The Great Departure || Pastor Diego Mesa

Welcome to the Lesse podcast. Here at Lesse we seek the loss, teach

the fountain, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by this

week's message. Thank you for coming to church, and my Father, thank

you for the next few moments that we could lift up Jesus, draw closer

to your purpose and to why we are alive to make an impact in the

days that we're living in. In Jesus name, Amen, if you'd stand

on your feet, we're gonna read, and I'm gonna go back and read

a scripture that I read on Sunday, but I'm going to take it from

a different perspective in John six in verse six. Therefore, many of his

disciples, when they heard this, said, this is a hard saying.

Who can understand it. When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples complain about

this, he said to them, does this offend you? What? Then?

If you should see the Son of Man as sending where he was before.

It is a spirit who gives life. The flesh prophets nothing. The

words that I speak unto you are spirit, and they are alive. But

there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the

beginning who they were, who did not believe and would betray him. And

he said, therefore, I have said to you that no man can come

to the Father unless it has been granted to him by my father. From

that time very important. Now, from that time many of his disciples went

back and walk with him. No more you could be seated. Why were

these followers, these believers, these disciples, whatever you want to call them,

were able to follow him up to a point. They were. They

were Let's just put ourselves there. They were connected, they were engaged,

they were participating, They were they were doing, they were attending like you

and I were. But something triggered them that made them stop on Jesus,

walk with Jesus anymore, not live in their faith anymore, stop praying,

stop reading their bible, stop going to church. Having nothing to do with

it. What happened, Well, now you have to go back to verse

thirty five, and Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in

me shall never thirst. That was part of that hard saying. Now we'll

look at another. He repeats it in verse forty eight. All this proceeds

what we just read. I am the bread of life. He repeats that

I'm the bread of life. Your father's ate manna in the wilderness and are

dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may

eat of it and not die. I Jesus said, I am the living

Bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he

will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh,

which I shall give for the life of the world. They interpreted that as

cannibalism. Jesus is telling us to eat of his flesh. But he wasn't

speaking of cannibalism. He was talking about a relationship with me as the source

of your life. As important as the manna or the bread was to sustain

the children of Israel for forty years. That's what I am to you.

I am the only one that can sustain you. Regardless of it, it

was something in It was something that came out of the mouth of Jesus,

or it was something found in the Bible. It was something that is preached.

It was a theology. It was a scripture that upset them. Today

we have a lot of Christians that believe up to a point, then when

they hear a certain scripture or a certain theology, or a certain doctrine or

a certain sermon, they say, I'm out of here. It's very,

very similar to what happened. So I'm just simply titling this the Great Departure,

the Great Departure. Have you ever been vacationing and you saw like historical

sites of something that once existed there, It's like a placard there and it

says so and so traveled here, or this house was used for this,

or if you go down to a Los Angeles you'll see where the Azuza Street

revival was, And that happened in nineteen o six to nineteen o nine,

where the Holy Spirit here in Los Angeles that would sweep the entire world,

start a revival that many denominations would be birthed out of. Happened with William

Seymour, a black man who was blind, and the Holy Spirit it foul.

People were being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Fire Department would show

up many times because the neighbors would say the building was on fire, but

when they got there, the building was not on fire. It was the

Holy Spirit's presence in that building. But when you go there, the building

doesn't exist anymore. It's been knocked down and something else has now been structured

there. But there's a plaque that exists. I don't want my life or

your life to be a plaque that talks about how you used to be on

fire with God, how you used to praise the Lord, how you used

to go to church many many years ago, but now it doesn't exist anymore.

So I want to talk a little bit about three words for us to

recognize in this teaching, to guard against in these last days or the days

that we're living in. These three words can steal and rob from our steadfastness.

It can rob us of our faith. It could rob us of our

love for Christ. It could rob us of our service to Christ. And

today, as far as the future goes, you will see a rise and

increase and an escalation in these three a's that I'm going to be talking about

in a few moments. How many of you are familiar with the phrase,

but I'm gonna personalize it and you'll see what I mean. How many of

you are familiar with the phrase once upon a time, Well, now I'm

gonna personalize it in the Kingdom of God. I hope it never happens,

but it is happening. There are some people that are once upon a timer's.

There are people who are used to beers. There are people that are

not anymorers. There are people that are here today and gone tomorrowers, and

there are people that are no longer two doers going on. How many times

have you ever gone to the beach. Your family was there, your towel

was there, your personal items were there, and you decided to go waiting

in the ocean, there, playing the ocean, And the next thing you

know, not too long after that, five ten, fifteen minutes, you're

not in front of your stuff. You turn around and you look, and

you're trying to get perspective. You think it's it's right here in front of

me, but you're looking, Wait a minute, my stuff's over there.

How did that happen? How did that happen? The current pulled you and

begin you began to drift away from your stuff. And that's what's happening,

and that's what could happen. Is the current of this world, the lifestyles,

the culture, the ways of this world can gently begin to pull you

subtly, not violently, but subtly away from that which is important to you.

I want to read a scripture. It's found in Galatians. Because there's

many scriptures we're gonna try to navigate through. He says this to the churches

at Galatia, these Galatian Christians. I marvel that you are turning away so

soon from him. Notice this, I marvel. This is the apostle Paul,

who probably doesn't marvel much because he's been in ministry so long, been

around church people so long. But if this preacher is marveling, there must

be something going down here that you and I need to pay attention to.

He says, I marvel that you are turning away. I'm utterly shocked,

and I'm utterly surprised that you are so soon turning away from him who called

you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, to a different

message, to a different interpretation, to a different belief systems, which is

not another. But there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the

Gospel of Christ. He goes on in Galatians three, one oh foolish Christians,

Galactians, who has knows the strong word, who'll bewitched you, who's

been seducing you, who have you been listening to, who's been trying to

pull you away? Who has bewitched you? That you should not obey the

truth anymore? Or the truth before whose eyes Jesus was clearly portrayed among you

as crucified. These people were led astray by false teachers or false doctrine or

false prophets, saying that Jesus never came in the flesh and died. But

then in Galatians five he says, you've got to stand fast therefore in their

liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again

with the yolka bondage is the ways of the world, the things that God

set you free from. In one more scripture, Galatians five seven, you

ran well. Who hindered you from will brain the truth? The word hinder

means who tripped you up? These Galatians were being tripped up, and I

believe in these last days there's gonna be a lot of Christians being tripped up,

and they're gonna be tripped up because of these three a's that we're going

to talk about today now. The first A I want to look at is

found in Luke twenty one, verse twenty five through third twenty six. We're

gonna look at Bible today and there will be signs in the sun and in

the moon and in the stars. I believe some of this is futuristic.

I believe some of this is happening today. This is now talking about signs

of jesus second coming, or what's going to proceed before Jesus comes. But

right now we're living in that era where it's almost as though from day to

day, if you were to hear something surprisingly fall or happen, you would

probably not be shocked. Because we hear of all kinds of tsunamis, tornadoes,

earthquakes, stars in the sky. People saw this, people do this.

We're not shocked anymore. But in these last days, he said,

there's just gonna be a lot of weird, unusual, unexpected signs. Are

you with me today? Especially if you look at social media, they'll show

you aliens now, flying spaceships now, And you say, diego, do

you believe in that? It doesn't? I believe this. I believe Jesus

is coming back, and I believe there's an Antichrist that can't be manifested in

the tilt to church is taken away, believers are raptured, or we will

be able to identify through the Holy Spirit who the Antichrist is. So the

rapture has to take us out of here. Then the Antichrist comes into play.

And so when just imagine whatever a billion Christians vanished, right vanished tomorrow

morning? How is the media, how is society going to explain one billion

people falling off the planet. They gotta come up with something out there that

gets people so comfortable with explanations to be able to explain they were abducted by

aliens. I'm not telling you that that's what's gonna happen, but I'm telling

you you need to be aware that something's got to take place. So I'm

not shocked that people make things up or say things. Let's move on.

I do believe that some things are just angelic beings manifesting themselves in these last

days. But there will be signs of the sun, moon stars on their

earth, distress of nations with perplexity in the sea, and the wave's worrying.

Now here's what she was, Men's hearts failing them from what fear and

the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers

of heavens shall be shaken. Christians will depart from their faith, depart from

and I want to say either their faith or the faith, because the faith

is sometimes greater than their faith, because people religious people will say they have

faith, but it's not the faith. The faith of believing that Jesus is

the only means of salvation, that he died on the cross. That's what

the faith speaks of. So the first one will they will depart because they

are the a is afraid. Afraid. There will be a rampant increase in

our world and in society. I believe in the church and outside of the

Church of people that are more frightened and more fearful, and more scared,

and more terrorized and more connected or relating to phobias than ever before. We

today live in a fearful society. I believe COVID wasn't just about a virus.

I believe there was a strategic shift in the time plan that took place,

and everybody feels the effect. It isn't It wasn't just about a virus

or a disease. It changed the whole plane field across the board. Everything

has changed, from politics to medicine, to economy, to faith, to

families to education. Everything changed, and because of that, that's putting a

lot of fear into the heart of people. So I believe there will there'll

be an increase of fear that will begin to take place in the lives of

so many people in these in these last days. I don't know if you've

ever seen these goats. They're called fainting goats, and uh really, when

like if you went up to one of them and you said boo, they

would fall over like they're dead. They'd be there like for a couple of

minutes, and then they get back on their feet. They're literally called fainting

goats, and they faint. They faint because of fear. And fear is

a spirit that will intimidate people, intimidate people to believe that something will never

happen. They can't get healed. It's impossible that fear will grip people to

intimidate them. Fear paralyzes people. It paralyzes them. They're filled with worry

and anxiety and grief. Fear will rob people. It will rob people of

their sleep, it will rob people of their peace and joy, and it

robs people of trusting God. They can't trust God for their healing, they

can't trust God to tide and give their finances. They can't trust God that

God has really forgiven them of their past and that he could use you.

They just it robs them. And all of that is a manifestation of fear.

Fear is a magnifier. Fear casts a big shadow on something, just

the way your shadow is. Sometimes it's in a person particular position and it

can make you look very, very large. And that's the way fear is.

It casts a massive shadow. I'll give you a quote. Fear is

more awareness of something else, something else's presence, more than the presence of

Jesus. It's fear, and fear is gripping the heart of people. Here

are some reasons why you and I need not to be afraid, no matter

what we hear. Here reasons why we need to not be afraid. We

need to not be afraid because Jesus told us not to be afraid. The

number one reason, because Jesus told you not to be afraid. Jesus said,

I will never leave you or forsake you, so we could boldly say

the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to

me? And clearly the Bible tells me in Isaiah, fear not. It's

a command. But you don't know what I'm going through. You don't know

what they're saying on my job. You don't know what's happening around me.

He told you to fear not, which means His presence and him being in

you and for you and with you is greater than any presence that's out there.

You don't need to fear. Why because he told you not to.

You don't fear because Jesus is bigger than your greatest attack of fear. The

Bible says, there's no greater name than the name of Jesus Christ. That

every need will bow. Even fear, intimidation, terror, frightenness must bow

to the name of Jesus Christ. That's why you don't need to fear.

Fear needs your precision, permission to operate. It needs your permission. So

you're feeding into it, you're feeling into it. You have to watch what

is feeding and feeling your fear? Is it too much news? Look at

God quiet right now? I want shouldn't be aware. I don't want you

to be ignorant, but at some point, it's just it's just redundancy.

It's just complete redundancy, and it's it's all driven by a whole lot of

speculation, rumors, fear. I've never felt better after watching the news.

Oh oh, I feel so close to God. God's in control. My

faith just went up. I think I'm the only one in this room.

Nobody else feels that way, and I got you can't. What's feeding your

fear? Ask yourself? People read it. People watch all these scary movies.

Now it's October, the middle of the night. They can't sleep because

they hear knowing, what's feeding your fear? Why would you watch that stupid

stuff? Getting up all night, look checking the door seventeen times and make

sure you locked it. What's feeding your fear? You need to stop feel

certain people people, Some people are just feel fear oriented. You hang around

them and the next thing you know, you've taken on their fear. Pay

attention to what's feeding your fear. Jesus gives us his word to come back

the fear. He gives us the word yea, though I walk through the

valley of the Shadow of death. I will fear no evil, for you

are with me. Your rod and your staff. They comfort me. God

is my refuge and my strength, my very present help in time of trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and

though the mountains be carried into the mistressy, though it's waters war and be

troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling. He shall cover thee with

his feathers. Under his wings. Shalt thou take refuge. His shoes shall

be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by

night, nor the arrow that flieth by du day. This is more than

just a book filled with words. This is you. This is your medication.

And you got to meditate in this. You gotta read the Bible.

You gotta confess the Bible. You've got to speak the Bible against your fears

and get all these overcoming scriptures about fear in you. If you're driven by

fear, it's the only way to overcome it. And God saw this day

of fear that you're facing. And because he saw this day, he's already

made provision for that day. Nothing catches God unexpectedly Here are some fears today.

People are fear. People are fearing losses today, the loss of jobs,

incomes, homes, cars, retirement plans, peep fears. Today,

people are fearing the future wars, violence, economy, politics, disasters.

People are fearing sickness today, germs, viruses, illnesses, dementia, alzheimer

mental health issues. People are in fear of hurt today, betrayals, people

take an advantage of me lyne To. People are a fear of changes today,

relocations and restarts. And last of all, people's fears today of the

unknown. I can't predict my future, so I'm fearful. I can't control

something, so I'm full of fear. That's the way people are at today.

You know, when I go to San Diego and things like that,

I swim, I swim in the ocean, or I swim in the bay,

and a lot of people don't like to swim in the ocean. They

don't like to swim in the ocean because they're afraid what's under the water.

Or we don't have no pictures of me swimming there I go, so I

wanted to verify that I'm not making this up. You have another picture of

me swimming another picture. Another picture. Where's the other picture with the hat?

Just so, I only saw two. I'm gonna stay here until you

show the other one. I'm let there's Hobby right there, say Hobvey show

us the picture. Okay, I guess Hovvey don't want to show the picture

anyways. So Cindy asked me, aren't you afraid to swim in the ocean?

And I say, no, I'm not. She said, but you

can't. You can't touch the bottom, it's real deep. I'd say,

yeah, I know, I can't. She said, but you don't know

what's under there, like a shark could be under there or something like that.

I said, oh oh wow. I said, well, you could

drown or you could get a cramp. And I'm thinking to myself, I

wasn't fearful a minute ago. But now what I tell you about hanging around

fearful people. Here's what I tell her, or here's what I would tell

you why I can swim in the oceans and not be afraid or swim in

the bay. Okay, So so i'll wherever that was, I'll swim all

the way to that hotel that you would see in the far distance. But

the reason why I do that, or what reason why I can is because

Number one, I practice. I wouldn't. I would be afraid if I

didn't practice, If I didn't practice my Christian faith, I'd be afraid.

If I didn't put in the time of what I just talked about in the

Word of God, building my faith up, I'd be as fearful as everybody

that that little fainting go I'd practice. That's what makes me not fearful to

jump in there. I know I could swim. And number two is I

don't think about it. I don't think about what's under the water, and

you can operate in such a strong faith eight in God, you don't think

about what the enemy's doing, or you don't think about the fear fact that

it blows people away. You've not seen a doctor, had a cat scan

or medication in thirteen years fifteen years ago, you were diagnosed with terminal stage

four cancer. Why don't you go and have a Why I don't, I'm

not walking in fear. Well, I don't think that's fear, pastor I

think that's wisdom. Well, I know how I feel. If I felt

bad, i'd go and see a doctor. But I don't feel bad.

Why because I don't think about the sickness. I don't think about fear.

And that's what you have to do. Here's the point number two. I

took too long on that. How are we going to make up time?

In Luke Revelations three, I know your works that you are neither cold nor

hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then because you

are lukewarm and neither cold or hot, I will vomit you out of my

mouth. Roman says this. Don't burn out, keep yourself fueled in a

flame. Be alert as servants of the Master. Never lag in zeal and

in earnest endeavor, be a glow and burning with the spirit, serving the

Lord. And last of all, be enthusiastic. Serve the Lord, keeping

your passion toward him, boiling hot, radiant with a glow of the Holy

Spirit. And let him fill you with excitement as you serve. And what

amazing scriptures. Christians will depart from their faith in Jesus because they are apathetic.

Apathy will be increase first afraidness or fear. The second a is apathy.

Everything that you read there when I was about fourteen years old thirteen twelve

somewhere around there. I forget. I was playing pop Winner football. We

played a pop Winner team in Arizona. I don't know if you were in

Mber. The station wagons with the little pocket seats in the back, that's

where I stayed. That Arizona's son was hitting me directly in the face.

I was thirsty, and I asked the driver, do you have anything to

drink? He said, yeah, diego, there's some root beer soda back

there. Grab one of those root beer sodas. When I grab one of

them, but that root beer soda had been in the sun so long that

it had become lukewarm. And I drank it and I vomited, and it

made me sick. To this day, I will not well. I won't

drink it because of my diet. But even before I had that die I

would never drink a root beer soda because it just made me sick. And

God saying when a Christian who used to be on fire is now lukewarm,

they make me sick. I want to vomit them out of my mouth.

Doesn't mean he doesn't love you. It's just how we make him feel.

So Apathy is the second thing where you and I become apathetic. Ampathetic could

look like this, becoming warm when we should be hot, just you know

my prayer, life's okay, and it's it's all right, going to church

hit and miss and Bible reading just warm. You become inconsistent, days off,

hit and miss, ups and down, up and down excuses. Then

you become indifferent. It becomes Christianity becomes optional. The things of God become

optional. It's kind of like whatever, no biggie, I can have it,

I don't have to have it in my life. That's apathy that's taking

place. You become comfortable. There's no more into spiritual interruptions, no more

inconveniences in your life. And you're not sacrificing. We don't see sacrifice in

the Kingdom of God. You're growing apathy. You could be in church every

Sunday morning and be apathetic. You become dull, You're no longer sharp,

you're not giving your best, your extra you're not hungry and thirsty anymore,

and you're not expecting and anticipating. Ampathy is when we start slowing down our

pace. You start just dialing it down a little bit. Apathy could look

like this, no spiritual ambition. What do you want to do for God?

What are your goals in the Kingdom of God? I don't have any.

That's an apathetic spirit. You have goals for every aspect of your life.

You want to graduate from high school, you want to get this profession,

you want to date, you want to marry, you want to have

kids, you want to have this kind of where your spiritual goals are ambitions.

That's a sign of being apathetic. Apathetic could look like this. It

means I'm interested. I'm just not committed. I'm interested. It's not like

I'm not interested, I'm just not that committed to the things of God.

And then, last of all, there's no absolutes. You kind of ride

the fence of compromise. There's no absolutes of truth, the word of God

or what God says. There's no absolutes. Take a little bit of this

and a little bit of that and move it together. And as long as

there's some Christianity, some scripture there, and there's not a lot of absolutes.

It's kind of where we blend in rather than stand out. And it's

more acceptance of a lot of other things and a lot of neutrality in our

lives. That's beginning to take place. Dorothy Sayers has this quote, and

I'll read it from the screen. Dorothy Sayers quote. The sin of our

times is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to

know nothing, infers with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose,

and nothing lives for nothing and remains a lie because there is nothing for

which it will die a little bit of apathy. There. There's a disease.

It kills two hundred thousand people a year, and it's a vein disease

where it causes a blood clot in your leg. Two hundred thousand people die

of this disease a year. The reason why that takes place, the number

one reason why people get blood clots in their veins like that is one word.

In activity. You die because of inactivity, plain and simple. That's

apathy. You're once active and you're not active anymore. The last word,

the last word is in five minutes now, first Timothy four one. So

in these last days, guard against and be watchful because there'll be an increase

of Christians that are more afraid than ever before. They don't trust God and

they're scared, just like the world is of the same things that the future,

the unknown, the economy, so on. Guard against apathy in your

life, guard against that becoming lukewarm towards the things of God, very very

comfortable, not having passion, no spiritual ambition. Here's the last one.

This is and I think it's a progression. I think it first starts with

being afraid or fear. Then from fear you move into apathy. And then

the third one is you are in first Timothy for one, apostasy. Now

the Spirit speak of espressly that in latter times. So the spirit speak this

word expressly, God saying, I want to be very distinct, and I

want to be very clear in what I'm about ready to say, it's very

important, he saying that in these latter times which we are living in.

Now, notice this word. Some will depart underlining the word depart. That's

where we get the English word apostasy. That's where that word comes from.

Some will depart from what the faith, giving heed or listening to seducing spirits.

These are things that draw you away from the things of God and doctrines

of demons that keep you in that place. But notice what it says.

Some will depart from the faith. I'm going to make a decision. I'm

not going to be part of that. Some there will be some. I

don't know. If it's the person in this church left or right of me,

I don't know. I don't know. But the Bible says it's clear

there are some Christians that are not going to be Christians in these last days.

He goes on to say at Hebrews, for it's impossible for those who

are once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and become partakers of the

Holy Spirit. And I don't have the other one. Okay, let's go

there. I'm sorry if they fall away, to renew them again to repent,

since they have crucified again for themselves the son of God and put him

to open shame. The next scripture says this and second Timothy, and they

will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

So the last word is this word apostasy. Christians will depart from the faith

because of apostasy, where they once believe, once attendant and participated, but

aren't doing it anymore. This would be a sign of judas as Scaria,

who walked away from Jesus. This would be Demons, who was once Paul's

traveling partner, who wanted nothing to do with ministry, and he departed for

Thessalonika. He went back into the world and went back to his former lifestyle.

So what happens in apostasy is this, There is a relocation. I'll

give you the breakdown kind of a definition of apostasy. It's a relocation.

It's a moving away of a place and a position and a posture that you

once had with Christ, leaving no forwarding address. So there's this relocation of

my heart. Then it's this. Another word is the word defection. There's

a defection. You are now changing teams. You're not wearing Team Jesus jersey

anymore. You're wearing Team World now or whatever you think you want to wear.

But you're not wearing Team Jesus anymore. So you now become a defector.

You have left the country, the citizenship of Heaven. There's now an

abandonment, no more, never again. I'm not doing it again. That

is what you call abandonment. Like you would see an abandoned home just in

your neighborhood, someone once lived there. There were noises, there were celebrations,

there's party, but now it's all boarded up, there's no life in

there anymore. Then there is a defiance. Apostasy is a defiance against Scripture,

Bible, faith and Jesus, his commands, his ass the authority of

scripture, the establishment of the ecclesia of the church. There's a defiance.

Again, I don't believe in the church. All the churches are like that.

I don't have to go to church to be a Christian. All of

that is an apostasy taking place. And then there's the breach. The breach

is the disconnect and the distance with no more conscience or conviction or repentance that's

done in one's life. He describes that as a dog that returns to its

vomit and eats it. How many of you have a gorgeous, beautiful dog,

your little dog. How many of you love your little dog? How

many of you bathe your dog? How many of you walk your dog?

How many of you play with your dog? How many of you feed your

dog? How many of you give treats to your dog? And how many

of you know you hate it when your dog eats his own crap? God

has blessed you with everything that you can dream or imagine, but you still

got an appetite to eat crap. I don't know about you as as my

dog owner. That makes me sew up. I'll yell at those dogs and

almost take it personally. You got to be crazy, Are you like me?

I mean, there is something some emotion I want. I'm just wondering

how God feels. I healed you, I blessed you. I saved you

when you were a child. I got you out of that bad relationship.

You walked away from an accident, and now you act like I don't exist,

that I was not there, that that just happened. It was,

you know, coincidental. I close with a few thoughts. Sanderson Jones is

the leader of the atheist churches. True story. He's the leader of a

movement that establishes atheist churches. If you visit them, you will recognize that

there are a lot of people in these churches. You will recognize they sing

great songs and clap. You will hear them given encouraging word. They do

great community activities events. They have all the signs of a great church.

The only problem is is there's no God there. Jesus presence is not there,

and that's what an apathetic life is. I have all everything I could

ever dream or imagine. It looks good, having the form of oddliness,

but denying the power thereof, and there's no God there. So I close

with this Now I need to land this plane by giving you some answers.

What do we do? How am I going to handle the afraidness and the

apathy and the apostasy that's going to take place. How's it that the world

just becomes so much dominant, the devil becomes so strong in his temptations,

and their Christians get so weak they fall victim to that. First Timothy nineteen

says some have refused to let their faith guide their conscience, and their faith

has been destroyed like a wrecked ship. First John says, dear friends,

now we are children of God, and we have not yet been shown what

we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again,

we will be like him. We will see him just as he is.

He is pure, and everyone who has this hope in himself terrifies themselves.

Remember what you just read there. While you wait earnestly and long for,

expect, and hasten the coming day, of God, by reason of

which which the flaming heavens will be dissolved, and the material elements of this

universe will flame and melt with a fire. My closing statements are this.

This is what's going to keep you from being afraid falling to apathy and apostasy.

Number one is your devotions. That's the only word that I could think

of. You could think of a better word. You must have steadfast,

consistent, vibrant, real devotions with Christ every day. I don't care how

busy you are. You can't afford. And I want to be stronger than

I've ever been before, because before I used to I used to maybe be

full of grace and say it's okay. But the world we're living in now

you can't because the devil doesn't take no days off. So you have to

have amazing devotion every day. You got to be in prayer every day.

You've got to be in the Word every day. You gotta pray every day.

You gotta be in the world. You gotta come to church as much

as you can. You gotta have times in your life where you're fast from

social media, where you push away a meal every once in a while.

Those are devotion. Devotions will help you to stay away from being afraid,

apathetic, and apostasy. Number two, have strong community in your life.

You need people that will watch after you. I'm not talking about people that

let you get away with the world, let you get away with things and

don't tell you the truth. I'm telling you people that tell you the truth.

And you need those kind of people that watch after you. Say you're

not praying, are you? You're not reading your Bible anymore? Yeah,

I don't see you in church anyway. You're acting crazy lately. You said

you weren't gonna date men like that, and there you go, alrighty,

you ain't gonna date women like that anyway, Say you stop doing that.

Those are the kind of friends you need. You need strong community to keep

you. Number three. You need to obey the scriptures and the Bible.

Do what the Bible says at the end of the day, whether it's hard

or whether it's easy, whether you agree with it or not, do what

the Bible says to do, and you'll never be afraid, be apathetic,

and you won't fall to apostasy. Number four. Pay attention to your attraction,

to your attractions and attachments. Pay attention to what your eyes and your

ears and your mouth are doing. Pay attention to your time where you spend

your money, and give your attention to that will show vulnerability, susceptibility,

and will show you starting to drift. Pay attention to your attachments. And

last of all, which we just read, stay looking for Jesus return.

This is huge, now, it's huge. I don't know that all Christians

are really excited about Jesus coming back. I gotta graduate from college, I

gotta marry, I gotta make money, Jesus said in what we just read.

Right there, everyone, everyone that's looking for my coming, looking for

me to come back, they live a pure life. Purity is based upon

I want to see Jesus again, and I'm really excited that he's coming back.

And because Jesus is coming back, I will live a pure life.

And the Bible says, if you don't have that hope in you that you

want to see Jesus again, you'll live like the world. You don't want

to live pure. But those that want to see Jesus come back and are

excited, they're looking through the window. They're on the patio pacing, they're

looking down the driveway, the way you look for you you're checking the mail,

that's the way you look for Jesus. And if you're not like that,

then you're gonna be afraid, and you're gonna be apathetic, and an

apostasy is gonna take place. Father, thank you for this message today.

I pray that we could apply it wherever we need to, as we are

challenged in the days that we are living in with so much lukewarmness. May

that not be found in us nor in this church. In Jesus name,

Amen, can we give the Lord a clap offering? I want to challenge

you today, if you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior,

if you're to die to night, maybe somewhere around eleven o'clock, you're

at twelve o'clock, you'd fall asleep, but you're not gonna wake up in

your house. You're gonna wake up in the throne room of God, and

you're gonna see Jesus. I want to ask you, do you know what's

going to happen? Do you know the next few seconds in front of Jesus,

what's going to happen? Is that going to be a mystery? To

you? Is that an uncertainty to you? Will you love that moment or

will you be in fear of that moment? Because the reality is all of

us are going to go down that path. All of us are going to

experience what I just talked about, unless or alive when Jesus returns, we

are all going to die sometime some way. And that's what will happen.

We will close our eyes upon this earth and when we wake up in the

throne room of God, and will either be the best day of your life?

You know what's going to happen. You're so excited. There's no mystery,

there's no uncertainty. You know who Jesus is, you know about the

books, you know about Heaven, you know about well done, now,

good and faithful servant, you know about enter into the joy of the Lord.

Or you're thinking, what the heck? Where am I? What happens

next? I hope it's not those words where I say, did not I

prophesy in thy name? Did not I do works in Thy name? And

will I here depart from me? Worker of iniquity? I never knew you.

I don't want that. Will the book come out that shows all the

sins that I've ever done before. Will I be ushered out of the presence

of God. That's the reality for every person. But here is the amazing

thing. Time is in your favor. Right now today, you can make

your eternal reservation and make sure that on that day your name is written in

the Lamb's Book of life. Your spot is guaranteed, and you will know.

Jesus is the love of my life, the one that I served,

And I remember when I invited him into my life. I don't remember what

day it was, I don't remember what time it was. I don't even

exactly remember what month it was, but I could tell you somewhere around May

or June of nineteen seventy eight, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and

Savior. If you came up to me and you asked me, are you

married to Cindy? And I told you I don't know, would you think

I'm married to her? If I don't know, I'm probably not married now

may I may sometimes forget where I married her. I may even sometimes forget

the day in which I married her, but I never forget that I married

her. If you know, Jesus, if you married Jesus. You know

you're married to Jesus. If you're not married to Jesus, you don't know.

I don't know. I think maybe not sure. Let's get it right

today. Or you believe in Jesus, but you know what, you're not

serving him like you should. You're in and out and up and down,

and you want to recommit your life. Or you love God. Everything is

wonderful, but you're not filled with the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of

speaking in tongues. And you want everything that the Bible offers you, that

that early church had, and you want it. Tonight, when I count

to three, I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand like this and we're

gonna pray for you. One two, one two three, Raise your hand

wherever you are, and we're gonna pray for you. Say this prayer with

me. Dear Lord Jesus, you know what I need. You know who

I am. I'm lost, I'm a sinner, I'm backsledding. I need

you in my life. Forgive me my sins. Thank you for dying on

the cross, and I ask you now to fill me with the Holy Spirit

in Jesus name. Amen. We really hope you enjoyed the message and if

you said yes to Jesus, we just want to say congratulations and give you

a free devotional to help you walk out your faith. Click the link in

the description or head over to grow dot Faith to download your devotional. Oh

and be sure to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. Thanks for

listening to ALSC podcasts and I hope you tune in again