Luke 17:26-30
What in This World Is Going to Happen
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Last week, I started a sermon. The thought came from our last
election. No matter who you voted for, apparently at least half if
not slightly over half of the country voted for a platform that is
anti-God, socialistic, and pro-abortion. That tells me that our
country has settled on a course. The question becomes, what is going
to happen now?
I shared two thoughts last Sunday morning.
1. \\#Matt 24:3-12\\ Much of the same is going to continue to
happen. There will be more wars, more rumors of war, more
famines, more pestilences, more earthquakes, more cold
hearts, more false Christs, and so forth.
2. \\#2Thess 2:3\\ The church will continue to fall away. I said
continue because the church has been falling away for some
time. It has fallen in doctrine, in lifestyle, and in
ministry.
Then on Sunday night from 1Thess 4:13-17, I asked the question, "How
far will the church fall?" The answer was, "It will fall right into
heaven." The church may experience revival but even if it does, it
will continue to fall until the Lord removes it by the means of the
rapture.
This morning, let’s go back and note two more things are going to
happen in this world.
III. People will continue to live their lives with no thought of God.
1. Obviously, I believe that most people today live their lives
with no thought of God.
a. It is certainly true in the unsaved world.
(1) The numbers of those who are atheists in America is
estimated to be only between 3% to 4%.
(a) Agnostics make up an additional 4%.
(b) Atheists believe there is no God while agnostics
while agnostics believe if there is a God you
cannot know Him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_States
(2) World-wide that number increases to around 14%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
(3) Yet, a far greater number take no thought for God in
their everyday life.
b. But it is true among the saved as well.
(1) We do not pray and fast to seek God’s will.
(2) We do not obey God’s Word.
(3) Many do not even go to hear God’s Word preached.
(4) And few live their lives to please Him.
2. I believe this is what was prophesied in the Bible.
a. \\#26\\ Jesus was describing what it would be like in the
days when He returned.
b. \\#26\\ He said it would be like it was in the days of
Noah. How was in those days?
(1) \\#27\\ They were eating and drinking and marrying.
(a) Is there anything wrong with those?
(b) Has there ever been a generation that did not do
all three of those? No. Any generation that
did stop would be the last generation on earth.
(c) It was not the fact that the people ate, drank,
and married.
(d) It was the fact that they did all of those
things with no thought of God.
(2) The Old Testament tells us that the people of Noah’s
day were also very violent and very wicked.
\\#Ge 6:5, 11\\.
(a) Why were they that way?
(b) Because they had no thoughts for God.
(c) Their sinful behavior (violence and wickedness)
was a by-product of their sinful condition
(taking no thought of God.)
(3) We can see another result of their condition.
(a) God told Noah to build an ark and to preach to
the people for 120 years.
(b) So Noah did, but—as far as we know—no one
repented. Not one. Why not?
(c) Because no one had any thought for God.
(4) People who have no thought for God will….
(a) Ignore God’s law.
i. Why, we do not know.
ii. Perhaps they thought it was unreasonable,
too restrictive, too-old fashioned.
iii. Perhaps they thought they were too
intelligent.
(b) Then they ignore God’s preacher. Again, we
cannot know for certain why, but probably for
the same reasons.
(c) By doing these things, they remain ignorant.
i. They were ignorant of what right and wrong
actually were. Human minds cannot figure
out right and wrong for their own desires
and emotions cloud their judgment.
ii. They were also ignorant of what God was
going to do. People complain that God is
unjust, cruel, unfair; but God has never
sent a judgment that He did not first warn
was coming.
iii. Don’t plug your ears when God speaks and
then get mad for not knowing what He tried
to tell you.
(5) Trying to think like God thinks will not save you.
(a) Salvation only comes by faith in Christ and
repentance of sin.
(b) But trying to think like God will change your
behavior.
i. It will cut down on wickedness and
violence.
ii. It could and should be enough to get a
person to see their need to trust Christ.
(c) But the people in Noah’s day would not think
about God—and they perished because of it.
c. \\#28\\ Jesus also said it would be like it was in the
days of Lot.
(1) When we read that, we normally think of Sodomy, for
that was the sin that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
when God sent two angels to drag Lot and his family
out; but notice, Jesus did not mention that sin in
text.
(2) Instead, he speaks of them eating, drinking, buying,
selling, planting, and building.
(a) Is there anything wrong with those six things?
(b) No, but that is what God thought of when HE
thought of the sins in that day.
(c) Why? Because they did those things with no
thought of God.
(d) Understand, I do not mean to minimize the sin of
homosexuality, but when Jesus described the
condition of His returning day, that sin is not
what He mentioned.
(e) Homosexuality was another of the results of
their condition but their condition was they
had no thought of God!
(f) Both of these texts seem to be describing
the same condition which will exists when Jesus
returns. Neither texts mentions their sinful
actions but both lead us to think it was their
daily life without God.
d. \\#Luke 12:16-21\\
d. I think the condition that was predominate during both of
these time periods was that they people had no thought
for God and having no thought for God lead to the sins of
wickedness, violence, and homosexuality.
(1) I think it is the same sin which is leading us down
that path today.
(2) And I think it is going to get worse and worse while
we wait for the Lord to return.
IV. \\#Romans 1:19-32\\ Sin will continue to increase.
1. We turn to this text often for in it is contained a
description of this day. The entire account is an account of
man’s downward spiral into sin.
2. As I refer to it often, we will not read it all. The chapter
contains 5 platforms from which man will descend.
a. First platform:
‘
Romans 1:21 Because that, when they knew God,
they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful; but became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened.
(1) To know God but not to glorify Him is to refuse to
obey or honor God.
(2) This is what I just talked about. It is to strike
God from your thoughts.
(3) Man will sin because he is a sinner but for man to go
deep into sin, he must strike God from his mind, to
have no thought of God.
(4) Doing so darkens your heart and stirs up your foolish
and vain imaginations.
(5) This darkness has been over the majority of the lost
world for centuries at a time.
i. Yet it must increase.
ii. How? Where else can it go?
iii. It will go and has gone into the church.
iv. As I said last week, the church has always had
to battle against the world and evil and it
has often been infiltrated, but always, the
true church has separated itself from the
wicked, smaller in number. poorer in
resources, but richer in God’s grace.
v. Sadly today, the church does not seem to be
separating. The darkness and the foolishness
has come and the church is accepting it.
vi. Sin is increasing.
(6) Yet, this is just the first platform.
b. The second platform:
Romans 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to
uncleanness through the lusts of their own
hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between
themselves:
(1) This is not homosexuality. That will be the fourth
platform and it takes a while for man to descend that
low.
(2) This is to give oneself over to his lust and to mar
his body with addictions.
(3) Addictions are certainly not new. They are ancient.
(4) And there is more to addict oneself to than just
cigarettes, booze, and drugs.
(5) Short list: food (eating), sex, pornography.
computers, video games, work, exercise, spiritual
obsessions, pain, cutting, shopping
http://www.healthyplace.com/addictions/addictions-information/types-of-
addiction-list-of-addictions/
(6) All of these have two things in common:
i. They are done out of the lusts of the mind.
ii. They dishonor the body.
c. The third platform:
Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a
lie, and worshipped and served the creature more
than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
(1) We have not seen this on large scale yet, but it is
beginning.
(2) In our world today, religion is being largely
abandoned, but twice in Matthew 24, we saw that
false Christs were to increase and here we read that
mankind is to turn to worshipping the created
instead of the Creator.
(3) Satan does not want worship or religion to be
forsaken.
(a) He wants to be the object of worship so it is
counterproductive to him to stop it.
(b) Satan’s goal is to redirect our worship.
(c) At this point, it does not matter what we
worship—Allah, idols, animals, stars.
(d) As long as it is not the God of the Bible, he
will be content for he has a plan.
(e) When the world gets into enough trouble, he will
step on the scene as a healer and helper and
direct all of that false worship to himself.
d. The fourth platform:
Romans 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto
vile affections: for even their women did change
the natural use into that which is against
nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the
natural use of the woman, burned in their lust
one toward another; men with men working that
which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves
that recompence of their error which was meet.
(1) This is the sin of Sodom and of our whole world.
(2) In our life time, we are seeing something that the
world has never seen before.
(a) It is obvious that Sodomy has been around at
least since Genesis 19.
(b) No doubt, individuals, homes, cities, perhaps
even whole nations have been given over to it.
(c) But never before has the whole world been given
over to it.
(d) While there may be a brief turning back to some
measure of sanity, the overall direction of
the world in this area will be that this sin
will continue to increase.
e. The fifth platform:
Romans 1:29 Being filled with all
unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy,
murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient
to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers,
without natural affection, implacable,
unmerciful:
(1) We will just call this the abundance of sin.
(2) It does not matter what kind or what the results are.
(3) Sin will increase until people are filled with hatred
for God, betrayal, foolishness, anger,
maliciousness, and every wickedness imaginable.
(4) You are seeing this last platform taking hold right
now. (riots, fear, murder of the police, stupidity
beyond comprehension)
(5) And sin will continue to increase in like fashion
until God has had enough of it.
I have listed four things that this world is going to continue to do
until Jesus comes. It may be that there will be a period of slowing
down in these vents. It may even be that a great revival will
actually move the hands of time back a few years; but no matter what
good may happen, these four evils will continue until Jesus returns.
However, the issue is not what will happen to or in this world. Not
for the Christian. For you, the question is, "What will you do?" and
"What will you be?"
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