Standing Strong in the Last Days

Larry Nobles: This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, who today has the answers to two powerful questions: What must the church have to endure in the last days before Jesus comes back? And question two, what do believers need to be doing until Jesus returns? Out of sight, out of mind, but one day the last days will be here. And many people will be shocked and immediately blurt out, at least in their hearts, "Hey, we had no warning." But the warning signs are all around us now to see. And Christians must be at their battle stations, fighting for the faith so others can be informed about the deception that is in our midst. And that's why today's message from Pastor Jeff is appropriately called, "What to Do Until He Comes." It's the last message in Pastor Jeff's series, "Face Off: Fighting for the Faith." Now today we'll hear part one from the last lesson in the series, part two on Monday. But you can also listen to these broadcasts that have already aired when you go to fromhisheart.org and click the listen link and even download an MP3 of any broadcast for free. But first, open your Bible now if you can and go to the book of Jude, verse 17 through 23. Here's Pastor Jeff Schreve to tell us what exactly God says we should do until he comes.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: A pastor was walking through the neighborhood one day. He was walking on the sidewalk. He saw a little boy, and the little boy was at the front door of a house and he was trying like anything to ring the doorbell, but he wasn't tall enough. And so he was up on his toes trying to reach the doorbell, but he couldn't reach it. He was jumping up trying to reach it; he couldn't get to it. The pastor thought, "Man, I'm going to help this little guy out." And so he walked up and he looked at the little boy and smiled, and he rang the doorbell. He gave it a really good ring, and then he bent down and he said, "What do we do now, little man?" He said, "Now, we run!" Not quite what he thought. I want to speak to you today on this subject: What to do until he comes. What do we do now? We've been in a series on the book of Jude. Jude is an interesting little book, just one chapter, 25 verses, tucked right before the book of the Revelation. Right before the book that speaks of the second coming of Jesus and the time of the tribulation and all the things that are going to come upon planet Earth before the Lord comes. It's interesting that Jude is a book that speaks of an alarm. Jude paints a very sobering picture of what the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be like in the last days. What the church is going to experience in terms of attacks, and they're not going to be the attacks from without. The church has had attacks from without since its inception. The church is going to experience in the last days before the Lord comes attacks from within. Attacks from within where the devil releases the sharks into the water to eat up and chew up God's people and to eat and chew up the truth. They're termites that come into the very fabric and the foundation of the church of the living God, and they chew at the foundations. The Bible says if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? And a lot of people don't spend much time in the book of Jude. They don't think about the things that Jude said. But listen, God doesn't want us to run. He doesn't want us to give in. He doesn't want us to hide. He doesn't want us to bury our head in the sand. He tells us what he wants us to do until he comes, and that is to earnestly contend for the faith. Jude, I'll begin reading in verse 17. He says this, he's been talking about the sharks, the apostates, and then he says this: "But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you in the last time there shall be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts. These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are doubting. Save others, snatching them out of the fire, and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh." What are we to do until he comes? Three exhortations that are given at the end of Jude, verses 17 through the end of the chapter. Exhortation number one: Be vigilant. This is an alarm letter. This is a war cry epistle. This is a red alert letter. So be on alert. Be vigilant. Watch and pray, Jesus said. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Have your antenna up spiritually in these days in which we live. Why? Because not everybody talking about heaven is going there. So be spiritually discerning. John said in 1 John 4:1, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." When your antenna is up, you're sensitive to hear the theme song from Jaws. Dun-dun, dun-dun. You know if there's sharks, the devil's sharks are in the water and your ears are open to hear, "Okay, is this person—I'm going to check this person out. I'm going to make sure that this person is legit." Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Be vigilant. And he says in verse 17 again, "But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." Remember. Remember two things. Remember the Word of God has warned us. The Word of God told us this was going to happen. Sometimes we get the idea that something must really have gone wrong because we're having these troubles and this stuff is going on in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and where did we go wrong? Where did we go off? You don't need to think like that. God said this was going to happen. That's like when Peter says to people, "Hey, you're going through a fiery trial. Well, don't freak out like some weird, strange thing has happened to you. This is going to happen." If you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, he said in the world you have tribulation. You're going to go through hard times. And the people that God wants to use the most go through the hardest of times because when you're in the hottest flame, the dross is burned off and there comes out a vessel for the smith, as the scripture says. And so don't get the idea that something weird must be happening because we're having trouble in the church today. No, the Lord says that was going to happen. He said that in the latter times that these things are going to take place. In the last days, verse 18, there will be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts. That's going to happen. I remember a few years back, an individual talked to me and there were some issues going on in the church and he said, "Man, I just don't understand this. Why are we having this trouble?" And he was freaked out about it. I was like, "I'm not that surprised." The devil's not stupid. The devil's not going to run a full-court press on a place where nothing's going on. Why would you need to do that? He doesn't even have to show up at a place where nothing's going on, and there still nothing is going to be going on. So he's going to come to places where something is going on and God is at work and God is moving, and what is he going to try and do? He's going to try and mess it up. He's going to try and thwart the purposes of God. Paul said in the book of 1 Corinthians 16, he talked about Ephesus and being at Ephesus and he said, "There is a wide door for effective service for me, and there are many adversaries." Because God has opened a door there, and so I'm there and I'm ministering, Paul said, but there are many adversaries. Why? Because the devil stirs folks up when God is at work. So remember, God said this was going to happen. God has warned us. And don't freak out over problems in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ today because God said there are going to be problems. And remember how to spot a shark. When we talk about your antenna being up and you're looking for termites, you're looking for sharks, you're looking for those that come in whose hearts aren't in the right place and they're not for the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you sense those? How do you know that those people are like that? What do you look for? How do you spot a shark? He says they're mockers in verse 18. They follow after their own ungodly lusts. Jude is only 25 verses. He uses the word ungodly six times in this short little epistle. Ungodly, ungodly, ungodly. He says for certain persons have crept in unnoticed. They're ungodly persons. And they are all about greed and it's all about self and they don't want to follow the Lord. And he says that they cause divisions. These are the ones, verse 19, who cause divisions. Have you ever met anybody in a church who likes to cause trouble, who likes to cause division? You say, "What's up with that? Why do so many churches seem to have division?" Well, because the devil is at work and he wants to cause division.
Larry Nobles: Given that truth that there are and will be divisions in the church, what are God's people to do about it? Stay with us; Pastor Jeff returns on From His Heart in just a moment with the answer. Today's message is called "What to Do Until He Comes." It's from Pastor Jeff's timely series, "Face Off: Fighting for the Faith." It's a study of the book of Jude, warning us that false teachers with their dishonest teaching will try to secretly infiltrate and poison the church in the last days. You see, there are tons of churches with internal struggles, and many are because Christians have allowed Satan to get his way by diminishing the authority of Scripture, by allowing the current counterculture to dictate church beliefs, and waver on the exclusivity of salvation through Christ alone and many other ways. So many churches have fallen for the deception, and it's distorting the saving message of Christ and derailing the work of God. And that's why Pastor Jeff's series, "Face Off: Fighting for the Faith," is so important today. It's available online when you go to fromhisheart.org, and you'll be encouraged and empowered by these four lessons available in the format of your choice. Now let's get back to today's message, the last in the "Face Off" series called "What to Do Until He Comes," part one.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: In the church at Corinth, the very first chapter, Paul had to talk to them. He said, "What is going on here? Some of you say, 'I am of Paul,' and some of you say, 'I am of Apollos,' and some of you say, 'I am of Cephas,' and some of you say, 'Well, I am of Christ.'" He says, "Is Christ been divided? Why do we have these divisions here?" He says, "Who's Paul? Was Paul crucified for you? Why are you saying 'I am of Paul'?" But they attached themselves to certain personalities, the church in Corinth did. And the people are like, "Oh, I love it when Paul preaches," and somebody else says, "You can have Paul. I like Apollos. Man, he is mighty, he is eloquent, he's mighty in the scriptures. I like Apollos." And someone's like, "Peter is where it's at. I've heard he's the first pope. I like Peter." And so they attached themselves to these guys. And Paul's like, "You're not supposed to do that. That's wrong." And the false teachers had gone into Corinth and they were creating divisions in Corinth, and they were preaching a false gospel. And Paul had to get onto the church at Corinth. He says, "Why do you tolerate these guys? Don't let them have a platform in your church. They're deceitful workers. They're agents of the devil, and you have to be able to recognize them." When somebody starts causing division and tries to pull people away from the whole and say, "Hey, you get on my team and we're over here," major red flag ought to go up. Joshua in Joshua chapter 5, he's getting ready to fight the battle of Jericho. And before he fights the battle of Jericho, in Joshua chapter 5, he's walking outside by the city of Jericho and all of a sudden he sees a man with his sword drawn. And Joshua says this: "Are you for us or are you for our adversaries?" And the man, who is really the Lord Jesus Christ, a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, says, "Are you for us or for our adversaries?" and he says, "No." No. It wasn't a yes or no question. "Are you for us or for our adversaries?" "No. But indeed I come as captain of the Lord of Hosts. Take your shoes off, Joshua, for the place on which you're standing is holy ground." And Joshua fell upon his face before the Lord. He didn't come to take your side. He didn't come to take my side. He came to take over. We need to get on his side all the time in any situation because his side is the one that matters. But these folks, these sharks, these termites, they come in and they try and cause division. You say, "Why are they causing division?" Because it says they're worldly-minded. They care about the things of this world. They're not kingdom-minded. They're not heavenly-minded. They're worldly-minded. That's a huge, huge critical piece when you're trying to evaluate: is this person on fire for the Lord? Are they doing the work of God, or are they doing this for themselves? You say, "Where are they focused?" Are they focused on the kingdom of here, or are they focused on the kingdom of God? I always think about what Jesus said to Pilate. He said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would fight, but my kingdom is not from here." His kingdom was in heaven. Now, folks who cause division, their kingdom is here. And you will have different folks in the church and they'll fight for different area that they like, their pet little area. Maybe it's choir, or maybe it's their Sunday school class, or maybe it's this ministry over here, or maybe it's this children's class or maybe it's this singles group or it's this thing or it's that thing or it's this other thing. And man, if anything jostles that, they're like ants. And it's like kicking an ant bed. You kick an ant bed, they let you know they're there, right? They come out in mass. "Why? You messed with my kingdom." And in church, you've got some kingdom—some folks that are not the kingdom of God-oriented; they're worldly kingdom-oriented, and if you kick their ant bed, they will come after you. They're worldly-minded. And it's all for the kingdom of God. It's not. If we have anything that becomes a kingdom, it becomes as in the Bible in the Old Testament, it's Nehushtan. It's the bronze serpent that Moses made in the wilderness that God used at one time, and the people looked at that bronze serpent and then they were healed from the snake bites in the book of Numbers. But then they kept these things around and they burned incense to the Nehushtan, the bronze serpent, and then they began to worship that and it becomes an idol. And God told the king, "You smash that idol. You get rid of that. We can't have any of that. We can't have any little kingdoms in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ because it's all his kingdom and it has to all be for him." But they're worldly-minded, and the reason they're worldly-minded is because the scripture says they're devoid of the Spirit. They're not Christians. They're not saved. That's why they do what they do. So what are we to do until he comes? Number one: be vigilant. Watch and pray. Get your antenna up and be on the alert. Exhortation number two: not only be vigilant, be diligent. Be diligent. Make every effort to grow in your Christian life. Look at verses 20 and 21 again: "But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life." Now here is the contrast. The apostates, the fakers, the tares among the wheat, they come in. What do they want to do? They want to eat up. They want to destroy. He says don't tear down; build up. Build yourselves up on your most holy faith. And he gives us five areas where we're supposed to be diligent to grow. Number one: spend time in the Word of God. Area number one is the Word of God. Where it says to build yourselves up on your most holy faith, how do you do that? You do that through the Word of God. The only way you can build yourself up in faith is through the Word of God because Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so it's like, "Well, if I want to please God, I better have faith." Well, how do I get faith? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. I get it through the Word of God. You're never going to have faith, I'm never going to have faith, unless we spend time in this book. Secondly, you spend time talking to God. He says, "building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit." So as you spend time reading God's Word, then you're going to pray. Praying in the Holy Spirit. What is that? Prayer's just talking to God. It's just sharing with God out of your heart. It's bringing your requests before the Lord. It's telling God about your day. It's telling him about your frustrations. It's telling him about your fears. It's talking to him. It's developing that best friend relationship with God. That's prayer. Prayer is so important. And see, the Bible always links prayer and the ministry of the Word, prayer and the Bible together. They're like peas and carrots, like peanut butter and jelly. They just go together. The scripture says in the book of Acts, the disciples were spending too much time serving tables and they said, "It's not good for us to neglect the Word of God in serving tables. We need to select some men who can do this task, men that have a good reputation, men full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit." And they told the church, "You find those guys and you put them over this task." And Acts chapter 6 verse 4: "But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word." And that's what they did. Every preacher needs to focus—not solely, not just 100 percent, but a big chunk of his life, prayer and the ministry of the Word, because that's what God has called a preacher to do: preach the Word. So you spend time in the Word of God, you spend time talking to God. And then he says in verse 21, "keep yourselves in the love of God." You read that and you think, "I've got to keep myself in the love of God? Is God not going to love me anymore if I don't keep myself in his love?" Jeff, doesn't it say somewhere—I've read it somewhere in the book of Romans, maybe it's chapter 8—that says nothing can separate us from the love of God? Neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creature can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Doesn't it say something like that? It does. You say, "Well, this seems to say that I have to keep myself in the love of God, and man, it's all dependent on me and God may not love me." And so many people get confused about God's love, and they have that daisy theology, and it's all based on what happens to you in your life. It's just snapshot theology. It's like when things are going good, God must love me. When things are going bad, God must not love me. I heard one guy call it daisy theology: "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not." Just based on circumstances. And so that verse, "Hey, keep yourselves in the love of God," does that mean that I can somehow fall out of the love of God? No. It's not what it means. It means keep yourself in these last days. What to do before he comes, until he comes: keep yourself in the sphere, in the blessing of the love of God.
Larry Nobles: What an incredible word of encouragement and warning for us to grow closer to God more than ever. Today's message from Pastor Jeff's four-message series, "Face Off," is called "What to Do Until He Comes." This series and the message are available online at fromhisheart.org. And listen, when you're there, would you please ask God what he might have you to do to join us financially this month? It's only through our listeners' generous gifts that we're able to create and produce and distribute these programs each day on stations all across America and around the world. Pastor Jeff receives zero income from this ministry. For your gift this month, we'd like to send you Pastor Jeff's new timely six-lesson series, "Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude." Again, that's for your gift of any amount this month. Go to fromhisheart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE (866-402-4253). God bless you for standing with us to help people fight for the faith so we can share God's truth in love around the world. On our website, we also have a small sampling of many real testimonies from real listeners all around the world, sharing the real fruit from this mission called From His Heart. And we'd also love to hear what you think about and how God has used this ministry to help in your daily walk. Go to fromhisheart.org/real-testimonies and leave us your thoughts of the impact the teaching of Pastor Jeff has had on you. Thank you so very much. When you're at our website, we hope you'll sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly "Real Hope" email encouragement devotional letter. You'll get that in your Friday morning inbox. The web address again: fromhisheart.org. And thanks again for being here today. I'm Larry Nobles, reminding you that Monday will close out this series with part two of today's message, "What to Do Until He Comes." Here's just a little of the truth we'll hear about on Monday.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: This says you'll stand in his presence blameless with great joy. Wow. And you get to see face-to-face the one that you've known heart-to-heart. Wow. And you're made like him, the Bible says. When we see him, we shall be like him, for we shall see him just as he is.
Larry Nobles: Join us next time when Pastor Jeff Schreve will open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart, here on From His Heart.