Hi. This is Dave Olson.
I'm the senior leader of Hartman church located in Ankeny Iowa.
I hope the following message, challenges, and courage, has and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us, we're
going to jump into something and I don't know where we're going
to end up. I've got four passages.
I want to look at we went. And how many of you have seen
the Jesus Revolution movie, raise your hand.
How many of you have not seen it yet?
Raise your hand. I would highly recommend.
Amend it. I would recommend going.
I remember those days. I was just a little kid.
Don't look at me like that. Like you did.
You could save their know, I was little, but our church in Duluth
was really impacted by the Jesus people movement and a bunch of
then came into our church. A lot of them, their minds were
scrambled, But as God restored them, they became leaders all
through the north up there and our pastor was open and receive
them and it was an amazing thing.
But And I wept through most of the movie and the biggest reason
was not because of memories. Although they had some good
music man. I'm telling you peace baby.
It was it was awesome but the biggest reason that I wept is, I
could feel what was in the air at that time.
And I've felt that at various times in various places that
there was just an openness to the gospel.
I believe, the movie opened with this scene, it was near the
beginning and that's when I started crying, but all the
staff was with us. So I'm trying to keep my, you
know, if I watch a movie alone then I know I can really get
into crime, but, you know, you got to keep your masculinity
intact, you know, with staff. So but this this scene where
there's a bunch of these young hippies and just people in
general, General. This, this crowd of people and
they Crest this hill and I don't believe that opens up the ocean
and there's this massive baptismal service going on.
And then the next scene that I that I felt that same thing was
that the same idea, but they're all this throng of hippies were
making their way to what looked like a circus tent because
they'd outgrown their building and there was just this Buzz
this expectancy in the air. And I was just so impacted the
bike by that because I have felt that before If you have ever
been in a season of Revival, you know what that feels like?
It's like the air is alive and even unbelievers, begin to say.
Wow God. Dwells among men, there's this
possibility of meeting their creator and if there's just a
buzz at the end of the movie, I want to ruin it for you and this
is just a little piece, it'll be good for you.
But at the end, these, these young people show up and there's
Greg Laurie sitting on that Cliff that same cliff and they
said, hey, is this where everybody?
Gets baptized and he said, yeah. And he's they said, well, we
didn't know how it worked. We want to come and get
baptized. You said, where are you from?
They said Texas. Now, this is Southern
California. They drove across the country.
I remember when the outpouring happened here in 08, it started
on a Tuesday afternoon, I came out of my office.
I had been dealing with a conflict.
I came out in there were bodies laid on the floor by Saturday
night. It was standing room only.
There were One Pastor was from Montana.
I mean, people come in from multiple States, when God is in
the air, people will flock there.
I'm telling you, they're there are hungry people in this nation
and all it's going to take as a spark and it's God's going to
ignite something. And so I was just, I was so
touched by that and just I remember watching Doc back in
the Brownsville day. Some of you were involved in the
Brownsville Revival and I remember on the news they were
interviewing people in this one guy.
He was he said yeah. You know, I've got an issue with
drugs where you from, he was from Michigan, didn't know
Jesus, but he said, I heard about these meetings drove from
Michigan to the panhandle of Florida because God was in the
air. There was something that
awakened within him. And so I've been just chewing on
this and contemplating this and, and just asking myself.
What is that? What is that spiritually?
What is that? Because make no mistake about
it. There is an atmospheric Dynamic
to Revival like that. There's something that happens
in. The atmosphere.
In the spiritual realm, something takes place, and all
of a sudden people are aware of God, even though they don't know
them. People that don't believe in God
suddenly are in his presence and God happens to them.
And they become Believers before they even know the fact, the
facts because they've encountered him.
And so, I was just thinking about that Lord.
What is that dynamic in the air? What, what happens in those
seasons of outpouring. And I think it's important for
us to Define that because that's what we're praying for.
I'm not praying, just for individuals to awaken, I'm
praying for something to happen in the atmosphere over this
nation. So that's people suddenly become
aware that. There is a living God and that
they can, they can meet him. But there's things that happen
in the spirit when that happens and I want it.
So I want us to look at that this morning and so pause there.
That's the first thing we're going to talk about another
element of this. I don't know which one we're
going to dive into. I'm a little I'm we're just
going to dive in and we're going to try to figure this thing out.
The other thing I've been contemplating is this is the
fascinating reality that there is the micro.
Move in the macro move, there is the individual encounter with
God, there's individual Revival. There's Individual Awakening.
Where we all of a sudden encounter, God, our eyes are
open. We become aware of his presence,
and we get saved, and then there's this macro cultural
corporate encounter that can happen over a nation, where a
nation is shook by the power of God.
Both of those are realities and both of those are something we
need to contend for, but I'm telling you, this is what I
want. I want the macro, I want the
corporate I want the And wide Awakening.
And, and the interesting thing is, is the Dynamics to these two
things are the same. It's just applying it on a much
larger scale and we can see this in Ephesians chapter 4 and
Romans chapter 1. And so we're going to look at
those two passages this morning. So guys, if you want to put up
Ephesians chapter 4, we're going to look at that passage.
And and the other thing I want to say is my apologies to the
intercessors. We I process my Theology and
prayer and so often they get the they get the first wave of a
message during the week as we meet up front and then we unpack
it the rest on the weekend. So I just I so appreciate the
intercessors. You know, it's almost 3 years
now that we've been meeting Tuesday through Friday every
week. Crying out to God for this
nation and I think it's important that we remember that.
What was the Catalyst for us to start to meet?
and what it was is it was a Sunday morning and we were
talking about the state of this emerging generation.
My oldest son had given me a book.
He's always recommending all these eclectic books to me and
this particular one was called the Primal scream.
And it was by a Catholic sociologist by the name of Mary,
a bird stat know if anybody has any of you have ever read
anything by her but it is an absolutely fascinating but very
Godly woman. Brilliant.
You start reading what she says. She's absolutely brilliant and
the subtitle was something about the where it was more eloquent
than this but it was saying you know, where the heck did
identity politics come from. That's that's essentially what
the book was about. And her premise was that
identity politics come from the lack of identity in the emerging
generation and she traces that to the sexual Revolution, which
resulted in the the gist? The absolutely decimation of the
nuclear family. And she uses this phrase.
She said we are hopelessly communal beings as human beings.
We are made to be communal. Were made to be relational.
Were made to be in family, were made to have those
relationships. And the first place we find our
identity is Under the Umbrella of our family.
I am an Olsen, I Am the son of Jim and fails and I'm the
brother of several siblings and that's where my, my identity
began to be formed. But we see the the sexual
revolution of the 60s, the late 60s, and early 70s, which is
what that the timeframe that movie.
The Jesus Revolution is about That timeframe there was what
was known as the sexual Revolution that absolutely has
decimated. The family there were several
things that converge to cause that, you know, the the I knew I
was going to have this problem. My mind, I'm having a hard time
finding words this morning. We need to pray.
Father, Lord, I ask that you would Grace me this morning.
Lord give me the words to discharge what's on my heart.
And Lord, I ask God that you would speak through me.
Lord that you would awaken Faith Lord, that you would awaken an
ache within us Lord God, that we would not be the generation that
This is a move of God lord we want to see you move and great
power Lord. Our heart breaks for this
generation and Lord were asking visit it once again in Jesus
name. Amen.
Birth control pill. That's what I was looking for.
Can you believe that I'm tell we're in trouble?
If God doesn't ride in on this birth control enabled, people to
be, to begin to liberated sexually without the
consequences. And so, the breakdown of the
no-fault divorce, all of these things, converged to decimate,
the family and so she begins to look sociologically what that
did to the American Family, what and really globally?
That, you know, you have people with, you know, stepfathers and
their mother has a boyfriend that has siblings that move in
with them and are they related to them?
Or are they not? And if it's a, you know, just
all this confusion so people don't know who they are.
And so what's happened? And she, she traces this out
that what? And not finding our identity.
In our homes. We identify by our woundedness.
Then we look to a tribal affiliation with those who share
our woundedness. And then we go to war against
anybody that would disagree with our woundedness and that is
identity politics. It was fascinating about two
years later. I read the book by Carl Truman
and he went into how Wilhelm Reich was.
He was one of the fathers of CRT critical race Theory and he was
a vowed Marxist. And his, his ideology was this
he said capitalism has produced too much wealth for us to
overthrow the West. We can't, we can't pit the poor
against the rich anymore because capitalism has really raise the
water level of a society financially.
So he said we've got to find another way to cause Division
and one of the things he said is we've got to make war against
the family. We've got to do away with the
father's in the homes. We've got to do with gender
identity in the sense of, you know, the distinction between
male and female. We've got to create confusion in
these. And so, what was fascinating to
me is Mary a burst at she looked at the result in Reverse,
engineered it and said, Logically, this was the problem.
Meanwhile, route Wilhelm Reich many decades earlier had already
engineered it in advance. It said, this is what we're
going to do to reach our goals and it worked And the answer for
this is the family of God, God sets the lonely in families.
And if the world ever needed churches that can receive people
in love and wrap around them and provide the family, they never
had, if they were Liz ever needed that it's right now.
And so we were talking about that that morning 23 almost
three years ago now and as we were talking about that it was
like just this ache erupted and we went into intercession, I
didn't even get to finish my message.
Many of you were here and we just begin to cry out.
I couldn't stop weeping and and I remember around that time I
heard Lou Engel talking, he was saying that he was in a meeting
in California and he was talking about the, the, blight of Of
sexual confusion that has hit this generation and there's such
Brokenness not unlike what happened in the late. 70s, late
60s, early 70s. You know, Lonnie frisbee in that
movie, you know, how he met his wife, she was out.
She was out sunbathing in the nude and he was out street
witnessing. He just walked up to her, she's
laying there. And how you doing?
He preaches the gospel to her, led her to the Lord, while she
was naked, baptized her, and then they got married.
I mean, this was a crazy. Time.
Okay. We look at what's going on now.
We're like, oh my goodness. What is happening to our nation?
I'm telling you, this has happened before and God answered
with a move called the Jesus people movement.
So during that a couple years ago where we were talking about
all this, I remember Lou Engel talking about he was out in
California talking and he was talking about healing for
homosexuality in this young man, stood up and said, sir, if you
don't have the power of God to deliver me from my sexual urges,
you have no right to call me out of homosexuality and Lou was hit
because lose a man of tremendous compassion.
Now, melt most of us are well, that young man needed an
attitude adjustment. That's probably true.
But the fact is, there is truth that you and I are the ones that
are called to carry the power of God.
And until we carry enough power. We need to get in the closet of
our prayer closet and begin to cry out to God to get the power
to deliver people. Don't call people into the
repentance that you don't have the power to help him out with.
And so as we were talking about that, it was like a coal came
from heaven and hit us Bloom and we just launched into these
prayer meetings and the reason I bring that up this morning is
God has not changed his mind. I told you going to be all over
this morning just bear with me just prior to that.
I'd called a good friend of mine, Jeff Collins many of you
know, Jeff Jeff is a tremendous man of God, he's got the
craziest stories. And I called him, I said Jeff
what's the Lord telling you and he began to weep and he said
Dave, he said I was on my way to a prayer meeting I had in a I
had a prophetic astonishment. I'm thinking.
What is that? I'm getting my, you know,
dictionary out. What's a prophetic?
I said, what do you mean? He said I was on my way to
prayer at their church and Palestine Texas.
And he said the Lord told me the state of the church right now is
the two prostitutes before. King Solomon arguing over the
remaining child, when one had died and wanting one was left.
And the two prostitutes were arguing over the the child.
And when he said it, it hit me and I began to weep.
I said, Jeff, what do you think it means?
He says I don't know he was still praying into he said but I
know this there's no moral High Ground, we've all been
unfaithful, we've all been prostitutes and we stand before
the king and as I began to pray into that, I really felt like
the Lord stressed. One thing to me, That the
emerging generation. There were two children.
There were two prostitutes, both had children, they were living
together. And during the night, one of
them had rolled over on her child and smothered the child to
death. It had died, the other child was
alive. So the one whose child had died
quietly, lifted her dead child into the arms of the other
sleeping mother and took her living child and snuggle it and
went back to sleep. Of course, the the the real
mother woke up saw the dead child and began to wail.
She was so stricken with grief and then she looked at it, she
realized this is not my child because a mother knows.
She went over to the other lady and demanded her child back and
she said this is my child. They got a big argument.
So next thing you know they're before King Solomon it's that
famous story. Where Solomon says okay they're
both crying out and Solomon says okay let's bring over a sword.
We're going to cut the baby in half and you both get one half
of the baby. And of course, the real mother
said, no. No, let it live.
I don't care who raises it. And the other lady said, yeah.
Kill it because she didn't have the mother's heart for the child
and King. Solomon wisely said this is the
real Mother. And the picture is that half of
the emerging generation has already died under the weight of
the sleeping Unfaithful bride. And what's remaining is there
was this argument over it, but when it got Before the Throne,
the care of that child was awarded to the one who want,
it's life preserved. She didn't she didn't even care.
If she got to raise it, someone else can raise it.
But it's got to live. And I'm telling you God's
looking for churches. He's looking for people that
that's their heart cry. That we say, God, we can't
tolerate this state of this generation, you've got to let it
live. They have to encounter Jesus.
And I believe God wants to release a fresh.
Jesus Revolution, I really do the markers of these two
generations are so similar, and it was like there is it was ripe
for a move of God. Well, most were wringing their
hands saying, it's hopeless and actuality.
It's ripe for a move of God in reality Chuck Smith.
The pastor in that movie, he said to his wife, one day said,
these kids are too far gone, even for God.
And she began to weep and she said, Chuck don't say that.
That you're saying they're too far gone for God, don't say
that. It was she that carried the
burden and they began to invite these young people into their
home and God created a wildfire that burned across this nation,
tens of thousands of bombed-out. Hippies came to the Lord.
It was an amazing move of God. And I believe God wants to do it
again, but he's looking for those who will cry out for their
life and that's what launched the prayer meeting.
And I think we need to remember that that God initiated
something in this house and our heart cries godsend in a harvest
Lord. Visit this generation regardless
of who gets to raise it. Lord if you send it here we'll
do what we can to make room for it.
But Lord, if you've got to send it somewhere else, all we care
is that this emerging generation That they encounter.
God let's get into the word here.
Ephesians chapter 4. Want us to look at this.
Look at verse 17. Now this size say and testify in
the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do and the
futility of their minds. So Paul discuss describes this
way of thinking as feudal thinking it's there's futility
and that thinking that type of thinking and then he goes on.
He said, they are darkened in their understanding and
alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is
in them due to the hardness of their heart, they have become
callous. So Paul is describing this
phenomena and he in Ephesians 4, he's applying it to an
individual. Now, this is a heavy passage and
we need to feel the weight of it.
For two reasons, we need to understand what has happened to
others. And we also need to understand.
This is a warning from the Apostle Paul.
He wouldn't warn us about that futile way of thinking, if it
wasn't a possibility for us to slip into it.
And really, what he's doing is, he's giving us the downward
spiral of a backslider. And in fact, if you've ever
walked away from the Lord, if you've ever walked with Jesus
and then walked away from him, you'll recognize the steps.
And what he does is he reverse Engineers this thing.
He talks about the end, Result and then he begins to work
himself towards the root cause. So look at how he says this look
in verse 18. So he says, this is the futile
thinking that he's talking about Verse 18, their darkened in
their understanding and alienated from the life of God,
the NIV says, separated from the life of God.
One translation says, cut off from the life of God.
So that is the end result there there darkened in their
understanding and alienated from the life of God because of in
other words, the cause of which is the ignorance that is in
them. So there's this ignorance that
sets in that the next stage of which is the darkening of the
understanding and they're cut off from the life of God but
then look at what it says that is in them due to.
So the real Root cause of this thing, the do tooth, the
hardness of their heart, they became Callas.
What Paul is describing is a dangerous process that you could
call the hardening of the heart. The hardening of the heart is
never an event. It's an event that gives
Kickstart to a process that if you don't recognize, it will
endanger your spiritual life. And so the hardness of the
heart, it's an interesting word. He says, the due to the hardness
of their heart, they have become callous.
You think about what a calluses? I remember, I, when I was
younger, I worked in. I worked in this tomato farm and
we had 50,000 tomato plants and there were four of us guys.
And we would hold Tomatoes, fifty thousand plants every day.
We would hope I weight about 135 pounds, but I could arm wrestle
because I had all day long, I would do this.
This every year at the beginning, I would get these
huge blisters at the time I was homeless and so I remember this
one family. Let me live with them for a
while, not very long. Then they kicked me out too, but
I was in. I remember my first day, I had
these huge blisters and I peel the skin off and it's all pink
underneath in there was dirt in there and I thought oh I need to
get and I looked up on their there are sink there in the
bathroom and there was a bottle of alcohol.
I thought oh that'll work, that'll clean it out.
I poured it on that open wound. Now when you're at someone's
house you don't want to scream bloody murder because it'll
freak them out. So I went it was the Silent
Scream in the mirror it hurt but at right man, all said I had an
instant callous. So being the smart guy that I
was, I did the other hand. I really did a callus.
Is that because of familiarity, you lose sensitivity, that's
what a callus is. You become so familiar with
handling something that you no longer have the sensitivity.
You once did. So my hands would get like
leather I could I could handle things and it didn't bother me.
Some people do that with their feet.
You people? Freak me out.
Okay. I'm like a Tenderfoot I need
shoes on but there are people that tribes of people that never
wear shoes, do run run across rocks, not even feel it because
their skin can get calloused. Truly a good picture of what
Paul is talking about. The Greek word that he translate
Hardness of Heart Is porosus sounds like cirrhosis the
hardening of the liver, but it's porosus ancient literature.
There was a story that used that term, and it was of a
tremendously overweight, man, that was dying.
He kept going into this comatose state.
So they would take long needles and puncture him trying to wake
him up. And finally, they couldn't, they
couldn't strike. Like a nerve and they called the
phenomena porosus. It was like, he could no longer
be awake and he couldn't be, he couldn't feel he lost
sensitivity. It's the hardening of the heart.
I want to say it's Proverbs 28 verse 14 and if I'm right I'm
impressed with myself because I haven't looked at Versailles
palanca. But I say it's Proverbs 28 verse
14, it just popped in my head. It juxtaposes the hardening of
the heart, over against the fear of the Lord.
It shows that they are Polar Opposites.
You either fear the lord, or you harden, your heart, the fear of
the Lord is the hatred of evil, because you realize it is not.
Never worth it, sin will never deliver what it promises.
It'll always cost you much more than the price tag.
Says, and you realize the fear of the Lord will cause you to
not pursue evil, the hardening of the heart, on the other hand,
is ignoring the conviction of the spirit when God's dealing
with us. We ignore that.
But you see what? The next step is, the ignorance
that is in them due to the hardening of their heart.
So, when we ignore a given, Ruth, this thing called
ignorance sets in, we said again, when we ignore what God's
dealing with us about in the moment, then what sets in is
ignorance, those are two different things.
Ignoring means, I don't want to know, I don't want to deal with
this. I and it's like, we have this
mistaken mythology that we buy into that, we can
compartmentalize our relationship with God, God all
obey you in every other area, except this one.
But what I'm telling you based on the authority of God's word
this morning is, you cannot compartmentalize that when you
ignore a given truth ignorance begins to set in.
What does that mean? Ignorance means that you begin
to lose what you once knew. You ignore something and now you
become ignorant of what you once knew.
I was raised in church. I was a little.
Holy Ghost Boy. My dad was a Pentecostal
preacher. I was baptized in the spirit at
12 years old had, I'd had encounters with the Lord.
I'd seen the moving of the spirit, but I made some
conscious decisions that I was going to walk away from God.
And the scary thing was that when I was away from the Lord, I
could still explain to you sound theology, but it couldn't
penetrate my heart. In fact, I remember there.
Were times, I'd get drunk and I would preach to people and
they'd laugh you're going to end up being a preacher and they
would laugh at me and but one, one of my, I had a distant
cousin. He confronted me one day.
He said, Dave, you don't even believe that stuff.
I said it's true. I've seen the stuff he said, if
you believed it you'd live it and it cut me.
But even then it seemed like I couldn't grasp.
It was like, it would turn into a mist and to a shadow in my
hands. It was like smoke.
I couldn't grasp it. Ignorance began to set in.
I could describe it in a lecture Ali but I couldn't step into it
experientially. And then what happens, they are
darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of
God because of that ignorance. So, the way it works is this you
ignore what God's dealing with you on.
You think I'm going to compartmentalize?
I'm going to be open to God in these things that I want to be
open to him on but the things I don't want to that's that's for
me to take care of. I don't want to deal with what
God's dealing with me on. When we ignore the given truth
in front of us we set in motion a process.
Where ignorance begins to Set in and then we become what?
The Bible calls darkened in our understanding, what that means
is you lose the faculty to receive more truth, the organ
that by which you're supposed to receive truth.
It's your understanding, you can't receive any more.
It's like your diminished, you can't understand.
It's like there's a dullness, you can't make sense of what
God's trying to tell you. It's a demonic thing.
And Then you're alienated from the life of God.
Now that's what happens in the life of a Believer and let's
just pause there, that's what happens in a human life but also
this can happen in the life of a Believer.
That's why Paul says You must no longer live in the futility of
the thinking of the Gentiles of unbelievers, you've got to pay
attention to what God is doing because you can set in motion
this process. Everyone of us have known people
that once walked with God that don't anymore and it's because
of this very process. And so if you're there you need
to just cry out to God. When I got saved.
I there was like a window of time and there were there were a
bunch of praying little old. Ladies, at First Church of the
Open Bible in a tumble Iowa and they were praying for me.
And all of a sudden I entered this season, where my mind
became enlightened, all of a sudden, the things of God began
to make sense. I could connect the dots.
I began to have the fear of the Lord, come upon me.
I remember I told this story recently, but I would remember
being hungry. I was homeless and so I went
into a gas station, I was going to steal some food and being the
health. Not that I am.
I was going to steal some twinkies.
And so I reached for him and I remember this very, I'm very
aware of all sin as I was reaching.
I thought, oh man, I'm going to have to pay a Twinkies, worth a
hide for this. God is going to discipline me
for this. He's going to take a Twinkies
worth out of my hide, if I steal this, I knew I could get away
with it in the store. I didn't have to answer to human
beings because I could get away, but I knew God was watching.
That was a strange thing for me to think that wasn't how I
usually thought I was a thief and a liar, but all of a sudden
I became aware of God. Why?
Because some people were praying and there was light coming into
the darkness. All of a sudden I was aware, I
begin to see certain things. But even then, when I got saved,
I remember telling the Lord, I said, God, I don't love you and
I don't want to serve you but I know you got what I need and I'm
asking you Lord, I will go through the motions.
If you'll give me the desire to do this thing, I will go through
the motions. It was just a cry of desperate.
It wasn't humility, it wasn't this.
This thing of, I still to this day, I can't believe that God
took me back the arrogance of that prayer, but all I did is
cracked the door. He came rushing in and he didn't
give it to me. I didn't have this overwhelming
desire right away. I remember going to a consulate
Team Challenge and I said, listen, I can't go back.
I was so demonized. And so broken, I had an
out-of-body experiences with demons and stuff.
I knew I was going to hell. And God graciously brought me
back in but I was numb to the things of God.
And I remember going to a counter and saying, I don't I
don't ever feel him. I don't I don't Have any sense
of his presence and he told me, he said, listen, you need to
pray. Psalm 51, restore unto me, the
joy of my salvation, that I began to ask God, Lauren.
I'm going to serve you. I'm going to go through the
motions until you give it, but I'm asking.
You God, restore to me. Lord, would you do it in me?
And God, graciously did. you don't even have to have a want
to this morning as long as you have a want to want to You may
not have a wanna, but you got to have a wanna wanna and if you
gotta wanna wanna I'm telling you, there is hope for you.
The door is cracked, and God, will come rushing in.
And if you're here this morning and you've hardened your heart,
and you've begun to walk away from, you may be living in
secret sin and everybody around you think.
So man, there, they're a tremendous man or woman of God.
They they're living a moral life and you know better, I'm telling
you there's hope for you this morning, but you need to cry out
to him. you need to let God come rushing in and rescue you from
yourself because this is a very serious phenomena, Paul lays out
here, Now, what he lays out here in Ephesians 4, we see also in
Romans 1, but it's on the macro scale, turn to Romans 1 Romans
1. It shows us Verse 18.
The corporate manifestation, or the cultural manifestation of
what we just saw on an individual scale and what's
fascinating to me, as you see some of the same words, the
futility of their thinking, the darkening of their Art it says,
Ephesians forces, the darkening of their mind, Romans 1 talks
about the darkening of their heart and then both of them, we
didn't see it in Ephesians we didn't get because if you follow
that passage it says they're given over to sensuality and
every kind of impurity with a continual Lust For more, it
implies that there's always a sexual Brokenness that will flow
out of that. That man is created to be a
worshipper and if you remove God from the throne man we'll find
something else to worship and it's not a coincidence that
every cult has some kind of aberration connected to man's
sexuality. Because there's something about
that. That is so strong that if man
doesn't have God on the throne, he descends into this idolatry
of Twisted sexuality. And so this is what we see here.
Look at Verse 18 for the wrath of God is being revealed from
Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
If you know the truth and you suppress the truth, God takes it
very He seriously. If you try to keep other people
from the truth, God takes that very seriously.
I remember when I was running from God and I had friends that
would come under conviction and I would try to talk him out of
it. It makes me tremble to this day.
For what can be known about God is plain to them because God had
shown it to them for his invisible attributes.
Namely, his eternal power, and his divine nature have been
clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in things
that have been made. So this is why you'll hear
people. Say when people say I don't
believe in God, I'm an atheist. God says to them.
I don't believe in atheists. I'm God.
Because it is evident in creation to become an atheist.
You literally have to be darkened in your understanding
and you have to do mental gymnastics to get away from the
evidence, because it's evident If there's a creation, there's a
creator. To believe this was just a
biological accident requires much more faith than
surrendering to Jesus does and so he says that God has made it
clear to man, it's what Theologian call Natural
Revelation. There is special Revelation in
scripture, but there's also natural Revelation in nature.
So that men are without excuse, God can call us to account.
So, that's why people say, well, what about the man who's never
heard. Heard the gospel.
How can God, how can God send someone to hell.
If they've never heard the gospel, men are without excuse
and when men cry out to the god of Heaven, even if they don't
know what to call him, there is story after story.
After Story, all down through history of God, revealing
himself to those people. Verse 21 for although they knew
God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.
Their thinking became futile, there it is.
There's that word again is he? Because Paul is dealing with the
same Dynamic here in Romans 1, but just on a grander scale, a
cultural application of this individual backsliding, he goes
on, they became futile in their thinking and their foolish
Hearts were darkened, go ahead and turn that.
Guy's their foolish Hearts were, darkened claiming to be wise,
they became fools. You see.
There's this thing of the darkening of the understanding
where you can't grasp. It's like you don't have the
capacity to understand. There is darkness that comes in
and you can't connect the dots. You have no light.
It's like you're groping about in the darkness trying to
understand goes. On it says and they exchanged
the glory of the immortal, God for images, resembling mortal
men and birds and animals and creeping things, therefore God
gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the
dishonoring of their bodies. The first phase is sexual
immorality among themselves because they exchanged the truth
about God, for a lie and worshipped and served the
creature rather than the Creator.
Who blessed, is blessed forever. Amen.
For this reason. Now, here's the second stage for
this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable.
Students for their women, exchanged natural relations, to
those that are contrary to Nature and the men likewise gave
up natural relations for women and were consumed with passion
for one, another men committing Shameless acts with men and
receiving in them. The due penalty of their error.
So, this is the second stage of this.
This decline one generation Embraces sexual immorality.
The Next Generation Embraces, homosexuality, and gender
confusion begins to come in. There are sociological reasons
for that. There are psychological
relations for that and there are spiritual / theological reasons
for that. In the breakdown of the home.
When the home begins to break down little boys and little
girls need their mom and dad engaged in their lives.
Especially the father. It's the father who defines the
gender of their children. A little boy Sparks.
His little masculinity off his dad's and when he doesn't have a
dad, there are certain personalities.
That 10 more to identify with the mother, some personalities.
What they'll do is they're looking, they look to establish
their masculinity through sexual Conquest with numerous women,
when they come of age, other men are looking for that validation
through sexuality and they're looking for the mail affirmation
that they missed as a child and it becomes sexualized.
So their psychological reasons are sociological reasons in the
breakdown of the family but the theological reason is right
here. They're turned over.
For continual us for more men, committing Shameless acts and
receiving in themselves. The due penalty of their error.
Let's go on, guys. And, and since they did not see
fit to acknowledge, God, God gave them up to a debased mind
to do, what ought not to be done.
They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil
covetousness, malice full of Envy murder Strife,
maliciousness, they are gossips slanderers haters.
Of God insolent. Hottie, boastful, invest and
inventors of evil disobedient. They invent new ways to commit
evil disobedient to parents. Isn't that interesting?
He throws out in that long list. Young people.
Obeying your parents is serious. Amen Nathaniel.
Yeah, he's my youngest seriously, that's some heavy
stuff, man. And he puts it on the same plane
with all this other stuff. They did not only do so they not
only practice these things knowing that they deserve to
die, they not only do them. But approve of those who
practice them, there is a cultural celebration of this
stuff that begins to set in. We're good becomes evil, evil
becomes good where they celebrate evil And what we see
is these the same markers on a cultural scale that we saw in
Ephesians chapter 4. Now let's turn to Ephesians
chapter 6, Ephesians chapter 6, finally.
So no, this is Pauline, theology.
Okay. Paul is weaving.
A theology here that you and I need to understand because this
is what's going on on our nation.
And God wants to penetrate this and lift this off.
So, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his
might put on the full armor of God, that You may be able to
stand against the schemes of the devil.
The devil has a schematic. He has a pattern by which he
operates. Okay.
So verse 12, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but
against rulers against the authorities against Cosmic
Powers over this present, Darkness, there's that word
again, over this against the spiritual forces of evil in
Heavenly places. And so there are forces of
Darkness that Tempt to impose Darkness on both the individual
mind. But also on the culture at large
that word Darkness can be transits, it has the idea it's
and other places that's used as Shadow.
It's like you're in the shadows. The light can't get through.
Also, the idea like a almost like this.
It's like, if you ever been walking along on a cloudy day, I
mean, it's a dismal day. It's like it's kind of cold out
that the sun just can't painted the it's A brown gray sky.
And and all of a sudden there's a cloud break and the Sun Burst
through and your face feels warm.
And it's like it's a good day, Everything Changes because all
of a sudden the Sunburst happened and it changes the
dynamic of everything because it, penetrated, the overcast,
Skies that overcast is a picture of what that darkness is like
both in our minds. But also Thoroughly.
There is a shared ideology that we have as a culture, the enemy
tries to weave and the more people buy into it, the more he
can reinforce that and it creates a Darkness over a nation
over a people over those with that shared belief system.
But there are times where God breaks in and it's like there's
a sunburst and the light of God breaks in and I say all that to
say that's what I saw as those hippies were cresting, the cliff
looking at the baptism, it was a time when all of a sudden these
tormented demonized young people All of a sudden something lifted
off the nation, it wasn't just an individual mind.
There was a dynamic in the air, it was atmospheric, those powers
of Darkness had been displaced and all of a sudden, the Sun
Burst through and people were aware God.
Dwells among men I can meet the Creator.
God I can have a relationship with them.
There's Is hope for my life. What it is is the displacement
of Darkness. And when we gather here, morning
after morning and cry out to God, when we are praying, when
we worship around here, we're not worshiping just because we
like it, although I like it, I worship Jesus, because he's
worthy. It doesn't matter if I feel it
doesn't matter if I like the music, I can go into a church
let believe me. I was raised in a church where
our pianist if you can only worship when you like it, they
ain't going to be any going on, okay?
She was like, she would play beat that thing and then she'd
stop and say, I don't know why we come to church here.
When we're down in Texas, we can feel them was like, Wow, got to
take the wind out of the room. I was baptized in the spirit
during a worship service. In that church.
I remember my dad, get up. Say you may be seated and I
thought seated, I'm gonna Rapture, I'm going to put a hole
in the ceiling. I mean, God was, oh, I didn't
know that. I was baptized in the spirit at
that moment. I just knew that I was so
excited by what I felt that I couldn't speak in English
anymore, and I kept stopping myself.
I thought I'm stuttering. I'm so excited.
Come go to Baba. Jesus, I believe you may be
seated. We worship because he's worthy.
But your enjoyment of worship is part of your worship.
The fact that we enjoy being in his presence, is part of what we
offer him because we're saying, Lord, you're awesome.
The best time of my week is when I'm with you Lord.
When I know I'm always with them, I'm talking about his
manifest presence. Hey, I know he's always with me
went before my coffee. It feels like it more
afterwards, but he's just as much with me before my coffee.
I know that, but I love to feel his presence.
I love being with the Saints where he comes in the room and
we know Jesus just stepped in The name above all names has
just entered the room, huh? We worship for that but there's
an added Dimension. There is a thing called
intercessory worship. and we are worshipping King, Jesus for the
sake of this community, because I'm telling you, there are
people out there that are in just as much darkness and pain
and lost like I was in like you once were they don't even know
that there's a God in heaven. There are people in this
community right now that are contemplating taking their own
life, they feel like I'm at the end.
And you and I can push back darkness by pressing the crown
rights of King Jesus in the spiritual Realm.
By lifting, his name up high, declaring his worth and it does
make a difference and there's a Tipping Point.
There are those Seasons called Revival, Awakening.
Where darkness is displaced for a season and all of a sudden
people who didn't understand all of a sudden they're aware,
there's a possibility here. I God is real, I heard someone
talking about him and I felt something I think I was
listening to a guy interviewed the other day.
He was Lonnie frisbee had gone down to the beach.
Just he said, he said back in those days he said it was crazy.
He said all these hippies would do, the craziest things we were
just that was normal. People were abnormal normally
and he said, so this long-haired little frail.
Hippie got up, put two tomato crates and started down there,
preaching. And he was talking about Jesus,
And then he just started calling people into the water and people
just start a ball and running into the water.
It wasn't planned. They would just run into the
water and he was baptizing people and he said, I'm watching
him. He said, all of a sudden my
heart starts to beat and that little hippie in the water
points to me. Yeah, you calls.
Money said God's all over you. He wants to save you, he's
inviting you into his kingdom. He said it was almost
involuntary. I jumped up on Ball and I run
into the water and get baptized. He didn't even have time to
process all the information yet. But there are seasons.
Just like those little old ladies produce for me as an
individual. And when I got saved, there were
several of us my age, I wasn't associated with these other
people. I knew who they were.
I got saved alone, but there was this little group of people
about my age. Several of us ended up in the
ministry and a little town of 27,000 people.
It was, it was like something opened over that City for this
summer and a bunch of us got swept into the kingdom.
We're asking God to do that for a nation and a generation.
I'm telling you this generation and the Twisted ideology that's
being shoved down their throat and they're being taken
advantage of. It's not too big for Jesus.
The Lord wants to step in and rescue.
And so I just wanted to share that this morning because you
and I need to understand what we're praying for We're not just
praying for a good church service.
We're asking, God God visit this nation.
It is time for another Jesus. People movement, call it what
you want. I just want to see God awaken
this nation and I believe he wants to send it.
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
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Yeah.