Today’s message summary of March 15, 2015 from Pastor Gus Brown:
We are now approaching a time where even many Christians will want to get away from today’s tumultuous period. There will be difficult times ahead, but Jesus tells us to “be ready.” There has to be a thought process where a person will need to take a stand with Him and remain faithful. The power to stand will come through the Holy Spirit to take a stand. The challenge will take place where a person will be called upon to denounce Jesus Christ, and a person will need to make a choice.
When it comes to subjects such as having children out of wedlock, crime, vulgarity or horrific acts, these are intense times that we live in. It is happening more and more in society today, where we didn’t hear so much about these things when we were growing up.
There has to be something that deters the sin that is occurring within our society. We also understand that it is going to get worse.
There are acts of vandalism, loud and disruptive behavior, brutality and a general lack of gentlemanly behavior. There was a time when you didn’t hear a woman cussing (beautiful on the outside until they open their mouths).
You need to set boundaries for this and many types of behavior.
Things are getting worse and not getting better.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is that will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.
2 Peter 3:3-4
First, be aware of this: Scoffers will come in the last days to scoff, living according to their own desires, saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.”
How long has the church been saying that Jesus is coming? For quite a while–since Paul’s time. We have to remember that this is a promise from God that remains to be fulfilled. What people need to understand is that God is still trying to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 24:39
They didn’t know until the flood came and swept them all away. So this is the way the coming of the Son of Man will be.
Did the people really not know, or did they close their ears to the truth? Noah was preaching a message to the people to repent and turn to God. In essence, people chose to disregard him.
We can hopefully see that things are intensifying:
2 Timothy 3:1-5
But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. For people will be lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people!
God’s power has the ability to change a person. You can deny his power by simply following your own way or the ways of the Devil.
There will be hard-pressing days, and you will only know relief when those days pass. In reality, there are many days that are difficult in the life of a Christian.
People will love themselves and lack respect for others.
Luke 16:14-15
The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and scoffing at Him. And He told them: “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly admired by people is revolting in God’s sight.
Philippians 2:3
Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.
James 2:14-16
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?
People will be lovers of money:
Mark 7:10-13
For Moses said:
Honor your father and your mother, and
Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.
But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit you might have received from me is Corban'” (that is, a gift committed to the temple), “you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. You revoke God’s word by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many other similar things.”
1 Timothy 3:3, 6:10
…not addicted to wine, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy–
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
People will be boastful (empty pretenders, giving oneself airs, in loud and flaunting ways–attention getting).
Matthew 23:5-7
They do everything to be observed by others: They enlarge their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love the place of honor at banquets, the front seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by people.
These are some of the attitudes of the people you will experience during these perilous times. Open your eyes and see if the temperature is going up. If you can see these things, you know that you are in the Last Days.
Akron Alliance Fellowship 