Conditions of the World Today — Charles E. Fuller

Christian Heritage Ministry, in cooperation with Fuller Seminary, proudly presents the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour, a broadcast of the Gospel with Dr. Charles Eagle.

We usually do from Sunday to Sunday, we sing through the first verse, turn around and give.

Everyone a good handshake as far as possible. Everybody happy, say Amen. That's wonderful, now come on and sing Heavenly Sunshine, all right.

It would be very fitting after that if we just sing one verse of what a friend we have in Jesus.

You don't need your song sheet, that old, old song we could sing every Sunday, still be as fresh or fresher than ever before. What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs do bear. Now Mrs. Fuller with the letters, go right ahead.

Greetings friends, one comes from North Dakota. Dear Mr. Fuller, we look forward to your broadcasts as the radio is our only means of hearing God's word through the long winter months. Dear Reverend Fuller, I'm just a small town telegraph operator up here in the mountains, but we love your program and we want to keep it coming.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Fuller, we are those old folks way up in the mountains in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and you just don't know what a comfort it is every Sunday to sit by our radio and listen to the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, no matter what the storms are outside.

A young college girl writes, Dear Reverend Fuller, one of the first things I remember is sitting with my family on Sunday evenings and listening to the Old Fashioned Revival Hour. It is one of the memories that I treasure most.

Now while I'm at college, I can still listen and I never get tired of it. Isn't that nice? And here's a cute letter. Maybe some of you have that record of Mr. Fuller singing Heavenly Sunshine and Meet Me There.

This lady writes and she said, I think you might like to know that we have your record of Heavenly Sunshine and Meet Me There and our four-year-old boy plays it almost constantly and he knows the whole record by heart and he goes around much of the time singing one of those songs.

And here's a good letter from France. Dear Dr. and Mrs. Fuller, I am a missionary here in Europe among the Slavic-speaking people. Your program is my church service every week. May God bless you in this great ministry to the salvation of souls and uplifting of many Christians around the world.

Then this last letter is from England, an interesting one. Dear Mr. Fuller, I have just listened to your broadcast of the Old Fashioned Revival Hour for the first time tonight and I feel at the moment that the years have rolled back and I am once more a girl of 16 years.

I have not listened to a sermon like yours since Mr. Nicholson from America conducted a six-week mission in my hometown in northern England in 1920. Oh, if only we could have revivals nowadays in our churches.

If only to make people realize what they are missing. Thank you from the bottom of my heart tonight for your message and for the beautiful music. I loved hearing the singers. Once more, let me say thank you to the Lord and may He bless you and all those people with whom I worship tonight.

So far away, it seemed as though I was right there in the hall and you came across the miles of land and sea to me. That is all I shall have time for today, friends.

Faith in God's Word and the Foundation of Salvation

Faith in His excellent Word. May I read this portion of God's Word before we sing this marvelous song? Now faith is the foundation of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. How firm a foundation!

Ye saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in His excellent Word. Remain standing for prayer. Two verses, everyone sing heartily. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank Thee though heaven and earth may pass away, Thy Word will never, never pass away.

Down through the eternal ages, everlasting ages, Thy Word will stand true. And may thousands today, on the sandy foundations of their own self-righteousness or man's opinions, may they be translated now over onto the rock, the foundation of Thy eternal Word, and rest upon Jesus, the written and living Word, and become new creations in Christ.

For we ask it in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen.

Once a sinner received from my Lord An angel sang a story A sinner from whom for there's a new name Written down in blood by sins forgiven.

Revival Hour brought to you by the Gospel Broadcasting Association from the Municipal Auditorium at Long Beach, California. This is Charles E. Fuller speaking.

You are listening to the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour with Dr. Charles E. Fuller. The message for today is titled, Conditions of the World Today. I'll provide information after Dr. Fuller's message on how you can contact us for a free copy of today's program or to request a catalog of the gospel music you hear on the broadcast.

Open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter 1, verse 1 while we rejoin the broadcast.

Ephesians 2 and the Natural Man's Need for Regeneration

Turn to God's Holy Word, the second chapter of Ephesians, verses 1 to 3 again. I wish you would read those first three verses of Ephesians 2 over and over. For there you have tucked away in a few words the cause and effect of the conditions in the world today, sin and the results of sin.

In Ephesians 2, 1 to 3, the Holy Spirit records nine things which are true of the natural or unregenerated man. These nine items show the desperate need of regeneration for except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Furthermore, these three verses of Ephesians 2 inform the believers, the new creations in Christ Jesus, what they were and what they have been saved from. In our last broadcast, time permitted us to speak upon the first of these nine things which are true of the natural man, that is, the subject of death, not a pleasant subject.

Spiritual, Physical, and Eternal Death

And we learned last Lord's Day that death is never annihilation, but instead that death, according to the word of God, is the separation of a person. Now notice it carefully, the separation of a person from the purpose or use for which he was intended.

Death does not end all, never ends in annihilation. And the scriptures speak of three kinds of death, physical, spiritual, eternal. In the physical death, we find the separation of the soul from the body.

In spiritual, the separation of the spirit from God. And in the eternal, the separation or banishment from the presence of God throughout the eternal ages to come. That is referred to in Revelation 20 as the second death.

All unregenerated men, irrespective of race, color, creed, or social standing, are dead spiritually, for all have sinned. And if and when they should die physically, unconverted, unrepentant, they cannot go where Jesus is.

Thus they will experience eternal death, the second death. Everyone, or rather whosoever will, upon hearing the glad tidings, the gospel of salvation, and repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and receives Christ as his own personal Savior, he becomes born again and made alive spiritually, becoming a branch in the true vine, grafted into the body of Christ, and become there on a living branch through the resurrection life of Christ.

Salvation, Resurrection Life, and Union with Christ

If anyone thus converted dies physically before Jesus comes, he will depart to be with Christ, which is far better. He then will be absent from the body at home with the Lord, and his earthly tabernacle will be laid away to sleep until the morn of the first resurrection, or the out-resurrection of all believers from among the dead.

I just want to stop and say hallelujah, amen. Thank God for the blessed hope. Today may we consider verses 1 to 3 for additional teaching, and ask believers to see what we were in our natural state, and from what we have been saved from.

These three verses, I wish you would memorize them. They are of utmost importance. And you being dead, he made alive. For he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation or judgment, but is passed from death unto life.

That's God's word. Now verse 2. Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children to disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

Walking According to the Course of This World

Verse 2. In which ye formerly walked, that is, in trespasses and sin, and the Bible sets forth that the unsaved are dead to God, and dead to all real spiritual life, and you who are outside of Christ haven't even a spark of divinity in you.

Yet God's word says that you who are outside of Christ, unsaved and dead to God, are alive and lively in sin, as the word walked implies. To walk means or implies action, activity. And all unregenerated men and women walk in sins, actively alive, walking in sins, trespasses and sin.

And they walk, and you walk, if you're not converted, according to the course of this world system. This present world system, God's word reveals, is an evil age. Galatians 1 .4. Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world.

According to the will of God and our Father. And we are now living in an evil age. An age marked by great show of the works of the flesh. According to the fifth of Galatians, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, jealousies, wrath, strife, seditions or divisions, heresies, envying, murderers, drunkenness, reveling.

If that isn't a cross-section of your daily newspaper, then I miss my guess. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it also be in the days of the Son of Man. As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.

Noah, his days were marked by violence. But in the days of Lot, by the sins of the flesh. And hence you have coming to the front in these closing days, a manifestation of the sins of the flesh. It's thrown at you from all sides.

Satan as the God of This Present Age

And Satan, the old serpent of Genesis 3, the devil, the father of lies, is the God of this present evil world system. For 2 Corinthians 4, for in whom the God of this age hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

And all unsaved persons are walking according to this present world system. But the believers are delivered from it. For according to Colossians 1 .13, God hath delivered us from the powers of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.

And when you pick up your daily newspaper and read of the drunken brawls and murders and rapings and robberies and shootings and suicides and graft and corruption and cheating and income tax evasion and fraud in high places, bear in mind you are reading about the natural man who walks according to the course of this age, an evil age, an age ruled over by none other than Satan, the prince of the power of the air, the ruler over the powers of darkness.

I am giving it to you straight and not mincing words. Now notice, according to that second verse, the unsaved walks according to the prince of the power of the air. That is, walks in sin in obedience to the commands of the devil who is the ruler of the authority of the air and of the spirits who now, in work, energize the children of disobedience.

And back of every unregenerated man, child of disobedience, is the power, the in-working, the energizing power of Satan, the god of this present evil world system. That explains the diabolical matters that are taking place under the ruthless, godless, Christ-hating dictator.

That explains a lot of things. You have the cause and the effect and the prince of the power of the air is Satan. He is a real person, a person of great power and wisdom and might and beauty, one who is called in the Scriptures the angel of light to imitate and to counterfeit the work of Christ, the light of the world.

Be not deceived, and his work is to deceive the very elect, if possible. And the word power in this verse, that is authority, speaks of rulership over demons, over principalities, over powers, over rulers of darkness of this world, over the rulers of spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.

The Heavenly Conflict and Satan's Future Defeat

Now listen, the haunts and the spheres of activity of these evil spirits are in the air. Let me explain. The region above the earth where the unregenerated have their spiritual abode. Now follow carefully.

I want to give you some basic foundational teaching. Here it is. There are three heavens. The atmospheric heavens above us and then the heavenlies and then the third heaven. Now follow me carefully. The believers have their citizenship in the third heaven from whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We're citizens of the highest heaven. Now in between the atmospheric and the third heaven is the place called heavenlies. And this place is ruled over by Satan, the prince of the power of the air. And in that rulership, he is ruler over principalities, over powers, over rulers of the darkness of this world system, over the rulers of spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.

Now I turn for just a brief moment to the twelfth chapter of Revelation and I find history written beforehand. Here it is. And there was war in the heavenlies or in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not.

Neither was there place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out. That old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

In experience, in actual point of time, that event has not yet taken place. But when the saints are gathered home, the first resurrection of the dead and the living, there will be a war in heaven and Satan and his hosts will be cast out upon this earth in person.

And then immediately you follow the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation and you have the mark of the beast when no man will be able to buy or sell save you have that mark. And then you have the heading up of the apostate religious system and the overthrow of Babylon in the seventeenth.

Great tribulation such as the world has never seen. All right. Now the spirit who is now in working in the sons of disobedience, notice that wording, sons of disobedience. And that word means lawlessness is the keynote of the hour.

Lawlessness and the Deceitfulness of the Human Heart

The doing of that which seems right in one eyes because there is no king in Israel. The throwing off of all restraint, saying to God in so many words, it's none of your business, God, what I do. I'll lead my own life and do as I please.

That's lawlessness. You are a child of disobedience, obedient to Satan, but disobedient to God. And that's the cry and that's the order of the hour. Disobedience on all sides and lawlessness. Now notice, people are not corrupt and immoral because of environment or lack of education, but they are corrupt and immoral because they have bad hearts.

Listen, Jeremiah 79, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Only God. Mark 7, 21, 23. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts or reasonings, adulteries, fornication, murderers, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, and licentiousness.

All these evil things come from within and defile the man. And according to Romans 3, 10 to 18, there is none righteous. No, not one. And you read that third chapter of Romans, beginning at the tenth verse, you'll see that there's none that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after God.

Their throat is an open sepulcher with their tongues they have used to seek, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery in their ways and the way of peace have they not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. And when a man becomes converted after receiving Christ as his personal Savior, the fear of God, reverence for God comes into his heart. And the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

The Flesh, the Mind, and Selfish Desires

That's the trouble. Sin. And among whom, now notice verse 3, and I must close, of Ephesians 2, among whom we all formerly behaved ourselves. We once, children of disobedience, disobedient towards God but obedient to Satan, lived in the lusts of the flesh.

And the word conversation means manner of living in the lusts of our flesh, desires and longings of the flesh and of the human nature ruined by the fall. Oh, I wish we had a few more minutes, but listen.

In that third verse of the second chapter, it speaks of fulfilling of the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And there are desires of the mind that are on a higher level yet unregenerated. There are those that seek out pleasure.

There are those that love the beauty of things and the knowledge. Fine. They love the things all for a selfish, sinful purpose. If you analyze it, good in themselves, but they leave out the best. God says you're a child of wrath upon whom the wrath of God abides.

Christ as the Way Back to God

And in closing, may I say, is there any way out? Let's be quiet before God. I know this has been cutting pretty hard. Is there any way out? Is there a way back to God on the part of sinful man? Yes. John 14, 6.

Him, or I, am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father except by and through the Lord Jesus. And him that cometh unto me, God saith, I'll in no wise cast out. And when you come God's way, being reconciled by the blood of Christ and present your body a living sacrifice, you are transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And then that mind and heart desires to be obedient to the eternal, ever-living God. And you have the mind of Christ. You become thus a new creation, old things passing away. The things that you once loved you now hate.

The Gospel Invitation and Call to Repentance

The things you once hate you now love. Don't you want to become a new creation in Him? God says I'm not willing that any should perish. He said whosoever will may come. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Just before the chorus choir sings the invitation number to you out in the radio audience, outside of Christ.

No peace in your heart. You're like the troubled sea casting up mire and dirt. There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord. But He says come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

Come now, all ye laboring, heavy laden, I'll give you rest. I'll give you peace, the peace that passes all understanding. Will you drop to your knees if it's at all possible? Look up into the Father's face and say, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

Save me for Christ's sake. Otherwise, if you die physically, being dead spiritually already, you'll go out into eternal separation and experience eternal death or the second death. While our heads are bowed in this audience here in Long Beach and God is speaking to you, how many will put their hands up and say, pray for me, brother Fuller.

I want to receive Christ as my personal Savior. I'd like to be remembered in a word of prayer before we close. Will you put your hand up? God bless you. I'm pressed for time. Anyone else, any place, put your hand up and say, pray for me.

I need Christ as my personal Savior. I must close. Continue in prayer. This is Charles E. Fuller bidding you goodbye and God's gracious blessing upon you.