at First Church of the

Open Bible in a tumble Iowa and they were praying for me.

And all of a sudden I entered this season, where my mind

became enlightened, all of a sudden, the things of God began

to make sense. I could connect the dots.

I began to have the fear of the Lord, come upon me.

I remember I told this story recently, but I would remember

being hungry. I was homeless and so I went

into a gas station, I was going to steal some food and being the

health. Not that I am.

I was going to steal some twinkies.

And so I reached for him and I remember this very, I'm very

aware of all sin as I was reaching.

I thought, oh man, I'm going to have to pay a Twinkies, worth a

hide for this. God is going to discipline me

for this. He's going to take a Twinkies

worth out of my hide, if I steal this, I knew I could get away

with it in the store. I didn't have to answer to human

beings because I could get away, but I knew God was watching.

That was a strange thing for me to think that wasn't how I

usually thought I was a thief and a liar, but all of a sudden

I became aware of God. Why?

Because some people were praying and there was light coming into

the darkness. All of a sudden I was aware, I

begin to see certain things. But even then, when I got saved,

I remember telling the Lord, I said, God, I don't love you and

I don't want to serve you but I know you got what I need and I'm

asking you Lord, I will go through the motions.

If you'll give me the desire to do this thing, I will go through

the motions. It was just a cry of desperate.

It wasn't humility, it wasn't this.

This thing of, I still to this day, I can't believe that God

took me back the arrogance of that prayer, but all I did is

cracked the door. He came rushing in and he didn't

give it to me. I didn't have this overwhelming

desire right away. I remember going to a consulate

Team Challenge and I said, listen, I can't go back.

I was so demonized. And so broken, I had an

out-of-body experiences with demons and stuff.

I knew I was going to hell. And God graciously brought me

back in but I was numb to the things of God.

And I remember going to a counter and saying, I don't I

don't ever feel him. I don't I don't Have any sense

of his presence and he told me, he said, listen, you need to

pray. Psalm 51, restore unto me, the

joy of my salvation, that I began to ask God, Lauren.

I'm going to serve you. I'm going to go through the

motions until you give it, but I'm asking.

You God, restore to me. Lord, would you do it in me?

And God, graciously did. you don't even have to have a want

to this morning as long as you have a want to want to You may

not have a wanna, but you got to have a wanna wanna and if you

gotta wanna wanna I'm telling you, there is hope for you.

The door is cracked, and God, will come rushing in.

And if you're here this morning and you've hardened your heart,

and you've begun to walk away from, you may be living in

secret sin and everybody around you think.

So man, there, they're a tremendous man or woman of God.

They they're living a moral life and you know better, I'm telling

you there's hope for you this morning, but you need to cry out

to him. you need to let God come rushing in and rescue you from

yourself because this is a very serious phenomena, Paul lays out

here, Now, what he lays out here in Ephesians 4, we see also in

Romans 1, but it's on the macro scale, turn to Romans 1 Romans

1. It shows us Verse 18.

The corporate manifestation, or the cultural manifestation of

what we just saw on an individual scale and what's

fascinating to me, as you see some of the same words, the

futility of their thinking, the darkening of their Art it says,

Ephesians forces, the darkening of their mind, Romans 1 talks

about the darkening of their heart and then both of them, we

didn't see it in Ephesians we didn't get because if you follow

that passage it says they're given over to sensuality and

every kind of impurity with a continual Lust For more, it

implies that there's always a sexual Brokenness that will flow

out of that. That man is created to be a

worshipper and if you remove God from the throne man we'll find

something else to worship and it's not a coincidence that

every cult has some kind of aberration connected to man's

sexuality. Because there's something about

that. That is so strong that if man

doesn't have God on the throne, he descends into this idolatry

of Twisted sexuality. And so this is what we see here.

Look at Verse 18 for the wrath of God is being revealed from

Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who

by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

If you know the truth and you suppress the truth, God takes it

very He seriously. If you try to keep other people

from the truth, God takes that very seriously.

I remember when I was running from God and I had friends that

would come under conviction and I would try to talk him out of

it. It makes me tremble to this day.

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God had

shown it to them for his invisible attributes.

Namely, his eternal power, and his divine nature have been

clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in things

that have been made. So this is why you'll hear

people. Say when people say I don't

believe in God, I'm an atheist. God says to them.

I don't believe in atheists. I'm God.

Because it is evident in creation to become an atheist.

You literally have to be darkened in your understanding

and you have to do mental gymnastics to get away from the

evidence, because it's evident If there's a creation, there's a

creator. To believe this was just a

biological accident requires much more faith than

surrendering to Jesus does and so he says that God has made it

clear to man, it's what Theologian call Natural

Revelation. There is special Revelation in

scripture, but there's also natural Revelation in nature.

So that men are without excuse, God can call us to account.

So, that's why people say, well, what about the man who's never

heard. Heard the gospel.

How can God, how can God send someone to hell.

If they've never heard the gospel, men are without excuse

and when men cry out to the god of Heaven, even if they don't

know what to call him, there is story after story.

After Story, all down through history of God, revealing

himself to those people. Verse 21 for although they knew

God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

Their thinking became futile, there it is.

There's that word again is he? Because Paul is dealing with the

same Dynamic here in Romans 1, but just on a grander scale, a

cultural application of this individual backsliding, he goes

on, they became futile in their thinking and their foolish

Hearts were darkened, go ahead and turn that.

Guy's their foolish Hearts were, darkened claiming to be wise,

they became fools. You see.

There's this thing of the darkening of the understanding

where you can't grasp. It's like you don't have the

capacity to understand. There is darkness that comes in

and you can't connect the dots. You have no light.

It's like you're groping about in the darkness trying to

understand goes. On it says and they exchanged

the glory of the immortal, God for images, resembling mortal

men and birds and animals and creeping things, therefore God

gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the

dishonoring of their bodies. The first phase is sexual

immorality among themselves because they exchanged the truth

about God, for a lie and worshipped and served the

creature rather than the Creator.

Who blessed, is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason. Now, here's the second stage for

this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable.

Students for their women, exchanged natural relations, to

those that are contrary to Nature and the men likewise gave

up natural relations for women and were consumed with passion

for one, another men committing Shameless acts with men and

receiving in them. The due penalty of their error.

So, this is the second stage of this.

This decline one generation Embraces sexual immorality.

The Next Generation Embraces, homosexuality, and gender

confusion begins to come in. There are sociological reasons

for that. There are psychological

relations for that and there are spiritual / theological reasons

for that. In the breakdown of the home.

When the home begins to break down little boys and little

girls need their mom and dad engaged in their lives.

Especially the father. It's the father who defines the

gender of their children. A little boy Sparks.

His little masculinity off his dad's and when he doesn't have a

dad, there are certain personalities.

That 10 more to identify with the mother, some personalities.

What they'll do is they're looking, they look to establish

their masculinity through sexual Conquest with numerous women,

when they come of age, other men are looking for that validation

through sexuality and they're looking for the mail affirmation

that they missed as a child and it becomes sexualized.

So their psychological reasons are sociological reasons in the

breakdown of the family but the theological reason is right

here. They're turned over.

For continual us for more men, committing Shameless acts and

receiving in themselves. The due penalty of their error.

Let's go on, guys. And, and since they did not see

fit to acknowledge, God, God gave them up to a debased mind

to do, what ought not to be done.

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil

covetousness, malice full of Envy murder Strife,

maliciousness, they are gossips slanderers haters.

Of God insolent. Hottie, boastful, invest and

inventors of evil disobedient. They invent new ways to commit

evil disobedient to parents. Isn't that interesting?

He throws out in that long list. Young people.

Obeying your parents is serious. Amen Nathaniel.

Yeah, he's my youngest seriously, that's some heavy

stuff, man. And he puts it on the same plane

with all this other stuff. They did not only do so they not

only practice these things knowing that they deserve to

die, they not only do them. But approve of those who

practice them, there is a cultural celebration of this

stuff that begins to set in. We're good becomes evil, evil

becomes good where they celebrate evil And what we see

is these the same markers on a cultural scale that we saw in

Ephesians chapter 4. Now let's turn to Ephesians

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, Ephesians chapter 6, finally.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

So no, this is Pauline, theology.

Okay. Paul is weaving.

A theology here that you and I need to understand because this

is what's going on on our nation.

And God wants to penetrate this and lift this off.

So, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his

might put on the full armor of God, that You may be able to

stand against the schemes of the devil.

The devil has a schematic. He has a pattern by which he

operates. Okay.

So verse 12, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but

against rulers against the authorities against Cosmic

Powers over this present, Darkness, there's that word

again, over this against the spiritual forces of evil in

Heavenly places. And so there are forces of

Darkness that Tempt to impose Darkness on both the individual

mind. But also on the culture at large

that word Darkness can be transits, it has the idea it's

and other places that's used as Shadow.

It's like you're in the shadows. The light can't get through.

Also, the idea like a almost like this.

It's like, if you ever been walking along on a cloudy day, I

mean, it's a dismal day. It's like it's kind of cold out

that the sun just can't painted the it's A brown gray sky.

And and all of a sudden there's a cloud break and the Sun Burst

through and your face feels warm.

And it's like it's a good day, Everything Changes because all

of a sudden the Sunburst happened and it changes the

dynamic of everything because it, penetrated, the overcast,

Skies that overcast is a picture of what that darkness is like

both in our minds. But also Thoroughly.

There is a shared ideology that we have as a culture, the enemy

tries to weave and the more people buy into it, the more he

can reinforce that and it creates a Darkness over a nation

over a people over those with that shared belief system.

But there are times where God breaks in and it's like there's

a sunburst and the light of God breaks in and I say all that to

say that's what I saw as those hippies were cresting, the cliff

looking at the baptism, it was a time when all of a sudden these

tormented demonized young people All of a sudden something lifted

off the nation, it wasn't just an individual mind.

There was a dynamic in the air, it was atmospheric, those powers

of Darkness had been displaced and all of a sudden, the Sun

Burst through and people were aware God.

Dwells among men I can meet the Creator.

God I can have a relationship with them.

There's Is hope for my life. What it is is the displacement

of Darkness. And when we gather here, morning

after morning and cry out to God, when we are praying, when

we worship around here, we're not worshiping just because we

like it, although I like it, I worship Jesus, because he's

worthy. It doesn't matter if I feel it

doesn't matter if I like the music, I can go into a church

let believe me. I was raised in a church where

our pianist if you can only worship when you like it, they

ain't going to be any going on, okay?

She was like, she would play beat that thing and then she'd

stop and say, I don't know why we come to church here.

When we're down in Texas, we can feel them was like, Wow, got to

take the wind out of the room. I was baptized in the spirit

during a worship service. In that church.

I remember my dad, get up. Say you may be seated and I

thought seated, I'm gonna Rapture, I'm going to put a hole

in the ceiling. I mean, God was, oh, I didn't

know that. I was baptized in the spirit at

that moment. I just knew that I was so

excited by what I felt that I couldn't speak in English

anymore, and I kept stopping myself.

I thought I'm stuttering. I'm so excited.

Come go to Baba. Jesus, I believe you may be

seated. We worship because he's worthy.

But your enjoyment of worship is part of your worship.

The fact that we enjoy being in his presence, is part of what we

offer him because we're saying, Lord, you're awesome.

The best time of my week is when I'm with you Lord.

When I know I'm always with them, I'm talking about his

manifest presence. Hey, I know he's always with me

went before my coffee. It feels like it more

afterwards, but he's just as much with me before my coffee.

I know that, but I love to feel his presence.

I love being with the Saints where he comes in the room and

we know Jesus just stepped in The name above all names has

just entered the room, huh? We worship for that but there's

an added Dimension. There is a thing called

intercessory worship. and we are worshipping King, Jesus for the

sake of this community, because I'm telling you, there are

people out there that are in just as much darkness and pain

and lost like I was in like you once were they don't even know

that there's a God in heaven. There are people in this

community right now that are contemplating taking their own

life, they feel like I'm at the end.

And you and I can push back darkness by pressing the crown

rights of King Jesus in the spiritual Realm.

By lifting, his name up high, declaring his worth and it does

make a difference and there's a Tipping Point.

There are those Seasons called Revival, Awakening.

Where darkness is displaced for a season and all of a sudden

people who didn't understand all of a sudden they're aware,

there's a possibility here. I God is real, I heard someone

talking about him and I felt something I think I was

listening to a guy interviewed the other day.

He was Lonnie frisbee had gone down to the beach.

Just he said, he said back in those days he said it was crazy.

He said all these hippies would do, the craziest things we were

just that was normal. People were abnormal normally

and he said, so this long-haired little frail.

Hippie got up, put two tomato crates and started down there,

preaching. And he was talking about Jesus,

And then he just started calling people into the water and people

just start a ball and running into the water.

It wasn't planned. They would just run into the

water and he was baptizing people and he said, I'm watching

him. He said, all of a sudden my

heart starts to beat and that little hippie in the water

points to me. Yeah, you calls.

Money said God's all over you. He wants to save you, he's

inviting you into his kingdom. He said it was almost

involuntary. I jumped up on Ball and I run

into the water and get baptized. He didn't even have time to

process all the information yet. But there are seasons.

Just like those little old ladies produce for me as an

individual. And when I got saved, there were

several of us my age, I wasn't associated with these other

people. I knew who they were.

I got saved alone, but there was this little group of people

about my age. Several of us ended up in the

ministry and a little town of 27,000 people.

It was, it was like something opened over that City for this

summer and a bunch of us got swept into the kingdom.

We're asking God to do that for a nation and a generation.

I'm telling you this generation and the Twisted ideology that's

being shoved down their throat and they're being taken

advantage of. It's not too big for Jesus.

The Lord wants to step in and rescue.

And so I just wanted to share that this morning because you

and I need to understand what we're praying for We're not just

praying for a good church service.

We're asking, God God visit this nation.

It is time for another Jesus. People movement, call it what

you want. I just want to see God awaken

this nation and I believe he wants to send it.

Thanks for listening to our podcast.

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Yeah.