Participants:
Series Code: IIW
Program Code: IIW201605A
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00:00 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL
00:05 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 00:10 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 00:15 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 00:21 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 00:26 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 00:31 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 00:36 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 00:41 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 00:45 IIW-TJF-A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 01:31 >>Announcer: It has stood the test of time. 01:35 God's book, The Bible 01:38 Still relevant in today's complex world 01:44 It Is Written 01:46 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 01:59 >>Chris: Do you remember the tune? Certainly you remember the words. Two all beef patties, 02:04 special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles all on a sesame seed bun. That's right the infamous 02:11 Big Mac. Whatever your thoughts on a Big Mac may be, a study was done a few years ago called "The 02:20 Big Mac and the Ten Commandments." I won't ask how many of you have eaten a Big 02:24 Mac. That little jingle has stuck in the mind of millions for many years? You know, the 02:33 sad thing is that I haven't eaten a Big Mac in a long, long time. Yet, I am able to think of 02:39 the ingredients with relative ease. Here's the amazing thing, the survey that they took shows 02:47 that more people can name the seven ingredients in a McDonald's Big Mac than the Ten 02:53 Commandments. Prepare for yourself to be shocked. They surveyed 1,000 people, and it 02:59 showed that 80% of the people could name the sandwich's primary ingredient of two 03:06 all-beef patties, but less than 60% of the people recalled the commandment "Thou shalt not 03:11 kill." Let that sink in for a moment. They found 45% could recall the commandment "Honour 03:18 your father and mother," while 76% remembered the Big Mac ingredient lettuce. 75% knew 03:26 sesame seed bun. 66% knew special sauce. 62% knew pickles. 60% knew cheese. But don't miss 03:36 the point. All of those ingredients are more than the people could recall "Honour your 03:42 father and mother." It is remarkable that in this day and age, more people know that there 03:51 are pickles on a Big Mac than the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." What is happening in our 03:58 society? A society where more people know that a sesame seed bun is a part of the ingredients 04:05 of a sandwich from the golden arches than the commandment "Honour your father and your 04:09 mother." What's happening in our society? You see, something is going on in our society. We read 04:17 the newspaper, we watch the news, we read the internet. Lines are being blurred, and 04:23 moral standards which were once rock-solid are seemingly non-existent. It seems that our 04:31 society has turned its back on God's moral standards. If we look into the world of 04:40 entertainment, we find competing values. Many studies have been done on this. The average 04:46 18-year-old - let this sink in now - the average 18-year-old has witnessed 200,000 violent 04:55 acts on television and in the movies, including 40,000 murders. Let that sink in for a 05:02 moment. What does that do to the mindset, that someone witnesses violent acts and murder? It has 05:10 desensitized our society. And what we're seeing and that the research reveals is the Biblical 05:16 reality, that by beholding, we become changed. After you witness violent act after 05:24 violent act, murder after murder, it becomes much easier to pull the trigger. I'll never 05:31 forget when I was in high school, when we received news in my 11th-grade year, that one of 05:36 my classmates had been sitting in the back of a car, and someone approached their car, 05:42 whose hat was turned just the wrong way, whose shirt happened to be the wrong colour, whose 05:51 pants were rolled up on one side - the wrong side. And this classmate of mine, pulled out a 05:58 gun and killed this young man. Later he went to trial, was found guilty and was sentenced 06:05 to 65 years in prison. 06:11 And you think about this, this is what's happening in society. It's becoming easier to pull the 06:15 trigger, because if we're pulling the trigger in video games, how much easier is it? 06:20 When we're playing video games that are focussed with one primary goal - how many kills 06:26 can you achieve - it becomes much easier to do it in real life. Children who identify 06:32 with aggressive TV characters and perceive the violence to be realistic are most at risk for 06:38 later aggression, according to the American Psychological Association. In 2013, the Youth 06:45 Risk Behaviour Survey found this among high school students during the past - what does it 06:53 say? - 30 days: 35% of them drank alcohol. I would remind you, in high school, you're 06:57 under the age of 18. 21% binge drank; 10% drove while drinking alcohol; 22% rode with a driver 07:07 who had been drinking alcohol. You see, it's starting younger and younger and younger. Last 07:17 year, I went to Nunavut, and in Nunavut, we are doing a special project to bring Bibles in 07:21 Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit peopleand we're also working to build community 07:27 centres where churches can meet, but are used on a daily basis. However while I was there, I met 07:35 young people 8 and 9 years old, and this young man who was 8 years old, the first question he 07:43 asked me was not, what's my name, where are you from? The first question he asked me was, 07:51 "Do you use drugs?" Why did he ask me that question? Because he lived in a home where his 08:03 parents were doing drugs, drugs that they were obtaining from outsiders, workers, who were 08:07 bringing them in and selling them. Then the parents would buy the drugs and have no money for 08:14 food. And then the children could not eat. And then the children would steal the 08:18 parents' drugs. So you have eight-year-olds, this eight-year-old in particular, 08:22 who was regularly smoking marijuana. It's becoming younger and younger. Our society 08:30 seems to be in decay. One-third of teenagers report that they have used some illicit drug at 08:37 some point in their lives. According to some statistics 57% of all men, 54% of all women 08:45 report some type of marital infidelity. A more disturbing statistic is this, when asked 08:53 the question, would you have an affair if you never got caught? 74% of men said they would. 68% 09:00 of women said they would. What's happening in our society? What's going on? There is moral 09:09 decay in our society. Pornography is rampant. 09:18 When I was in school, and I had to preach on the seventh commandment - thou shalt not 09:25 commit adultery - and I was in a preaching class, and so you know, when you preach to 09:35 preachers, it's a little intimidating, but I wanted to make it relevant, so I started 09:42 doing research. And the research indicates that anywhere between 45 and 55% of all pastors have 09:49 some form of pornographic material on their computers at that very moment. By the way, 09:57 that's not to denigrate the pastors; that's to demonstrate the challenges we are facing in 10:03 the eroding moral situation in this country. You see, Proverbs 28:26 gives this little snippet, 10:12 but how powerful it is: 10:25 That's what's happening in our society. We see it all around. But today, we will look, because 10:32 this is not what God intended. You see the Jerusalem factor is all about turning our eyes 10:40 upward toward heaven and looking to the new Jerusalem. To the tabernacle made by God and not 10:47 man and seek to find answers the ever quickening moral decay or our society. 10:58 Let's step back in time, over 3,000 years ago, God wrote some things in stone, that, if 11:05 applied to the society in Canada, the society in all of North America, and the society 11:10 around the world for that matter.that would make a marked difference in what is happening 11:16 in society today. You see, Psalm 111 verses 7 to 9 says this: 11:38 How long? Forever and ever. That is powerful. You see, God wrote His precepts, which is 11:51 another word for laws or regulations. He wrote them, that they would stand forever. But 11:54 God's law is under attack. But you know, it is very interesting, the book of Daniel 12:00 actually predicts exactly what's happening in society, because there's an entity working to 12:09 actually tear down the law of God. We've read about it before in Daniel chapter 7 and 12:16 verse 25: 12:42 He [speaking of that little horn, religiopolitical power], 12:47 Whose law is he trying to change? God's law. So now we have this entity that's actually 12:49 trying to change the law. Additionally in Daniel 8:25 this little horn power is doing all 12:58 he can to undermine God's governance, it says: 13:19 Who's the Prince of princes? Jesus Christ Himself. But then interestingly enough, when you 13:27 go to Daniel chapter 11, this same little horn power is at it once again, and it says that he 13:34 shall turn in rage against the holy covenant. Whose covenant is the holy covenant? That's God's 13:41 covenant. You see, Daniel told us that at the end of time, when this little horn power would 13:48 rise, in the judgement hour, that this little horn power would actually work to change 13:53 the law, actually work against the law, actually work against the very name of God. 14:06 Why is this all important? Other than the obvious reason of the fact that the law of God is 14:11 the law of God. The book of Revelation says something very interesting about those who will 14:18 be on the earth during the time of the end. In Revelation chapter 12 and verse 17, it 14:27 talks about the dragon. Who is the dragon? It is Satan. He was enraged with the woman. In Bible 14:38 prophecy, a woman represents the church. And he went to make war with who? The rest of her 14:47 offspring. If you're reading from the King James Version, it says "the remnant of her Seed." 14:55 What is that talking about? That's talking about those who are God's people that are 15:01 leftover that look like the original intention of God's people. And how are they 15:06 defined? 15:21 You see, the book of Daniel talks about the law of God being attacked. The book of Revelation 15:26 says that God's people, at the end of time, will be keepers of the commandments of God. And 15:33 this is not just one isolated verse, by the way. Revelation 14:12 says: 15:51 Please don't miss the point of these verses. They are two different verses that describe 15:56 what God's end-time people look like. Those who are on the earth, faithful to God, awaiting 16:03 the return of Jesus, both of these verses say they will be keeping the commandments. And 16:10 here's the amazing thing about the Ten Commandments. Even though the Ten Commandments were 16:14 written sometime about 3500 years ago, the Ten Commandments speak with relevance and meaning 16:22 to the 21st century. Now, let me clarify what I just said. God wrote it in stone and gave it to 16:29 Moses 3500 years ago. But we're going to see in our study, that God's law has not existed only 16:36 for 3500 years. The Bible says that God's law is eternal. 16:45 But look at these commandments. What would happen in society today? What would happen - and 16:53 let's not make it so big - what would happen in Calgary or Toronto or St John's or 17:00 Vancouver, what would happen in Canada, if no one placed any other God before the God of 17:08 heaven? Now, I'm not talking about forced religion. What if people placed God first in their 17:20 life? What would happen? What would happen if we lived in a society where people did not 17:24 worship idols? And by the way, when I speak of worshipping idols, don't say in your mind, 17:29 "Oh, I don't have any statues in my house." But idols being, "th worshipping people or events or 17:39 other things, and caring about those things more than I do about God." What would happen in 17:44 our society if the name of God was never taken in vain? You know, I travel a lot, and I'll 17:49 never forget, not too long ago, we were travelling at the same time, we were sitting in the 17:56 lounge waiting for our airplane, and there was a man across the way that - and I'm not being 18:02 judgemental of him, I'm simply making an observation - literally, not figuratively, 18:07 literally, every other word out of his mouth was a foul word. And I just sat there, and I 18:14 said, "You know, I think I'm going to turn my phone on and I'm going to record him, and 18:19 then when it's really quiet, I'm going to play it back really loud, so he can hear what he 18:24 sounds like. Now, I didn't do that, but imagine a society with clean language. 18:36 What would happen in a society that's overburdened, stressed, and full of people who are 18:42 suffering from anxiety, to remember what God said, that we should have one day that is 18:50 completely dedicated to God? What would happen in society if children honoured their father 18:57 and mother? By the way, let me expand upon that. What would happen in a society that 19:03 children honoured their father and mother because their father and mother were honourable? But 19:10 by the way, that's not a condition of the commandment. But what would happen? What 19:14 would happen in a society where no one killed each other? I'm going to tell you what would 19:19 happen in society. Every news outlet would go out of business. What would happen in a society 19:25 where there was no adultery? Where there was no adultery, no infidelity, ever? What would 19:30 happen in that society? What would happen in a society where no one stole anything, where 19:35 everyone honoured the realities of ownership? What would happen in a society where no one lied, 19:40 no one bore false witness against their neighbour? What would happen in a society? What 19:44 would happen in a society where no one coveted other people's stuff? And I'm going to hit the 19:51 pause button, because I want to be very clear in what I'm about to say. I believe in God. I have 20:01 given my life to Jesus Christ. But here's what I want to ask, for the sceptic that may be 20:06 watching or listening right now. Even if God did not exist, tell me that God's laws would not 20:20 make society a better place. Imagine for a moment - which I don't believe - but imagine for 20:27 a moment that God didn't exist, imagine for a moment that the entirety of the Bible - which I 20:32 do not believe - but imagine it was all just a fairytale - which again I do not believe. But 20:39 imagine that we lived, each one of us, lived our lives in accordance with the Ten 20:49 Commandments, and we got to the end of our life and found out that Jesus really wasn't coming 20:54 again. Would we be worse for the wear to live in such a way? 21:04 But here's the beauty of it all: God does exist. Jesus is coming soon. And Jesus is coming 21:09 to set up a kingdom that looks like that. And it's a beautiful thing. You see, God's law is the 21:19 very foundation of His throne. It's the foundation of His governance. And God's law is 21:24 eternal. It is the eternal moral standard which defines sin and establishes our accountability 21:33 to God. That is the Jerusalem factor. There exists an unchangeable moral standard for 21:43 all time. So I want you to notice now, we're going to try to understand why the law 21:48 exists, because there is a lot of discussion in Christianity about the law of God, with many 21:54 Christians ignoring the law of God. But 1 John 3:4 is very clear. 22:15 Other versions will say that sin is the transgression of the law. You see, sin is defined by God's 22:23 law. Sin is when we break God's law. How do we identify sin? How do we know what sin is? God's 22:30 law defines it for us. The beauty of that is, there's no floating definition of what is 22:36 sin. So that way there is no relativistic approach to moral living, a what is sin for you is 22:45 not sin for me, no, no, no. In God's law, what is sin, is sin There is great beauty in God's 22:58 law, because when you talk about God's law, some Christian preachers will say, "That's very 23:02 restrictive," but see, God's law is the pathway to freedom and genuine happiness. Notice, James 23:15 2:12: 23:29 Do you want true freedom? Are you looking for liberty from those things that bind you down? 23:35 Come to Jesus. He is the one who authored the ten commandments. A moral standard of living that 23:44 leads to freedom and liberty. He gives us the enabling strength to abide by His word. There is 23:54 more to say about God's law and the Jerusalem Factor, but we are all out of time. Friend, let us 24:02 cling to Jesus, the Author and finisher of our faith who has given us a standard to live by. 24:13 Take my life, let it be 24:19 Consecrated, Lord, to Thee 24:25 Take my moments and my days 24:31 Let them flow in ceaseless praise 24:36 Let them flow in ceaseless praise 24:47 Take my hands, let them move 24:53 At the impulse of Thy love 24:59 Take my feet and let them be 25:05 Swift and beautiful for Thee 25:10 Swift and beautiful for Thee 25:18 I am yours, set apart for you 25:23 I am yours, hungry for your truth 25:29 Take my life, you are all I live for 25:35 I am yours 25:42 Take my voice, let me sing 25:48 Always only for my King 25:54 Take my lips and let them be 26:00 Filled with messages from Thee 26:06 Filled with messages from Thee 26:13 I am yours, set apart for you 26:19 I am yours, hungry for your truth 26:24 Take my life, you are all I live for 26:31 I am yours 26:38 Take my will and make it Thine 26:44 It shall be no longer mine 26:50 Take my heart, it is Thine own 26:56 It shall be Thy royal throne 27:02 It shall be Thy royal throne 27:09 I am yours, set apart for you 27:14 I am yours, hungry for your truth 27:20 Take my life, you are all I live for 27:26 I am yours, set apart for you 27:32 I am yours, hungry for your truth 27:37 Take my life, you are all I live for 27:46 I am yours 27:52 I am yours 27:57 I am yours 28:11 My dear friends much of Christianity has been confused on the role of God's law. Today 28:16 I want to offer you a little booklet called "Does God's grace blot out the law". It will help 28:22 you understand more about this law of liberty. Here's the information you need to receive 28:28 today's offer. 29:30 My dear friend, God has, as the foundation of His government, a law of liberty - a law that 29:37 gives you freedom from sin that you might walk in His ways. I hope today that you found 29:42 freedom in Jesus. I'd invite you to join us again next week Until then remember, man shall 29:50 not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. |
Revised 2016-11-29