End-Time Survival: Come Out of Her My People

Well, for the last few weeks, we've been talking about some survival techniques for the end time. I guess maybe techniques isn't a word, but some of the things that we need to be looking at in ourselves as we prepare for the end time. Certainly, as we look at the world around us, and each week brings new news and new attitudes that we see and new progressions in the world and here in this country that let us know we are in a different time. And the end time is certainly drawing nearer and nearer with every passing week. And so, as God's people, we need to be drawing closer and closer to God. The things that we've talked about, the things that we've read about that will happen between now and the return of Jesus Christ will happen. Jesus Christ will return.

The question is, will we be ready for that return? So, a few weeks ago, we talked about, you know, one of the things we need to be doing is standing the flames of the Holy Spirit. You know, stirring up the spirit, as Paul says, and his epistle to Timothy. And we went through 12 points that we can look at on that, and you can add your own points to that as well, but God wants us to be fired up about His work all the time. And there is a natural human tendency that we will kind of let down our arms and lose our zeal over time, but God says, keep your eyes open, stay wide awake, and He tells that church in Ephesus in Revelation 2, rekindle that first love, rekindle the life of that Holy Spirit in you. Last week, last week, we talked about guarding your heart. And you remember, we talked about it in above all else verse in Proverbs 4 verse 20 says, above all else guard your heart, for from it are the issues of life. And as we get closer and closer to the end times, we do need to guard what's going on. We do need to pay attention to what we're putting in our minds and letting affect us because the influence of this world is going to grow stronger and stronger. And as we read, even in the very end times, even the elect could be deceived by a false gospel and a false message. We don't want that to happen to us. One of the ways that happens is we are very cognizant through this time in not only establishing our heart and settling it in our heart that we will remain true to God, but also guarding our heart, what goes in. And today, I want to talk about the third, which is going to be the final in this series of sermons that we have of kind of an end time survival strategy. We might call them an enduring to the end strategy. The way I want to introduce this time is to go back and look at some of the men of the Old Testament because as we go through the Bible and look at the men of old, the men of faith, we see that every single one of them had to go through the point that we're going to be talking about today. Let's go back to Genesis 12 and we'll begin with Abraham. And as I mentioned Genesis 12, I'm sure in most of your minds that what verses 1 to 5 in Genesis 12 say, but let's go ahead and read it because in it we see what God expected of Abram. And then we'll see more men of the Old Testament who did the same thing, the same thing God is asking of us. In verse 1 of chapter 12, Genesis, it says, Now the eternal said to Abram, Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

So God told Abram, Get away from your homeland. Get out of the place that you've grown up in, get out of the place that you've worked in, get out of the place that you've spent your entire life.

Leave that land and go to a place that I show you. And if Abram did that, which we know he did, because in verse 4 Abram didn't ask any questions, even though it wasn't the type of thing that happened in those days, because usually they stayed where their families were. They were born there, they worked there, they died there, and families just continued in that area. But God told Abram, You get out of that country, go to a place that I say you, that I tell you to go. And Abram just left, didn't argue, didn't ask why, what's the purpose? He just left. And we can look at Abram's family without turning to the scriptures, because you know the history of that family very well. You go down and you see that just a couple generations later Jacob. Jacob was there as part of a family, and what happened to him before he ever became a man of faith? He wasn't that great of a guy when he was living there with Isaac and Rebecca and Esau, and you know the story of what went on there.

He had to leave his country and go someplace else before he could ever become what God wanted him to be. In essence, God set it up and he had to, told him, get out of there. It's a converted family, Isaac and Rebecca, but you know what? You've got to leave. Get out of there to a place that I take you to. And when he was there in a strange land with Laban, a relative, he began to obey God and understand God and look at him in a different way, but Jacob had to leave. Same thing with Joseph.

Joseph there was with a family. I mean, Jacob was his father. He had 11 brothers. I mean, what could be better than to live under Jacob's, you know, as your father? With him teaching everything that we know Jacob learned, because when he was in Egypt, he followed them all implicitly, but there was a time in his life God said, you get out of your country. Well, actually, Joseph didn't have a choice, did he? He was sold out of his country, but he had to leave his country, get out of his country, to ever become what God wanted him to become. Had he been there with Isaac? Who knows? God couldn't work anything out, but he had to get out of that country, out of that land, leave his home, and go to Laban's, and there he became the man that God wanted him to become. Now, we can look at Moses. You know, Moses grew up in the land of Egypt, the most civilized nation on earth at that time. Grew up, you know, a child of privilege, if you will, living in Pharaoh's house. Great education and everything, but he was a Hebrew. He was a Hebrew, and he came to understand what it was, and you know, God could have said, he'll be a great witness right here in Egypt, but as circumstances had it, Moses had to flee as well. Moses had to leave his home and go to a place he never imagined and live in a state that he never imagined before he ever became the man that God wanted him to become. Israel, you know, Jacob and you know, Joseph was over there in Egypt, and they visited over there to get their supplies during the famine. And Israel then eventually moved into Egypt. They moved into the most civilized nation on earth at that time. They probably thought, you know, this is so different than the nomadic life that we've lived, where we lived all by ourselves and traveled from place to place, but now they're a part of a civilization. And as civilizations do, the world civilizations do, eventually gobbled them up and they became slaves. God had to take them out. He brought them out. They weren't going to stay in Egypt before they could ever become the people that God wanted to become. Just like he told Abram, you leave and I'll bless you. So these men, as they left, God bless them. Some of them voluntarily, some not. You talk about other men like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. There they grew up in the land of Judah. It was being held captive, but God moved them out to Babylon. And look what happened to them when they were in a strange land and they left their world behind.

They had no one to rely on but God as they went out there. And they clung to what they knew.

They clung to what they knew and they became men that we would like to emulate the faith that they have and the belief that they had in God. You know, for a few others, men like Noah, they stayed right in that land. God didn't sell Noah to move, but he asked them to do something that, you know, brought ridicule on him. I mean, for a hundred years he built this this ark in the middle of of land, not anywhere near water. And as people asked him what he was doing, he stood up for what God told him to do. And that brought, I'm sure, ridicule. And as time went by, people mocked him and said, come on, Noah, how long you got to build this ark? There's not even a rain cloud in the sky.

But then all of a sudden when Noah was done, it was God's time. They learned the time came.

You know, Jeremiah was born in Judah, stayed in Judah. But you know what? He never became part of Judah. The message that God gave him was one that separated him from the people. They didn't like him. They didn't like the words that he had to say. But through it all, he remained close to God. And we look at Jeremiah and we think, you know, what faith he had. And look at what he did. We could say the same thing about Ezekiel and some others, others too. Let's go over to John 17.

Because what we learned from these men, you know, and God expects that these Old Testament stories that we have, we learn from. You know, Jesus Christ addressed it in his final prayer on that Passover night before he was arrested. In John 17, we're going to read through a few verses here in verse 11. As he's praying to God the Father, he says, Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world. They're here still. I'm going to leave them here and I come to you, come to you. Holy Father, keep through your name, those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me, I have kept, and none of them is lost except the Son of Precision, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to you in these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I've given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world just as I am not of the world.

Living in the world, but not of the world. I don't pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Separate them, set them apart, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth.

So he said, you know, these are all living in the world, but they're not of the world.

There's something different about them. Jesus Christ lived in the land of Judah, but he never was part of that system, and Judah hated him. We go over to Revelation 18.

He's told us very plainly what God expects of us, the same thing that he expected of so many of the men of old, and us in Revelation 18 and verse 4. As the Revelation is given to John, and he records it, it says, I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people. Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.

The third end-time survival technique is we have to be about coming out of this world.

We have to be working on the fact that we are no longer part of the world. We still live in the world. We still work in the world. We still make our way in the world, but we have to be coming out of the world and separating ourselves from what this world is and what it stands for.

If we don't do that, if we don't come out of the world, as God said, and because Jesus Christ instructed, God's not going to bless us. We won't be there at the end time. Now, there may be, for some who don't do it between now and the time of the Great Tribulation, you know, for some, if we don't do it ourselves now, if we're not taking the time to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually leave the world we live in behind, the world we grew up in, the world we live in, and I don't mean physically move, I mean emotionally, spiritually, and mentally leave it behind and have our eyes on the world that we're going to, the one that God has called us to. If we don't do it now, we will have another opportunity. That's what it talks about in Revelation when it talks about those who have their robes washed white in the Tribulation. So it's up to us. Do we come out of the world now in the way that God has asked us to? Or do we do it in the Tribulation? Really, the choice is ours, by the way we do and what we do and how we redeem the time and how we use our time.

You know, as we live in this world and we watch especially the things that are going on in the world today that could be so polarizing, right? We all have opinions, we all watch the news, we all might have our ideas about what's going on and we like this, we don't like that. But you know, the thing is we've got to remember it's not the world that we are supposed to be living in, mentally and emotionally. Watch it, pay attention to it, keep your eyes wide open because things are happening and we do need to know where things are going and as you watch what's happening in the world, you will see the end in sight. If we bury our heads and don't want any part of it, we're going to be those people that are taken by surprise like, what happened? How did this all occur? Well, it's because we were sound asleep. You've got to watch, you've got to pay attention, but don't get involved in it. We're ambassadors, right? In 2 Corinthians 5, we're ambassadors for Jesus Christ. We're here representing His kingdom. We live His way of life, not by the ways of this world, certainly not by the ways that are being espoused in the world today that are so contrary to everything the Bible says and everything you and I stand for. We need to be coming out and separating ourselves from it mentally, emotionally, not going to live in a commune, not quitting our jobs and staying home, but doing the things, but being sure that we are separating ourselves and the way we think and having our eyes look straight ahead toward God. Let's go back to Luke 21. Jesus Christ makes this very clear. A verse we've read quite a few times here, it seems recently, and I keep getting brought back to it. So I think God maybe wants us to keep looking at these things and seeing what one of the pitfalls for His people as the end draws near is in Luke 21, verse 34, your red letter Bible will say these are the words that Jesus Christ spoke. He says, take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts, remember we're guarding our hearts, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the cares of this life. You know, maybe we're not out carousing, you know, I don't think any of us are weighed down with drunkenness, but boy, we can all be weighed down with the cares of this life, can't we? I could spend, I'm realizing, all my life, all my life, I could quit what I'm doing, and I could stay busy all the time, just with the cares of this life. I've heard people who retire say that. I don't even know how I got all the things done before when I was working. We can't let that happen to us. We can't let it crowd out the truth that God has called us to, and in the end time there will be people who do that. They get so involved with the world and the things of it, and they sacrifice the time they should be. They should be giving to God and saying close to Him. He says, take care of yourself. Don't let the cares of this life weigh you down, and that day come on you unexpectedly. And it will to people who are so busy with everything else, they just don't pay attention to what's going on, or just think, oh, that's fine, that's fine, but that's a long time off. I don't have to worry about that.

For it will come, he says in verse 35, as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Oh, there's going to be a time of a lot of busyness, a lot of things going on. You know, I look at the when I watch the news now, I think, well, there's all this news about things going on in this nation, and we never talk about what's going on in the world. You know, anything could be going on in the world. People working behind the scenes, doing things behind the scene. We don't care about anything about the number of coronavirus cases and things like that that are going on on our news. And so one day, perhaps we wake up and think, oh, when did all that happen? Well, we were too involved, and this and that and whatever, to pay attention to what was going on in the world. So he says in verse 36, watch, watch and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape these things that will come to pass and that you will be able to stand before the Son of Man.

His words are pretty clear what we need to do. Some of those things that we need to do to stand before God. You know, there was a man, I didn't mention about it, who kind of lived in similar times than us. And that's the man Lot. Let's turn back to, you know, Genesis 19. Let's read about Lot. You know his story as he lived in Sodom and Gomorrah. And we often, when we hear of Sodom and Gomorrah, we think of this depraved, perverted society. What an awful place to live.

And it was, from a spiritual standpoint, an awful, awful place to live. But you know, Sodom had a lot of physical advantages. It was a comfortable place to live. It wasn't an awful existence from a physical standpoint. Just like America is a really nice place to live. We have all this comfort. We have all this luxury. We have all this ease that we have, all this free time. We live in a nation that God has so richly blessed we don't even appreciate or realize what life would be like if we had just a few less of the blessings that God has given us. And Sodom was like that.

Yes, spiritually, it was depraved and awful. And we read the scripture last week about Lot being tormented. Just like we're tormented by what's going on in this country today when we hear the word, actually hear the word lawlessness, the same word that was spoken in the Bible, lawlessness, you know, that someone's in this country, the age of lawlessness upon us. When we read about the morality that's going on in our, we shake our heads and we think, how did it ever come to this? Well, we live in the same environment that Lot did. It's kind of comfortable living here. It's kind of comfortable for Lot to live in Sodom. He was in no hurry to leave it. And when we look in Genesis 19, we see that he too had to leave that world behind. If he was going to be, if he was going to be, as Jesus Christ said, saved, if he was going to stand before the Son of Man, as he tells us, that's what he told Lot. But if he was going to continue his life, he had to leave Sodom. He had to leave it behind. Let's look at Genesis 19. Let's begin in verse 16. You know the story that leads up to it. And then as the men are there, the angels that are there with Sodom, with Lot, they tell him, you're going to have to get out of here a lot. Verse 16.

And while Lot lingered, now let's read verse 15. It says, When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who were here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city. Get out, Lot, leave! Lot kind of knew who they were. When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, Oh, verse 16. And while he lingered, he didn't want to leave. Man, it's really comfortable here. Sodom's kind of nice. I mean, I'm kind of like everything we have here. I've gotten used to all the other stuff around me, but while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city. And they said in verse 17, escape for your life. Run! Separate yourself from this place. Get out of here.

Don't partake of her life. Don't partake of her punishment. You know, God was merciful with Lot. He literally took him by the hand and dragged him out of there. Lot wasn't making haste to leave.

God dragged him out of there. Let me tell you something. God's not going to drag you and me out of this society. He's not. Lot didn't have something that you and I have. You and I know what to do. You and I have the Holy Spirit. You and I have the example of Jesus Christ who overcame the world. Now, he expects us to do the same thing, to overcome the world through his spirit. If it was just you and me, we would not be able to do that. But we know that it can be done as we do these things that we've been talking about and get close to God and arm ourselves with his spirit and the tools that he gave us and get close to him and come out of this world. God won't drag us out.

He urges us to leave. He tells us, come out of her, my people. But he won't make us leave.

And if we're not ready, however it is that God will say, it's time to leave, flee this place or whatever it is that God has in mind, if we're not close to him, if we don't do these things, if we're not preparing for the end time and to survive those end times, we might find ourselves just like Lot saying, it's just too comfortable here. I don't know if I really believe this is time. The only way we may know is that we're close to God and just like Abram, when he says go, we go. Otherwise, we stay and we do have an opportunity to the tribulation to have our robes washed white. We wash them white in this lifetime, between now and the return or between the now and the time of the great tribulation or during the great tribulation.

The choice is ours, really, because it's what we decide to do. It's where we put our emphasis is how we prioritize our life. It's the choices that we make. Our desires first or God's desires first. What's best for me? What do I think I can get away with? And what doesn't God really pay that much attention to or not that important to him? Because, as we've said many times, every word in this Bible is important to God. That's why he tells us diligently, carefully, look at the detail. And as we go through our life in the 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years in the church, we become more and more like the way Jesus Christ was. That goal is perfection, not just a little bit above the standard of the world, but perfection, blamelessness.

You know, we can see another thing here in verse 17. In Genesis 19, as they leave, the angel tells them, don't look back. You know what? You're leaving this place for good. Come out of her, my people. Come out of her for good.

And so he says to Lot and his family, don't look back. It's over. If you're going to follow me, follow me. And my direction is straight ahead. My direction is not going back into Egypt. It's looking forward and staying and keeping your eyes forward where I'm taking you to.

Well, Lot's wife didn't pay attention to that. We know what happened to her if she just lost her life because she looked back. How many times did God tell Israel when they were there in the wilderness and complaining and thinking, oh, if we had just stayed in Egypt, life was so much easier. We had cucumbers and we had leeks and we had all these good things in life. And he said, don't look back. Don't look back. He would tell us, don't look back. Don't get so comfortable with the sins of this land. Don't get so comfortable with the government and with the way of life that is not of God but of Satan because we know from 2 Corinthians 4.4, this isn't God's world. This is Satan's world. He's given it to him based on what Adam and Oe have chose for mankind. And so the things that are done here, some of them may look pretty good. None of them are purely good.

There's a lot of evil along with the good in here, just as if the just as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil pictures for us. So God says, you know, we read in Revelation 18.4, don't want to stay there. Don't be part of that society. If you're clinging to it, if you're feeling kind of like affectionate to it, if you're kind of like, kind of like this, and I don't want to leave this behind, boom, boom, boom, because you know what? You're going to partake of her punishment as well.

He says, don't do that. Don't do that. Be warned. Let's go back to 1 John, because, you know, we can look at the Bible and just see exactly what this world is. We don't have to speculate. We don't have to, you know, put our own spin on it. We can just read what the birds of the Bible say. And he tells us the things that we need to be leaving behind when he says, come out of her, my people, exactly what he's talking about. In 1 John 2, in verse 15, you know, the world that we're supposed to be coming out of, John, the apostle that was with Jesus Christ from the beginning, who preached, what I've told you, what you've been taught from the beginning, cling to it. Here is, he's near the end of his life. In verse 15, he says, don't love the world. Well, that's the same thing Jesus Christ said. Don't love the world. Come out of her. Leave it behind. There's something better you've been called to. Don't love the world or the things in the world. You know, we live here. We enjoy the blessings that we have here. We enjoy the conveniences we have here. It's really nice to wake up to an air-conditioned house. It's really nice to turn a key in my car and get wherever I want to go. It's really nice to open a refrigerator and have anything really that my heart desires food-wise.

That's clean and healthy for you. It's really nice to have those things. Enjoy them, appreciate them.

Don't cling to them. Don't think I'm going to sacrifice everything else for that.

Don't love it in the way you love God. Be willing. Be willing. Set the priorities. Be willing to give it up. Jesus Christ said, you know, love him more. Don't love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. It doesn't mean we don't enjoy. It doesn't mean we don't appreciate. It doesn't mean that we don't work. It doesn't mean that we're happy when we get raises and promotions because those things will happen when we are doing God's will, when we are living His way, and people see a difference in us. But don't love it such that you would sacrifice everything else. You know, watch what your attitude is what He's saying. Because if we love the world, you know, and I'm sure that's the word agape, I didn't look it up. If you love the world, then you can't love God because this world is not of Him. It's not His world. If you love this world, then we need to do some very thorough examination. And in verse 16, He says, all that's in the world. Again, there's that word all. When God says all, He means all, all that is in the world. And He boils it down to three things. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. You know, we could go, we could go down the line, we could name any number of things that are the lust of the flesh, right? We could talk about sex and boy, in this society, you know, if that's all your life is about, then that's what you worship that God. Boy, this is the time to live because society says anything you want to do is okay, it's lawful. And if someone says it's not, boy, we're going to just we're just going to hit them with a hate crime.

Is that of God? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So we can't support that and say, oh, I'm for all these causes that are just absolutely contrary to what God stands for when we see what the world is doing. We just can't do it. It can't be done that way. You know, we can look the lust of the flesh, we can even talk about the things we eat, right? I mean, that's the lust of the flesh. Wow, man, if I could just live on ho-hos and Twinkies and Dunkin' Donuts every morning.

Man, it's not bad to have those once in a while, but that's all we're doing. Well, we're going to pay the price. You know, God did give us a way of eating and the things, the foods that he says are healthy for us. You know, lust of the flesh. We can look at TV, we can look at movies. Of course, that can go into lust of the eyes, too, right? Because the lust of the eyes, the things we want, the things that we want to see.

You know, the lust of the flesh, lawlessness. To some people in this world, lawlessness looks like the greatest thing. You know, they've had their little experiments in Seattle and they had their little experiment in Atlanta where they did their little autonomous zones. And you saw on the news, you know what? It didn't turn out the way they thought.

It wasn't this land of peace and happiness and joy and everyone got along together. It turned into what all human things do. It turned into murders and hate that they finally had to come in and just abandon those things. The ways of the world do not work.

They don't lead to what mankind wants. They're only one way. That's why God says, come out of the world. Keep your eyes open on where I'm leading to you. Leading you, too. Come out of her and separate yourself mentally, emotionally, and certainly spiritually from the world around you. Look at the way God will have be. When Jesus Christ is on earth, what will that society be like? We can read in the Bible. We can see those things. You know, there's not going to be a Dunkin Donuts on every corner.

There's not going to be a hospital or two or three and the most, you know, the most wealthy building, expensive building in the city, in every city. There's not going to be those things that mark this world. There won't be man's government. There won't be elections. There won't be, you know, people harping back and forth at each other.

It'll be God's way. That's what we look to. That's what we are embracing, we say, when we when we embrace God's way. And he says the pride of life, right? Well, you know, I've got a list of the eyes here. Advertising, covetousness. You know, that guy goes to covetousness. And you know, even with TV, we teach our children very young about the lust of the eyes, right? I remember when our kids were young. They would see an advertisement, I gotta have that toy. I gotta have that toy. Or there's something offered at this restaurant, we gotta go to that restaurant or that fast food place because they have this.

Oh, Wall Street and the marketing people, they know how to play on the lust of the eyes and we can pray, fall prey to that as well. Nothing wrong with having things. Nothing wrong with enjoying those things. Nothing wrong with having those things as part of our life. But if we put far too much stock into them, enjoy it while we're here. But don't lose sight of where you're going because it may not be all those conveniences in the next step of whatever God has in mind for us.

And then he mentions the pride of life, you know, the pride of life. You know, we have people who just are really proud of what they've accomplished and they just kind of position themselves that way.

And I've got to have this and, you know, Christ talks about it with the Pharisees. Oh, I have to have the chief seat. I want people to see me and appreciate me and all these other things and whatever. You know, that's pride of life. There's also pride of life when we think that we can do things that we don't have to look to God to do the things that God should do.

And this society has a lot built on, we'll do the things, we'll take care of it, we don't need God to take care of this, we'll do it ourselves.

Much like Nimrod, when they were building the Tower of Babel, said, you know what, let's just build this tower as high as can go, then we don't have to rely on God. He can't touch us anymore. And when you stop and look at many of the features of our society today, the world we live in, it's built on, we don't need God, we can do it ourselves. And many of us fall prey to that and trust in things and rely on things in whatever aspect of society that is there.

And I'm not saying all of it is wrong, but realize what it is. It is not of God. In fact, much of it is built in our society to get God out of our life because we rely on self.

So when you look at these three things, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the pride of life, what's it all about? It's all about me. What do I want? What do I enjoy? What do I desire?

What do I want to be? I want to be my own man. I want to lean on my own understanding. I want to forget that there is even God because I can take care of everything that happens to me and everything I need without God. I can just kind of function without God. It's all about me. Is God's way all about me? No, it's not. It's about humility. It's about yielding to God. It's about recognizing what He has done for us and what He has given us and that everything we have, including the breath we breathe and the fact that we're alive, is because Jesus Christ gave it to us. You know, the recent Bible study, we talked about the 24 elders and how they cast their crowns down before Jesus Christ when they're honoring Him and worshiping Him and glorifying Him. And we talked about how what they're doing is acknowledging everything I have is of you. They never lose sight of that. And that's a very humbling thing. If we always remember everything we have came from God, we owe everything to Him. It's a very humbling thing when we do that. And it says so, you know, we, as we talked about, we can learn a little bit about the worship of God from some of the things we read about what goes on in heaven. After all, we do pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So we can kind of look at some of those things and think about those things and think, do I worship God the way He's worshiped and glorified in heaven? And so, you know, we see the way of the world. The world is about what I want, not about what God wants, not about glorifying Him, not about looking at the things that He might want, ability instead of the pride of life.

In Matthew 5, we actually have Jesus Christ saying some words that speak to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes as well. In Matthew 5, verse 29, He says some words. And of course, in Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, He's talking about, you know, the commandments. Of course, we keep them, but today we keep them not only physically but in the spiritual intent of them. And He says something that might be actually surprising, but, you know, we recognize that we learn a lot about the spiritual from the physical we do. And so He uses a very physical example here in verses 29 and 30 of what we should be doing spiritually. He doesn't mean literally do what He says in 29 and 30, but He is telling us, come out of the world, leave it behind. Verse 29, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Now, we wouldn't advocate that to anyone.

But what is He saying? You know what? If you're suffering from lust of the eyes, get rid of that weakness. Know yourself. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it's more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Well, that's kind of an attention-getting verse, isn't it? You know what? I've got to be willing to even just fight. If those aren't the movies I should watch anymore, if those who I watch those movies and the thoughts that come in my mind when I do that, when I play that video game, if that's the thoughts that come into my mind, if I watch that TV show, that sitcom, and these thoughts come into my mind as I'm watching these things, maybe I just want to get rid of it. Maybe I just need to leave it behind. Maybe I need to guard my heart.

Verse 30 says the same thing about your hand, the things that we do. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. For it's more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. If these things are causing the problem, get them out of your life. Come out of her, my people. Come out of her, my people, that you partake not of her sin and that you don't partake of her punishment.

Watch yourself. Guard yourself. Stir up the spirit. Use the spirit. Guard your heart and do the things that God says and come out of her. Leave it behind and spiritually, even though we're not moving from City X to City Y, we're moving from Mental State A to Mental State B, from Spiritual State Deprived to Spiritual State Rich, as we follow God's Holy Spirit. And so along the way, there are things we have to leave behind, just like Abram left his homeland behind and the things he was comfortable with. Just as Jacob had to leave the things he was comfortable with and go to a land where he would be trained of God and become the man he needed to be, all those things that we need to be as well, not necessarily physically moving, but spiritually moving, spiritually leaving them behind and consciously making the choice to leave them behind.

You know, there's not one of us in this room who has fully come out of this world.

Not one. All of us still trust in some aspect of this world. If we sat down and, you know, followed Paul's admonition from 2 Corinthians 13.5, if we examined ourselves, not just at Passover time, but all the time, if we really sat down and looked, it's like, what would I do? Do I really trust God with everything? Would I be willing to give this up? Would I be willing to give my bank account up? Would I be willing to give my house up? Would I be willing to leave that behind if God said, am I at that point yet that I could say, you know what, I can walk away from it because I have complete faith and trust in God. I don't think any of us are there yet, and I'll include myself in that. But I know that we need to get there, and I think that's just like our conversion over the course of our lives. That's, during the course of our lives, one of the things we learn, too, that we would be willing, that when the time comes, however God says, leave it physically, we're ready to go. Because it's not going to happen in a split second if that's the first time we've thought about it. We need to be preparing our hearts. We need to be establishing our hearts. We need to be thinking about those things. Would I be willing to? Do I rely really on God, or am I relying on this? And it's fine to have jobs and make money. It's fine to have savings accounts. I'm not saying any of that is wrong. Where is our trust? What do we really rely on?

And that takes some soul-searching. That takes some of the searching of the heart that David was doing in Psalm 139, verse 23. We're not going to get the answer. We're not going to change overnight, but you know what? We could start thinking about it. You know, there's a show on TV now. I see an advertiser. I've never watched it called, What Would You Do? And as they watch the commercials, it's interesting because they kind of program people. They put them in a situation. Something happens to them, and then they see how they react. And so the theory being, then the next time they are in that situation, they would act differently because they see themselves. I think, I acted poorly. I acted very poorly in that when I see the tape back on myself. So the next time I find myself in that situation, I wouldn't do that. You know, we can do the same thing to ourselves.

What would I do? What would I do? If someone, if God said, and the Word came down, divest yourself of everything you have, give it all away like Jesus Christ said to that rich young man in Matthew 18 or 19, would I do it? I would want to say yes, but would I? I hope that one day that I'll say absolutely yes. But he wasn't ready at that point. I don't know that any of us are ready at that point. We better be thinking about that. We better get ourselves ready and ask God, you know, to help us do that. And we begin to transfer our affections, our trust, and our reliance on God. He says he wants us to trust in Him, to rely on Him, and that He knows everything that's going on in our lives. So when we have these bad times, that's fine. We learn from them. It's His purpose at that point. When good times, we learn from that too. We learn, boy, it takes discipline to remember God and not just forget Him and get on with life. Everything that happens in life, we learn from it, God says. You know, as we, you know, what can we do? Let's look at Proverbs 4 here. And what can we do as we, you know, think about coming out of the world? How do we do that? What are the things we do? We've talked about some of them, but here in Proverbs 4 and verse 25, a principle that God gave Israel when they were coming out of Egypt, a principle that Christ tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. Verse 25 of Proverbs, it says, let your eyes look straight ahead and your eyelids look right before you. Keep marching in the direction that God has called you to do. That's what He told Israel. That's what Jesus Christ told us when He said, seek first the kingdom of God. Keep your eyes on that. Let that motivate you. Let that be the thing that's always overriding everything else you do. Live. Enjoy. Prosper. Enjoy the blessings God has. Don't put your trust and reliance and worship in them. Let your eyes look straight ahead and your eyelids look right before you. Follow where God is leading and don't look back. Ponder the path of your feet. Think about what you're doing. We talked about God ordering our steps, guiding us and directing us. Ponder the path of your feet. What am I doing? Where am I going? What do my choices say about me?

And let all your ways be established. Don't turn to the right. Don't turn to the left. Remove your foot from evil. Ah, remove your foot from evil. Come out of her. Come out of her.

Leave that behind. You know the interesting things of verses 25, 26, and 27 which are saying, keep your eyes sewing ahead. Come out of her, my people. It comes right on the heels of the verse we read last week, Proverbs 23. Keep your heart. You know the newer translations say, above all else, you know, keep your heart with dillier. Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it. Bring the issue. Do those things, God says. Fan the flames of the Spirit. Guard your heart.

Keep your eyes looking straight ahead. You know, we have the example of Jesus Christ who said, I've overcome the world. We know that He set the example. He did it so we can do it. No one is going to tell you it's easy. It's going to be the hardest thing we ever do to kind of leave those things behind and to look at ourselves squarely and honestly in the eye and say, okay, okay, I've got some work to do on my attitude, but you know, with God's Holy Spirit, just like we can tear fear of what's going to happen into a love of God and a peace with what's going to happen and look beyond the pain to see the joy of the kingdom. So we can do this with coming out of the world and having our attitude and our spirit, our spiritual lives more in tune with what God wants us to do. Jesus Christ did it and He set the example. He gives us His Holy Spirit and as we use it and as we focus, we can follow in His footsteps. And you know what? He's right there every step of the way to help. God the Father wants us to succeed. It won't be easy. Hard choices that had to be made, but if we really believe what God has called us to, there really is no choice. We have to do it because the alternative is just awful, unthinkable, not anything that any of us would want for anyone else. Let's go back to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 6. No, Paul had to leave the world that he knew behind. He was there, a big factor in Jerusalem and Judah with the temple. He was the big man on campus. He was the one who was hunting down Christians and turning them in and consenting to their death as we read in the book of Acts. And when God called him, he had to leave that behind. He went over to Asia Minor and he began churches everywhere. He no longer was living in the world that he did before. And God perfected him in this new environment and he did what God had to say. In 2 Corinthians 6, Paul talks about this journey that we're on and are coming out, if you will, from the world. In verse 12, oftentimes we'll read the verses that come after verses 12 and 13.

We should pay attention to verse 12. He says to the Corinthians there, he says, you're not restricted by us, but you're restricted by your own affections.

That's not what we're telling you that's holding you back, Corinthians. It's not the words that you're hearing that's holding you back. You're getting a message.

You know what's holding you back? You got cares of the world that are in your heart still.

You got lust of the flesh. We got what we want to do still in your heart. You've got the pride of life still in your heart. You got your own affections that are holding you back. And you know what? That's a message to you and me. We have our own affections that hold us back. Things that we kind of really like, that we haven't let go yet. And maybe we're not even aware of it yet. But if we're not marching ahead, if we're not moving forward, if we don't find ourselves getting closer, and closer to God, and feeling that closeness, that joy, that peace, even in the face of adversity, then we might want to start asking God, search my heart. Are there affections that I have that should be toward you, but they're really towards me, or this, or that, or that element, or whatever it might be? What do I need to leave behind? What do I need to lose to follow you? Right? Jesus Christ said, if you lose your life, you'll find it. If you find, if you keep your life, if you hang on to it, you're going to lose it. We know what He's talking about there. What do I need to lose, God? What do I need to lose, Jesus Christ? What affections may be holding me back?

I hope the Corinthians read that verse and took it to heart. Then he goes down and he talks about what you do to come out of the world. He was telling them the same thing that God is telling us. The same message that we're having today was being preached with not exactly the same words, because there wasn't a book of Revelation at that time and some of the other things that we've looked at. But in verse 14, He starts telling them, you know, what if you're going to come out of the world? If you're going to be separate, if you're going to not be restricted by your own affections anymore, verse 14, don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. I don't know how many times in the Old Testament God talks about intermarrying with someone of a different faith that they will lead you away. And yet the Israelites continued to do that, and I'm sure in the Corinthian church it happened. But it's not talking just about marriage there, right? Because we can have partnerships in business. We can put our life savings into something with someone who's not in the church, who doesn't adhere to anything that we believe. That's being unequally yoked with an unbeliever. So if we have something that we're looking at business-wise, and we're going to tie ourselves to that person, and we have our heart set on that, and we might find ourselves in a tug-of-war like, no, I don't agree with that. We're not going to do that. Well, partner over his says, oh, yes, we are. We're in this together. That's going to be something that's of a consternation that's going to create a problem. And you might find yourself actually beginning to agree and think, well, you know what? It's his decision or her decision. We'll just do what she says. God doesn't matter. He knows it's out of my hands. No, no. Paul said, you know, we might find ourselves in that situation. Then we wake up and think, oh, if we had just not equally, if we had not unequally yoked ourselves to these other people. So Paul's giving us some words of wisdom there, and then he goes and accentuates it. You know, if you're coming out of the world, then, and I'm not talking about employer-employer relationships, okay? I'm talking about partnerships that are legally binding and whatever. We all work for someone else. We are employers. We follow the principles and whatever. So no one should take from here. We can't be employees or employers. No, we can do that, right? So I'm not talking about that here. I'm talking about partnerships. There's a legally binding agreement. You have equal thing, and you have a stock in what is going on here. It's a business proposition or a marriage or some other relationship that I'm not espousing right now. Want to be sure that that other person sees things the way you are, or you may be forced, or find yourself compromising. Because remember, Satan will do anything he can to get us to compromise. If we can just move just a little bit and do something and that other partner can do something to get us to move from God just a little bit, Satan is high-fiving someone out there thinking, look, we got him to do it. He disregarded that. So be sure if we get into these things, all that's spelled out. I'm not going to have my business open on the Sabbath. I'm not going to do that. Whatever it is, you know, I'm not going to do those things. Because as Paul goes on to say here, what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? Well, that's a very easy question. God doesn't have anything to do with his world. This is not of his world. What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? There is no relationship. We live in the world. We deal with the world. We work for people who will espouse lawlessness or every other moral depravity that might come our way, but we don't embrace it.

And what communion has light with darkness? We're people of light. God has called us out of darkness into light. What communion has light with darkness? Well, we're supposed to be living in the world, as Jesus Christ said, but we're supposed to be lights to the world by the way we are, and the things that we say, and the way we conduct ourselves, and the honesty and the integrity that we have on our jobs. And when we say yes, it means yes. And when we say no, it means no. And we follow through with what we say, and we're very, very good workers for the people that we work for.

Now, what accord has Christ with Belial? Well, Belial is Satan there. That's just another word for that. And what accord has Christ with Belial? Well, none. There's no agreement. Satan is God's adversary. What Satan espouses is exactly the opposite of what Christ would have us do. And then he can voice it down, and what part has a believer with an unbeliever? It's a tough thing to do to come out of the world. Some choices have to be made. Where's our heart? Where's our direction?

What are we doing? And then he goes to verse 16. What agreement has the temple of God? Make no mistake. We in God's church are the temple he's building, and he's building his temple in you and me individually as well. What agreement has the temple of God with idols? All those idols that are out there, idols of gold, idols of silver, idols of military, idols of government, idols of a concept of America, the idols of a dollar, the idols, whatever it is that we have, because whatever we whatever we're replacing God with and looking to him and relying on, that's an idol. When we rely on something else rather than God first, that's kind of an idol. And those are hard to give up.

Those are hard to give up. And we probably all have some of them in our back pocket yet that maybe we're aware of and maybe we're not. But God will eventually reveal what those are.

You know, I always am reminded, you know, of Rachel when Jacob was leaving his father-in-law Laban and Leah and Rachel and the children left. Rachel had to take along the little gods.

Here she saw Jacob, right? She saw how God had blessed him. She saw everything that went on with those goats. And here God enriched Jacob for all the years of loyal service that he gave Laban.

And when Rachel left, I got to take my dad's little gods with me. I don't feel comfortable just leaving those behind. You know, we can't be the same people. We have to be willing and leave our little gods behind as we march forward to God's kingdom and realize there won't be any of those little gods. There will be one God that we worship, one God that we trust in, one God that we rely on in that kingdom. In verse 16, he says, you know what? You are the temple of the living God.

As God has said, I'll dwell in them. I'll walk among them. I'll be their God. They will be my people. That's what he wants. When he looks at you and me, when he looks at the congregation in Jacksonville, in Orlando, or whatever congregation you belong to as you listen to this, he's looking at that and he's looking at us overall and says, this is what I want. I want to walk among you. I want to be your God. I want to be your people. Be my people. Look to me. Trust that I can provide everything you need and that what I tell you is really going to happen. And I really will send Christ back. There really will be a kingdom. There really will be these things. And what you go through now, you can't even compare it, as Paul says in Romans 8, to the things that are going to happen and what God has in store for us. And so he concludes in verse 17, the same thing we've been talking about, therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Come out from among them and be separate. And he says, don't touch what is unclean and I will receive you.

You know, don't touch what is unclean. Now that's an interesting thing that you can ponder as well.

Because, you know, over the years in the church, you know, and I, my family came to the church when I was young, before I was a teenager. And I know how we lived back then, and I knew the things that we did. And, you know, it's been a long time I've been in the church. Back then, you know, we strove in a way and not in the correct way and not saying people were perfect back then or my parents were perfect. But we really didn't touch some of those things that were unclean. I'm not going to say we were, it didn't touch any of them. But I watched the way that we, for instance, kept the Sabbath day.

And there were things that would go on in the Sabbath day with family members and whatever. And you know what? It was Sabbath first. It's God's time. Family second. So we never went to a funeral on a Sabbath. We never went to a wedding on the Sabbath. We never did anything on the Sabbath. Whatever it was, we kept the Sabbath and family understood. That's it. It's God's way. We didn't even touch the Sabbath ongoing. If church was at 10 in the morning going there at four o'clock, we didn't touch the Sabbath with the world's affairs. I'm not saying we were perfect, but today I watch people touch what's unclean. You know, back then, on Christmas, tough holiday, tough to live in the month of December, because you're bombarded with people, what are you getting your wife? What do you want? You've got little parties that goes on, and little secret Santa things that go on. They're just irritating. And I know everyone who works, they were just very glad when January comes, and we don't have to deal with that anymore.

And yet, I kind of watch, and I, you know, do we touch Christmas? Do we kind of just, like, reach out there and touch it? Well, I can do that. I'll go to that Christmas dinner because I, they know I'm not going to bring a gift, and yet I'm going to participate in that.

And I am touching it. Are we compromising a little bit? I'm just asking questions here. I'm not even going to say whether it's right or wrong. But when I read, don't even touch what's unclean, I think God means what He says. Keep it pure. If it's unclean, separate yourself from it.

Don't go there. Come out from her, my people. Don't partake in her sins. Don't indicate that it's okay with you as long as we do it this way, and I don't touch this, and I don't touch that. He says, don't touch any of it. Don't touch what is unclean, and I'll receive you.

I believe what God says. I believe that's a process. I don't believe we can do it all at one time. I don't believe we do it in one year. I believe we do it over the course of a lifetime as we do that, as we live and learn and understand God's will, and as the Holy Spirit leads us and guides us and directs us, and shines a light on our minds and our hearts and say, oh wow, I've been doing that, and I didn't even realize it, but you know what? I got to cut that out. Can't do that anymore. Have to be willing to give that up, whatever it may be. He says, I'll be a father to you, and you'll be my sons and daughters. He sees us as his sons and daughters. He wants us to do all those things that he asks us to. He wants us to give everything that we've had.

You know, there's a thing, a kind of a little analogy I read years ago, that's kind of stuck with me. I've said it, I know at least two or three times in sermons here, but about the fish that swims in the salt water, right? As we look at ourselves living in this world, you know, there's the fish, the red snappers of the world, the flounders of the world, the tunas of the world. They swim in salt water all their life. They never absorb the salt.

And so when we cook them, we add salt to them in much the same way God wants us to be. Live in the world, swim in this ocean, don't absorb the salt.

Don't absorb the world. Don't let it become part of you. Let God's Holy Spirit do whatever miraculously keeps that salt out of the fish. Let him keep you and ask him and be conscious in our choices and decisions in what we're doing, consciously keep the salt, the world, out of our lives. You know, through this last few sermons, I've talked about some above all else verses. Let me give you another above all or verse here in 2 Peter 3. You know, sometimes we'll have people that family members who may know that we've been in the church a long time. You know, you might have been, you know, for a second generation Christians, our family, our parents were talking to siblings or even their parents and whoever may be alive. Oh, you know, the kingdom of God and da, da, da. And some of them will mock and ridicule, right? And I hear, you know, 40, 50 years later, it's like, really, you're still waiting for Jesus Christ? Come on, the world doesn't change. What's delaying His coming? And that can be a depressor, right? I mean, if we let that happen to us, if people say, really, they've been talking about Jesus Christ's return forever. Is He really going to return? Nothing changes and whatever. And here Paul is, or Peter is talking about that in 2 Peter 3. And there's an above all else or above all verse here in verse 3. You know, in the King James, it says, knowing this first, in the newer versions, they get it correct. They say, above all, above all, know this, scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts.

They're going to come in the last days and you know what? They're going to try to lure you away.

We're going to, you know, they can affect your mind, then they can influence, and they can have this effect on you. They're going to come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, the lust of the flesh, the lust of life, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. And they'll say, where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. Really? Ha-ha!

Jesus Christ is returning? Ha-ha, they might say. How long are you going to believe that?

Your parents lived that their entire life? Did Jesus Christ return? I don't see anything different today than I did back when I first heard it come out of your mouth or your parents' mouth or anything else. It's a tactic of Satan to make us doubt. And some of those things, when we come out of the world, it may be that some friends just have to stay, that we have to just kind of say, you know what? I don't really want to associate with them anymore. If that's what they're doing, if this family member is always talking down against your beliefs or whatever, that might be part of the world you have to leave behind. We don't need that.

You know, Jesus Christ in the epistles here says, if someone's divisive, leave them behind.

It's okay. Love them. Pray for them. Don't hate them. Don't be bitter against them, but leave them behind. Where's the promise of his coming, they might ask? You know, the same thing happened to Noah, right? A hundred years he built that ark. A hundred years, people, I'm sure, were laughing and saying, Noah, you're wasting your time. What are you doing building this ark out here in the middle of dry land? There isn't a lake even close that can hold that ark.

Noah never let it affect him. Noah was separate from the world that he was living in. He kept his eyes on God and the mission that God had called him to, and he didn't let it detract him or distract him. We can't either. We have to keep our eyes and know that Jesus Christ is returning. Verse 8, Beloved, don't forget this one thing that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. You know when Peter wrote this, not even 2,000 years ago?

Verse I'm going to read here in 1 John 2, 17, and 18 here in a minute. When these verses were written, in God's eyes it was less than two days ago. Less than two days ago, right?

But the day of the Lord will come as the thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with the great noise. The elements will melt with verventite, the earth and the works that are in it.

And so he asked the question, well, what manner of people will you be? Knowing these things, are you going to come out of the world? Are you going to do those things or not?

And over here in 1 John 2, I want to finish the thought that we began with in 1 John 2, 15, and 16.

Something that we need to keep in mind.

We read verses 15 and 16. Let's look at verse 17. Inspired by God, John writes, and the world is passing away. Now in God's eyes, less than two days ago that was written, and the world is passing away. Look at the world. The world we live in is passing away.

Make no mistake about it. Keep your eyes open. Don't get lulled to sleep. Don't get lulled astray by people who say, oh, it's all going to go back the way it was. Everything's going to be fine. There may be momentary times of peace and safety when they cry that out.

Know the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. Keep your eyes on forever, not this world that is passing away. Not the momentary, lusts, pleasures, whatever it is that's going on. Keep your eyes on that. And John says words that are very, very alive to us today, little children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come by which we know it is the last hour. Look at where the world's going. It is the last hour time for us to be getting our lives together, be looking at the techniques and the tools that we should be using between now or starting now. Revving up the Holy Spirit, rekindling the first love. Guard your hearts, watch what you're doing, and come out of her, my people, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And let's get close to God so we're ready when Jesus Christ returns.