Nahum 1:10: Thorns & Stubble

Reformed Rookie

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:12

Okay, so we're up to chapter 1, verses 10 and 11, so just, yes, after Micah, okay, so let's read almost the first chapter, verses 3 through 11.

00:33

God's inspired word. In the whirlwind and storm is His way, and clouds are the dust beneath His feet.

00:39

He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. Passion and karma wither. The blossoms of Lebanon wither.

00:46

Mountains quake because of Him, and the hills dissolve. Indeed, the earth is upheaved by His presence, the world and all its inhabitants in it.

00:54

Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken up by Him.

01:03

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him.

01:09

But with an everlasting, overflowing flood, He will make a complete end of its sight, and will pursue

01:14

His enemies into darkness. Whatever you devise against the Lord, He will make a complete end of it. Distress will not rise up twice.

01:22

Like tangled thorns, and like those who are drunken with their drink, they are consumed as stubble, completely withered.

01:29

From you has gone forth one who plotted evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor.

01:36

So we're going to be concentrating on those last two verses this morning, but just a real quick recap from last week.

01:44

Verse 8, but with an overflowing flood, He will make a complete end of its sight, and will pursue His enemies into darkness.

01:51

Nahum uses flood language to describe God's judgment, and we've spoken about how flood is used over and over symbolically of judgment, and how our baptism, we go down under the water, the waters of judgment, and we come out alive.

02:04

Okay, so again, this is symbolic of our life in Christ. Christ is our ark.

02:10

God's judgment of the Assyrians will be complete, just as the Assyrians' conquering of their enemies was complete.

02:17

We talked about how that word meant that when the Assyrians went in to conquer a nation, they wanted to completely annihilate them.

02:24

So God is going to judge them with the measure they use to judge other people. God is going to pursue

02:31

His enemies. There will be no escape from Him. That is a terrifying thought. If you are an enemy of God, He's going to pursue you until you're annihilated.

02:41

Don't be an enemy of God. How do we not be an enemy of God? By repenting of your sins and trusting in the provision

02:48

God made for you in Jesus Christ. Do not forget that that is the only way of escape.

02:55

There's no other way outside of Christ Jesus. Don't presume upon the mercy and grace of God when you stand before Him, if you do not have

03:03

Jesus as your covering. Next, whatever you devise against the Lord, He will make a complete end of it.

03:09

Distress will not rise up twice. Resistance is futile because God is invincible.

03:16

Man's plans will fail. We heard last week, man's hands are too short to box with God, right?

03:23

It's a little quip, but so true. None of us are going to be able to overthrow the plans of God. The Assyrians will not be a threat to Judea.

03:32

The people of Judea, God has a remnant there. God's going to comfort those people in the midst of judgment.

03:37

It doesn't mean that they're not going to be adversely affected. The church will be adversely affected, but God's enemies will certainly be overthrown.

03:47

God's people can take comfort in that. So even now, as we look around and we see judgment happening in this country and all over the world, we can take comfort in our

03:56

God. We can preach the gospel. We know that we're safe in Him. So let's look at today's verse.

04:05

Like tangled thorns and like those who are drunken with their drink, they're consumed as stubble, completely withered.

04:12

So the next three metaphors express the natural end of Nineveh's opposition. She is like thorns in a bramble, a drinking drunk, and a conflagration of fully dry stubble.

04:24

Each metaphor of creation is not bad in and of itself. A thorn, wine, and stubble are not bad, but it is turned on itself and comes to its own end.

04:34

Thorns to a tangle, wine to a wino, stubble in flames. The pictures form progressive images of trouble.

04:44

First tangled, then in a stupor, and finally dry to crackle crisply in consuming flames.

04:52

So the Assyrian's end will be final and is a progression to it. The metaphor of consuming, which is akal in Hebrew, occurs six times in Nahum.

05:03

In verse 10, they will be consumed like dry stubble. Okay, when a fire consumes something.

05:10

Verse 2 -13, the sword will devour. That's that word consume. Consume your young lions.

05:18

3 -12, ripe figs fall into the mouth of the eater, the consumer, right? God's going to consume them.

05:24

That's what that word means. Fire has consumed their gates. Do you ever see a building go on fire like like a like a lumberyard or something like that?

05:35

It's fully engulfed in flames. It fully consumes that building. Verse 3 -15, the fire will devour you.

05:42

The sword will cut you down and like grasshoppers consume you. This is what's going to happen to the

05:48

Assyrians. Terrifying. It's comforting for the people of God but terrifying for the enemies of God.

05:55

This is why I continually say over and over and over, I don't want to take for granted that every person in here is born of God's Spirit and trusting in Jesus.

06:03

I want to make sure you hear this message over and over. It's terrifying. It's a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living

06:10

God apart from Christ. So this symbolism of thorns here.

06:17

Look what the word says about thorns. What are thorns? Let me ask you that. I gave you a little quick glimpse.

06:24

What do you think thorns could be? One of the things, anyway. No coffee yet.

06:31

Adversary, sure. Yeah, absolutely. What are adversaries? People.

06:38

Thorns could be people. 2 Samuel, but worthless men are like thorns that are thrown away for they cannot be taken with the hand, right?

06:48

Symbolism there. Micah 7 .4, the best of them is like a briar. The most upright of them like a thorn hedge.

06:55

The day of your watchmen, your punishment has come. Now their confusion is at hand, right? So we see that even people, we know that people can be described as trees in the

07:06

Old Testament. People who are adversarial towards you can be described as thorns. And it brings up a little more image me when

07:14

I looked at this verse. This is Genesis 3. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and eaten of the tree of which

07:21

I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

07:27

Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. You shall not eat the plants of the field. Alright, so we know thorns and thistles are not good things.

07:37

They're not fruit. Yeah, thorns and thistles and then you have fruit. Yes, Jerry. Yeah, good point.

07:56

Yeah, thorns and thistles, right? Will come from the ground. Those are going to be short things that nip at your heel if we continue on.

08:04

Okay, so where else do we see anything about thorns in the

08:09

New Testament? Yes, Jake. You read the notes.

08:16

You read that New Testament already. Good for you. Alright, what does it say? So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh.

08:27

A messenger of Satan to harass me to keep me from becoming conceited. Right? Yes, Jerry. Sure, absolutely.

08:36

Thorns, crown of thorns on Jesus' head. So here many people think this could be an illness. It could be a lot of different things.

08:42

Me personally, I think it's a person. It's a messenger of Satan. Somebody, you know, that God is giving to Paul to keep him from becoming conceited.

08:52

It's a loving thing. So sometimes you're getting pricked by a thorn in your side and it's it's

08:58

God who's telling you, hey, settle down. Hold back. Watch. Numbers 33 -55 and if you've been in my studies any length of time, we've gone over this a couple times, but if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs, that's thorns, in your eyes and thorns in your sides and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwelt.

09:23

Right? So these people are called thorns and barbs. Judges 2 -3.

09:29

So now I say I will not drive them out before you but they shall become thorns in your sides and their God shall be a snare to you.

09:36

So as the Israelites were called to drive out the Canaanites from the land, if they didn't do it, then thorns and briars would pop up and cause them pain.

09:48

I don't know if you ever got pricked by a thorn? It hurts. It's not good. You know, you stick your hand into a bush, you think you're gonna cut something and all of a sudden you get pricked by a thorn.

09:57

It's like, ow! That hurts. Right? If they're given to us by God, like Paul asked three times to take it away,

10:05

God says, my grace is sufficient for you. There's a reason sometimes for the thorns. But in this context, we're called to drive them out.

10:13

John 15. Oh, I'm premature. I'm supposed to ask a question before I do this. All right. Is there another application along in this line of imagery?

10:23

I was thinking of John 15. I'm the vine, you're the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

10:31

For apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers.

10:37

And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. Right? So it's not an exact analogy, but similar to the agricultural imagery that we hear throughout the

10:50

Old and New Testament, Christians who abide in Christ bear fruit. Right?

10:56

We also find out that the seed falls on thorns, which we're going to see in a second. So if you're not abiding in Christ, those branches are going to fall off and be burned, just like all of the enemies of God.

11:10

What's the word we hear in Nahum over and over? Consumed. Consumed.

11:17

Right? Consumed like stubble. Right? This is an imagery that goes throughout the whole

11:24

Bible. And like Jerry brought up, the fact that there's thorns on the crown of Jesus's head.

11:31

Right? Branches that are not connected to the tree just become fuel for the fire. You need to be connected to the vine.

11:39

And here's the verse I was going to, I prematurely said again. Matthew 13. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.

11:48

The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and reapers are angels.

11:56

Just as weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace.

12:10

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Okay, so you see again this garden imagery.

12:16

You have weeds, and then you have fruit -bearing plants. The weeds are going to be thrown into the fire.

12:23

You have to question yourself. Am I a weed or am I a fruit -bearing plant? Am I bearing fruit for the kingdom of God?

12:30

Okay, in that place there be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Again, that's terrifying for the enemies of God, or for the people who profess

12:40

Christ out of their mouth, but it's not in their heart. Your heart needs to be changed, and this is one of the things

12:47

I'm getting as we go through the book of Nahum. There are people in Israel who are not God's people.

12:53

There are people in Israel who are God's people. Okay, it's going to be terrifying for them, but comforting for those who what?

13:00

Take refuge in God. Right? When you recognize that your sin is an offense, an affront to God, you run to Him for protection.

13:09

You run to Him for forgiveness. You cling to Him and the provision He made in His Son.

13:19

Okay, as we continue, that verse was preceded by the parable of the sower, and again I want to look at the progression of what happens here.

13:26

Matthew 13, I'm going to comment on it in a second.

14:02

So this is the explanation. Jesus tells the disciples what the parable actually means. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

14:23

Right? What have we seen with what's going on in the world? Right? As soon as tribulation and persecution comes,

14:30

God separates the believers from the make -believers. It's a scary thing.

14:35

These people thought they believed, but once persecution arises, they fall away.

14:44

As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

14:55

As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

15:07

Right? So what's the difference between all three different situations? One falls on, where is it, rocky ground, didn't have much soil.

15:19

One falls on thorns, fell among thorns, the thorns grew up, and then other seed fell on good soil.

15:27

What's the factor that's different among all three of them? The soil.

15:33

It's the same seed, it's the same gospel that goes out to everyone. The difference is the soil.

15:40

Only the seed that fell on the good soil grows and bears fruit.

15:46

Soil is symbolic of the heart, right? Is your heart good soil?

15:53

Have you received the gospel, and is it bearing fruit? This is how you know me, that you bear fruit, by your fruit, all right?

16:03

So you're a Christian, you've professed faith, are you bearing fruit, or are you just a professor and not a possessor of faith?

16:13

You have to ask yourself that question. If you're not bearing fruit, you have to check yourself to see if you're in the faith.

16:22

Have I truly repented? Has God truly changed my heart? Look at the progression. The verse pictures progressive images of trouble.

16:31

First tangled, and this is about Nahum verse 110. First it's tangled, then it's in a stupor, drunken stupor, and finally dried to crackle crisply in consuming fires.

16:43

The end will be final. Again, these are these are dire warnings to us as the church to recognize, are we walking with Christ?

16:53

Are we truly walking in faith and obedience? I know we're not saved by works, definitely not.

16:59

I agree with you, of course, but works are the natural outflow of a heart that's been changed by God.

17:05

You were created for good works that God prepared beforehand, right? Are you walking in those good works?

17:12

Are you producing the fruit that a true heart would produce? Yesterday we talked about an analogy.

17:19

I'm sorry, I was with the Mormons when I was talking about this analogy. They said, well, how does faith, how do good works play out in my system, right, which

17:31

I would consider biblical? I said, well, works are the pulse of the heartbeat, right?

17:38

The heart beats, and what's the effect of the heartbeat? The pulse. Somebody falls on the floor, you call an ambulance, what's the first thing they do?

17:44

They come and test to check your pulse. If there's no pulse, there's no life, right?

17:50

Now, the pulse doesn't cause the heart to beat. The works don't make faith. The heart causes the pulse.

17:58

If you have faith, you will have a pulse. If you have no pulse, you may not have a heartbeat, okay, to check yourself to see whether you're in the faith.

18:07

Are you bearing fruit? Let's continue. So, thorns versus fruit.

18:14

How do we guard against being a thorn, and how do we go about bearing fruit?

18:21

What's the solution? Well, there's many different ways you can answer this question, but the first thing that I came to mind is

18:28

Psalm 1, right? Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the

18:41

Lord, and on his law he what? Meditates day and night.

18:47

Anyone? Amen, Caleb. I remember from last week. I know. Anyone want to tell me what that word law means?

18:58

Yes. It could. It could. That's part of it.

19:04

Yes. Kind of. Say again.

19:12

Torah. Yes. That word law means instruction. So, yes, it's the Old Testament. You know, the gloss is instruction.

19:19

So, this is all of God's instructions. This is not just the Ten Commandments. On his law, on God's instruction, the

19:25

Torah, the Old Testament, you meditate, and New Testament, you meditate day and night. That's going to help you bear fruit, because you can't bear fruit if you don't know what

19:37

God expects of you. The word will instruct you so that you can be a man of God who's able to produce good fruit.

19:47

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked. Who are you hanging out with? Are you walking with people who are against God and chiming in with them?

19:59

Now, when it says, nor stands in the way of sinners, that means that you're not blocking sinners. You're going along with them.

20:06

You're standing in their way, going along with that flow. John says, whoever's a friend of the world is at enmity with God.

20:17

Are you a friend of the world? He says, hate the world and the things in the world, right?

20:25

That word world is used in so many different ways, because it's John 3, 16. God loves the world. World system, the way of the world versus the way of God.

20:34

You don't want to stand in the way of the world or sit in the seat of scoffers, people who scoff at God.

20:42

Oh, God doesn't exist. Oh yeah, he's a grandfather in the sky. You believe in sky daddies.

20:48

You believe it's a vain imagination. Those very words coming out of their mouth are

20:53

God allowing him to articulate and give intelligibility to what he says, but he scoffs at him.

21:01

What is your delight in? Is your delight in the law of the Lord? Right? How many people today are trying to abandon rules?

21:09

No rules. We don't need law or in the case of our government, we need more law.

21:15

The more laws, the better we are. No. Yes, Jerry. So your, your, your delight becomes in the instruction of God.

21:25

Okay. And on his law, his instruction, you meditate day and night. I can't tell you how many times in the past two weeks

21:32

I've told people, man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word out of the mouth of God, every word we have to consume every word out of the mouth of God.

21:44

Not just some, not just memorize John three 16, not just some pet verse that you like.

21:50

That's great that you memorize it. I encourage you to memorize them all, but you need to read the whole counsel of God from Genesis to revelation, right?

21:59

Every word out of the mouth of God. He is like a tree is our symbolism again, planted by streams of water that yield its fruit and season and its leaf does not wither in all that he does.

22:10

He prospers the wicked are not. So they're like chaff that the wind drives away. So where's this tree planted?

22:19

Streams of water. Where do you find streams of water flowing from the temple?

22:26

What's that an image of? Yes. The spirit of God. And where's the spirit of God in the church and the people of God, when we gather together, this is a means of grace.

22:38

When the word is preached. Okay. When we sing to God, we worship

22:44

God. We pray. Okay. We hear the word. We celebrate communion. We sacrifice with our tithes and offerings, right?

22:52

This is God moving through us. We need to be planted by streams of water. When we fellowship together, when we pray together on Wednesday nights, when we go through book studies and read the scriptures together, when we do

23:04

Bible studies together, this is God's stream flowing through us. You need to jump into the stream.

23:12

Okay. That's how you're going to be fed by. He's like a tree planted by streams of water, a tree that has no water coming to it.

23:21

What happens? Dies brambles stubble. It withers and is burned in the fire, right?

23:30

The people of God do not wither. They're like a leaf that does not wither because they're planted in streams of water.

23:37

The wicked are not so, but I like chaff. Let me know what chaff is. Yes. Right.

23:49

Yeah. The kernel of wheat is covered by, by a little shell, right? And the chaff are, are the shell without the wheat in it.

23:59

So what happens is on the threshing fuller, they, they throw the wheat up in the air and the wind would blow, right?

24:05

And it would take the chaff with it because it was lighter than the wheat. So what does that tell you?

24:11

Right. If, if the chaff doesn't have a heavy kernel in it, it's not going to fall on Christ.

24:16

It's going to be blown away. So the question is, do you have the Holy spirit living inside of you? That's the difference.

24:23

Not what's on the outside, but what's on the inside. If you have the Holy spirit living inside of you, you belong to him.

24:30

If you don't have the spirit, you're none of his. Amen. And if it's the people of God, obviously rivers of living water are going to flow from inside of us.

24:39

Right? So such that when we have fellowship, I may be having a problem and I sit with a brother and he counsels me biblically also.

24:46

And I'm a, I'm refreshed, right? Sometimes we come to church and we come with a, an expectation of receiving.

24:55

I want you to come to church with an expectation of giving, right? Not just your ties. I'm not talking about money.

25:01

I'm talking about maybe something that you read this week and God pressed upon your heart or gave you insight into something.

25:07

You share that with somebody. Right? I was telling my kids on the way here that one of the jobs of the elders is to, um, edify the saints for the work of the ministry.

25:18

So if you're a Christian, it's not the pastors and elders job to be the ministers.

25:25

Our job is to feed you so that you would be ministers. If you're a Christian, you're a minister, right?

25:32

Edify the saints. That's you for the work of the ministry. We all have work to do.

25:39

We all have a hand in this. This is the body of Christ, not the couple of individuals, right?

25:47

We, we, we who are many form one body. Every single one of you as a Christian has a talent gift and ability that God's giving you.

25:55

Okay. You need to use it to glorify God and bear fruit for the kingdom to bear fruit for the church.

26:02

Right? So use the role ministers like it or not, as long as you're a Christian, right? If you're not a

26:08

Christian, again, you need to turn from your sin and trust fully and wholly in the promise

26:13

God made through his son, Jesus, to his people. Psalm one through five.

26:21

This is the result. If you're not one of God's people, therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, right?

26:29

You stand in the way of sinners, verse one, but you won't stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

26:40

You'll not be counted as righteous. And the only way you can be counted as righteous is if you have the perfect righteousness of Christ.

26:49

Again, with the Mormons, I was told yesterday, you're saved by grace through faith after all you can do all you can do.

26:57

Have you done all you can do? Are you kidding me? If you've done one thing wrong, you haven't done all you can do.

27:05

That's bad news. I told you, you might as well just go back to the old covenant. It's no different. Why is the new covenant better?

27:14

We have a savior. He rescues us from our sins. He makes complete atonement for our sins, such that when

27:22

God's wrath was poured out on Jesus, it's all of his wrath.

27:29

There's not going to be a second time where the wrath is now poured out on me. That would be double jeopardy.

27:36

When God's wrath is poured out on those sins, those sins are gone. They're paid for. There's no more wrath left for the people of God who are in Christ.

27:47

Thank God. The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

27:53

You're going to be eternally separated from God. Union with Christ brings nourishment, strength, and fruit.

28:04

Autonomy, self -law, doing things according to your own understanding, results in withering and judgment.

28:12

Assyria flourished because God raised her up, but she refused to thank, praise, or honor

28:17

God, and has now been cut off. Every single person in here has been given life. You can't say that God hasn't shown you grace or mercy.

28:26

He has. Where did your life come from? Were you able to generate your own life on your own?

28:34

No. Life comes from God. Has anybody in here not sinned?

28:40

We've all sinned. And if you're alive a minute after you've sinned, that's mercy.

28:46

James says, if it's if the Lord wills, you live and do this or that. If you're alive, it's because the

28:53

Lord willed it. If you're here this morning, it's because the Lord willed it. And you're going to do this or that. Here, we're going to give thanks and praise and honor to the

29:01

God that's given us life. That's given us breath. We're not going to shake our fist at him and say, why me?

29:08

Why did you bring this evil into my life? Why did you give me this thorn? God gives you the thorn to keep you from becoming conceited.

29:18

Remember, every good and precious gift is from God. Any questions? In verse 10, the metaphor of consuming is ironic.

29:30

At first, Nineveh has been the consuming force for many years, stripping the land, eating its fruit, consuming the bars of many city gates in fire.

29:41

Nineveh is the lion that has devoured the ancient Near East. The consuming practices of Nineveh as a lion and as a cloud of locusts are further developed in Nahum 2 and 3, which we'll get to months down the road.

29:54

The prophecy that Nineveh itself will now be consumed is almost unbelievable to the peoples of the ancient world.

30:02

Remember, Syria was the dominant power. It would be like somebody saying the

30:08

United States is going to be consumed by its enemies. Is that a possibility these days?

30:16

Sure is, right? Why? We're a wicked people. We're a people, like Isaiah says, of unclean lips.

30:25

We pray, hallowed be thy name. Do you think God's name is hallowed in this land?

30:31

Every TV show you watch, every movie you see, somebody blasphemes

30:38

God and his name in that movie. It's almost unescapable, right?

30:45

We are a people of unclean lips. We are under judgment for a reason. So this timing with Nahum is providential,

30:54

I think. Nahum, again, means comfort. He comes from the town of El Kosh, which means judgment.

31:03

Comfort in the midst of judgment. We're going to have to hold on for a while. We don't know what's going to happen here, but what we're going to do is continue to worship

31:12

God. We're going to continue to thank God. We're going to continue to hallow his name. We're going to continue to be faithful to him in the midst of persecution or whatever the opposition is against us.

31:24

I think from Daniel, I love Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I hope

31:30

I pronounced that right, right? They said, look, you're going to bow down. You're going to worship the king.

31:36

No, we're not. We're going to throw you in the fire. Yeah, Ed. Really?

31:42

Let me tell you something, O king. Our God can. Our God will.

31:50

But even if he doesn't, I'm not bowing down and worshiping that king. It's one king.

31:57

It's the only one I'm going to remain loyal to. Remember, one king.

32:02

I want a one -world government. He's the king and everybody's going to be his subjects, right?

32:08

So when opposition comes, stay faithful to the Lord. He knows his people.

32:14

His people take refuge in him, not in the government, not in a system, not with allying yourself with a stronger nation, which is what

32:25

Judah was going to do, and then was stopped, okay? We don't ally ourselves with a world power so that we're protected.

32:35

We ally ourselves with God. I don't want God on my side.

32:41

I want to be on God's side. He has a way of doing things. I don't want him to do them my way.

32:47

God forbid. My job is to submit and trust in him, follow him wherever he goes.

32:54

The judgment of God shall come in a manner appropriate to the stubbornness of the sinner.

33:00

The phrase, as Thorne's twisted, figuratively describes the hard -headed, hard -hearted, resistant characteristic of the

33:08

Assyrian to the authority of the one true living God. They have made taught, which is rigid, their stubborn wills, so that any and all approaches, even from God, will be met by prickly resistance.

33:21

As with drink, they are drunk, depicts the dead -end stupor into which they have sunk willingly.

33:29

Again, look out at our culture. Are they not drunk? They don't know how to define words that have been defined for the last 6 ,000 years.

33:41

You can't define a woman. You can't define gender. Believe the science.

33:48

Follow the science. You get all this nonsense, and you wonder, these people are drunk. They're following the way of Belial, which we're not going to probably get to this afternoon.

34:00

We'll continue next week, but they're drunk, they're in a drunken stupor. God has given them over to the desires of their heart because they worship the creation rather than the

34:10

Creator. The stubbornness is countered by the consuming fire of God's wrath.

34:17

They shall be consumed as stubble, fully dried. Nothing burns more quickly and with greater intensity than fully dried stubble.

34:27

The tighter this tangle of thorns, the more spontaneously it combusts. If the

34:32

Assyrian abandons self -control and drunkenness, and then has forfeited all control of self, and shall be turned into smoking vapors.

34:44

When you're not in union with Christ, when you're not plugged into the rivers, the streams of living water, you will go dry.

34:53

You will become stubble, and you will be burned up in God's flames. I don't want that for anyone here.

35:01

Plug in. Ask. If you recognize that you have professed faith, but you don't possess faith, cry out to God to change your heart, to grant you true repentance, to grant you true faith.

35:16

Man can muster faith up in himself, but it's not going to last. It'll be for a short time, and then persecution is going to come.

35:25

The cares and concerns of the world are going to come. It's going to choke it out because your faith is not going to be able to withstand that.

35:31

You need the gift of faith from God that he gives to his people that's going to endure over time, that's going to be faithful to him in the face of persecution.

35:44

Make sense? Okay, I'm actually going to stop there. I know I'm about five minutes early, but if I go into the next verse, it's going to take us another 20 minutes, so I don't want to continue and not be able to get through the whole thing.

36:00

So is there any questions? Anything? Any input? Likes? Dislikes?

36:06

That's a great question. So the question is, how do we stand against sinners and stand in the way of the righteous?

36:15

I think it's going to depend on the situation, okay? If you're at a water cooler at work and everybody's talking and, you know, using foul language, you just don't use foul language.

36:25

You don't have to be the police and say, hey, listen, you know, you used a bad word here, you know, that's offensive to me. Just let your actions, let your words, okay, be pure.

36:36

Let no unholy or coarse talk come out of your mouth. You have to live in a

36:42

Christlike fashion. If you get the opportunity and you're sitting with someone at lunch and they start saying, oh,

36:48

I'm, you know, I'm pro -choice, women should have a, women should have a say over what goes on in their body.

36:55

You can say, listen, I'm pro life. I think life begins at conception. I think God says life begins at conception.

37:01

I think life needs to be protected. And, I mean, now we have an added question we can ask that person when they say, oh,

37:09

I'm pro -choice, I think women should have a right over their own body. Now you could ask them, what's a woman?

37:16

They're not even going to be able to answer that, right? But to stand up for what you believe in the right circumstance at the right time is what we do, is what we're called to do.

37:27

Our job is to preach the gospel, share the gospel, share our testimony, share our faith wherever we can.

37:36

Remember, I mean, everybody likes to invite people to church, and I think that's a great thing. We should continue to do that.

37:42

But the message was never tell them to come in here. The message is always go and tell.

37:50

Our job, you guys as the Saints, my job is to edify you for the work of the ministry.

37:55

Your job is to now go out into the community, go out into the places where God has placed you at work, okay?

38:02

In your families, in your neighborhoods, in communities. If your kids are on a baseball, you know, team, hockey team, talk to the parents, okay?

38:12

Your job is to emulate Christ to them, to represent him, which is represent. You're representing

38:17

Christ to the people around you because God has changed you. You are now a child of the

38:24

Most High God. Listen, I don't think anybody in here, if their dad, I hate to say this now because the illustration is not going to work, if your dad was

38:34

Bill Gates, you wouldn't have any problem telling anybody, oh yeah, my dad's Bill Gates, he owns Microsoft, you know, we do this, right?

38:42

Do we tell people that God's our Father? I love the Apostle Paul, and we did this when we went through the series on Romans.

38:51

Right out the gate, Paul, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I asked myself, that's the first line right out of his mouth, and I asked myself, how many, how long does it take for someone to recognize that Anthony Uvinio is a servant of the

39:05

Lord Jesus Christ? Is that like the first thing that it comes out of my mouth? Hi, I'm Anthony Uvinio, I'm an insurance broker.

39:11

Really? That's my claim to fame? I'm a pastor at Hope Reform Baptist Church.

39:18

I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let it come out your mouth. You know, they need to know, right?

39:25

Anybody who dies apart from Christ is going to be consumed, there's going to be stubble, that should rip our hearts apart, right?

39:34

And we have to, we have to look past the flesh, ours and theirs.

39:42

We so quickly assess people by what they look like, or what they say, or whatever, forgetting that we were in the same condition at one point in time.

39:53

Shut your mouth, humble yourself, go preach the gospel, rescue that person.

39:59

Spoiler alert, anybody see the last Spider -Man movie, was it No Way Home? Okay, you're gonna have to help me with this.

40:06

At the end, there's four or five different adversaries, right, and each of the

40:13

Spider -Men are, what are they trying to do to these adversaries, to these criminals?

40:20

Are they trying to kill them? No, they're trying to restore them back to what they were before they became the criminal, right?

40:31

To get them into their original condition. What's our job as Christians?

40:37

To get people back to their, to the image of God, their God, their position in Christ, the way

40:44

God created Adam. Perfect, right? We're trying to get them back to that condition.

40:50

We shouldn't be trying to kill our enemies. That's God's job, right? We talked earlier in this study, vengeance is mine, says the

40:57

Lord. We're not the ones to take vengeance on people, or revenge, worse. We're here with lab coats on, like doctors trying to help people, not with black robes on trying to judge people.

41:13

We were in the same condition, in the same point, at one time. We need to, in love, represent