Where the American Culture is Headed the Next 20 Years

Happy Sabbath to all of you. Well, we're now two decades into the 21st century.

Almost two decades. It's 2019. It seems like yesterday that many people were in a hysteria about the Y2K bug. Do you remember that? In the year 2000, everyone thought that Western civilization was going to come to a screeching halt because none of the computers would be able to roll over from 99 into the year 2000. So you may remember that. That's been replaced by people talking about blood moons today. But nonetheless, it's hard to believe that almost 20 years have gone by since the Y2K scare a number of years ago. But I wonder if we realized what a rapid pace of change has occurred since the year 2000. For example, in a year 2000, 35% of Americans supported same-sex marriage. Now it's 62% in just 19 years. That change is the result of a secularization of our society and a decline in moral values. It's a result of a growing contempt for religion and for religious organizations and for social media, the influence of social media. Now virtually everyone has a voice. People feel like if they're 10,000 miles away and they're hiding in their little basement of their mom's home, they can be very bold in that keyboard and say what they want on social media because there appear to be no consequences to making rash, rude, or arrogant statements on social media. So that's the result of that is kind of democratized speaking in our world today and virtually anyone can have a voice.

What I'd like to talk about today is what can we expect in the next two decades? Because to me the handwriting is on the wall and it's going to be an unusual sermon and then I'm going to read a lot of statistics but I think they're really important for us to understand the handwriting that's on the wall and where as a culture where the United States is heading and what we can expect to occur within our secular culture and in our world over the next 20 years so that we're not shocked will be certainly disappointed.

Some of us will experience persecution, some of us will lose our jobs, some of us will go through some very difficult things and I just want us to be aware of the kinds of things that are going to happen and as a culture where we are headed what the direction is because all of these things that I'm going to talk about make preaching the gospel harder than ever and they make preaching the gospel more expensive than ever and it's harder because our culture is becoming so secular we no longer have a large audience who is open to a religious message of any type.

That audience is shrinking farther and farther and we're going to see that it's actually affecting mainstream Protestantism far more than it's affecting us. It's affecting us, it's hurting our growth, it's hurting people from responding to the message that we're given, but we're going to see some statistics here that may amaze you as to what's happening to mainstream Christianity the last 20, 30, 40 years in their church numbers and in their own values and I think it may be eye-opening for us.

So let's begin by going to Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24 beginning in verse 9 and we'll see what Jesus reminded us of is the cultural climate that will exist in the last days before his return. Matthew chapter 24 and verse 9. And we'll read some of this and you may say that this doesn't necessarily apply to the United States today but I can assure you there are areas in the world in which every one of these things are already happening to people.

He said, and it will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you and you will be hated by all nations for my namesake. Now it's not my intent today to judge people's doctrines whether they worship on Saturday or Sunday or keep the Ten Commandments or don't keep the Ten Commandments but what Jesus is literally saying here is that you people will be hated because they believe in Jesus Christ period.

Aside from the doctrinal differences and disassociations, she's saying there's something about my name and the belief in who and what I am that will cause people to hate you and will cause you to go through some tribulation and some of you will even die. You will be killed. Verse 10, and then many will be offended and betray one another and will hate one another. Have you looked at social media today? Everyone's offended. I'm offended. You implied something. I'm offended. The chip in my shoulder just got bigger. Everyone seems to be in offense mode today.

It's just stunning to me and what has happened with the discourse in our culture over the last 20 or 30 years. So many will be offended and they'll betray one another and they will hate one another. You can't have an intelligent discussion, as I've said before. If someone writes an article or a blog, it's interesting that the first four comments usually are referring to the blog and then further on down people are turning on each other and they're not even talking about the blog anymore.

They're all condemning each other for their values or statements or whatever and unfortunately that's just the kind of diseased culture that we live in today. Continuing. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many and indeed that goes on today. And because lawlessness will abound, there will no longer be a value system. People will no longer respect God's law. Everyone will do, like in the book of Judges, they'll do what's right in their own heart. It says, lawlessness will abound and the love of many will grow cold. So there's not even that natural respect for humanity that there was in the past because of the hate people have for one another.

And here's a very important verse for us to remember because during all of these things God's people have to hold fast. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And you know what? In spite of all of this negativity, here's a promise that he makes. He says, and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations and then the end will come.

Brethren, if we don't do this, who else is gonna do it? This is our great commission. This is the job we've been given to do and yes it's uphill all the way. It's an incredible obstacle. But Jesus said if you have faith you can move mountains and it's going to take our faith in order to move the kind of mountain that this culture has put in the place to hinder us from doing the things that we need to do.

You know, just reading these verses, I don't know about you, but I think we're almost there. Again, I know in the United States there are not yet actual killings of those who believe in Jesus Christ, but there certainly are in other areas of the world. There's an organization called World Watch List and it watches things going on in the various nations of earth, particularly in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia, and different dictatorships. North Korea takes a look at those things and here are some averages that it came up with. This is last year.

Every month last year 255 Christians were killed. 104 were abducted. 180 Christian women were sexually abused or forced into marriage. This is one month.

66 churches were attacked. 160 Christians are detained without trial and imprisoned, and facts go on and on. Again, we're, at least at this point in time, we're still protected in this country from overt violence towards people of faith, but there are many areas of the world where people who believe that Jesus Christ is their Savior. Again, I'm not going to get into the doctrinal differences and deviations of all those things, but because of their belief in His namesake, they're losing their lives, they're losing their professions, they're being jailed, they're being sexually abused, and that's going on each and every day. And it's going to get worse and worse as time goes on. We've had some broadcasters in the United States who have been outlawed by the Canadian government because they had TV programs that condemned same-sex marriage, and it's a hate crime in Canada. They no longer can broadcast their TV programs in Canada. Been threatened with legal action by the Canadian government. Here's another example. This is from PJMedia.com, and the headline was, this is from January 9th, an article, Dutch authorities threatened criminal charges for pastors who signed a biblical marriage statement. And I'll quote, last month a group of 250 pastors in the Netherlands signed a translation of the Nashville statement affirming their agreement with the biblical definition of marriage and gender put forth in the document. And I took a quick peek at the document. It's very simple. Marriage should be between one man and one woman.

God created male and female. There's nothing startling, or it's what I would say was commonly held in a truth until 20 years ago, was a commonly accepted truth and understanding. So that's what the Nashville statement is. It says, that decision ignited a firestorm in the largely secular nation, prompting liberal churches to condemn the pastors. Many proclaim their solidarity with the sexual revolutionaries by flying rainbow flags on their buildings. These are churches. The Hague also joined in the fray, flying a rainbow flag of their own in response to the pastor's decision. Dutch news reported this week that the prosecution service was examining whether the Nashville statement on marriage and sexuality breaches the law after a recent Dutch translation was condemned by equality organizations. The article goes on to say that the document was signed by, quote, hard-line Protestant ministers. So you see, if you believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, you are a hard-line Protestant minister. If you believe that God created male and female, you are a hard-line. And they say right here in the article, that was an apparent pejorative reference to biblically faithful Christians. It continues, it says the Netherlands is one of the most socially progressive countries in the world. They were the first nation in the world to legalize same-sex marriage back in 2001, and it's no surprise that biblical morality is unpopular with the secular mindset that predominates into the Netherlands. So we can expect to see more of that. We can expect to see a whole lot more of that pushback against people of faith, because here's the way it works. The tolerance isn't both ways. The people of faith are expected to be tolerant towards non-traditional views that only were accepted 20 years ago or less, but those who believe in those views are not expected to be tolerant against people of faith. So it only works one way. Let's go to Matthew 6 and verse 24. Matthew 6 verse 24. Jesus here defines two different diametrically opposite ways of life. He says you're either going to have one of two masters, you can't have them both. Matthew 6 beginning in verse 24. He says no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Now Mammon is a very interesting word. It's always hard to translate. It's originally a Chaldean word, and the best that can be translated is confidence and wealth is the best way that we can translate that into English.

Brethren, what we're seeing today, what we're going to witness more of, is an all-out cultural war where a secular agenda is openly condemning biblical values and literally despising those who don't accept their agenda. Again, the tolerance is only expected to be one way. Their values are based on humanism, the elevation of humanly invented values that justify every possible debauchery and deviancy under the false idol of human rights. So if you want to justify whatever you believe now, you should say, oh, it's my human right to believe this, to do this. So it's actually a strategy, and as someone whose career is focused in leadership, I can tell you that I admire, I don't agree with, but I admire the leadership skills of the people who have driven these agendas because they have a four-step process to relabel depravity into becoming something acceptable. First of all, you promote deviancy as if it's equal to a conventional norm. That's usually the hardest part. It may take you 20 to 30 years to push that on people. Number two, then you legalize it. You get it legalized. Number three, then you have the government subsidize and promote it with the tax dollars from 50% of the people who never agreed with the idea or the agenda in the first place. Then step four, you move on to a deeper level of degeneration. You go back to step one and you repeat the cycle all over again. I'll tell you, upfront and honestly, what's in the pipeline. Some of these are already in the state courts. First one is going to be polygamy, and the mindset is this.

Who are you to tell me that I can't be married to three women? Those are your cultural norms. Why, we're committed to a long-term relationship. That's one of my favorite phrases. So let me tell you, if a politician got up tomorrow and said, you know, I've been a senator for 25 years and I've been lying to you all that time, me and lying are in a long-term relationship. Would that make it somehow okay? Would that make it better? So anyway, the way it's going to go and the way it's going down is myself and these three women, we're mature, consenting adults. You cannot stop us from marrying each other. That's our human right to express our sexuality in the way that we want to. And it's only your conventions left over from an archaic religious concept that a marriage has to be between two people. Who said a marriage can't be with three people, four people, five people. That's, and again, that's already filtering through some state courts. So that's already on the docket. That cycle has already begun. And certainly don't discard the fact that incest is also something that is being discussed and pushed in some circles. The reasoning goes like this. My mother and I are consenting adults. We're mature individuals. We're in a long-term relationship. Get one of my favorite phrases. Somehow that makes it go K. Who are you to deny, except for your obsolete, obscure religious values, who are you to deny my mother and I, one man and one woman, which is already legal, from marrying each other? Who are you to interfere with our human rights? It's a basic human right that my mother and I be able to marry one another. And then also something being talked about, even within the LGBT community, is pedophilia.

Also beginning to be discussed. Look, this 14 year old girl and I are in a long-term committed relationship. She's a consenting person. I'm a consenting person. Who are you to tell us whether we can marry or not? Who are you to violate our basic human rights of our sexuality and our preferences for sexuality just because of some self-imposed archaic religious idea? You have that on this birthday on forward. It's okay, but from the day before this birthday it wasn't okay. Who are you to determine that for my value system? So you see the reasoning? Do you see how the reasoning goes? So I'm telling you in advance that this vicious cycle is going to continue to go over and over again.

And the people that are caught in the crossfires of these things are those who dare to stand up and say, I don't believe that. I don't accept that agenda. A few weeks ago, two senators challenged a Catholic judicial nominee to a federal court about his religious beliefs. He's Catholic. He happens to belong to have a membership in the Knights of Columbus, which is a Catholic organization. One senator referred to it as an all-male society in her questionnaire. Apparently that's not acceptable anymore. Another asked the nominee if he was aware of the group's pro-life and pro-marriage positions. He's Catholic. Duh! I think he probably is aware of his own pro-life and pro-marriage position. Since when was there a litmus test for you to be able to serve in the judiciary because of your religious beliefs? Well, apparently there is now because that is becoming more and more acceptable as there's less tolerance towards people of faith and as if there's greater criticism towards religious ideas, religion, religious organizations. Church attendance has been steadily declining in recent years. For example, in 2017 Gallup found that only 38% of adults reported attending religious services weekly or almost every week. So that's a little over one third of Americans anymore say that I go to church every week or almost every week. When Gallup first asked that question 10 years ago, it was 42%. But when you look at the polling more closely, there's something there that reveals a whole lot more of what's going on and that is from the Pew Research Center. Here's an article they had last September. More Americans now say they're spiritual but not religious. There's a new category, spiritual but not religious.

Here's what it says about a quarter of US adults, 27%, now think of themselves as spiritual but not religious. This is up eight percentage points in five years.

According to the Pew Research Survey, this term defines those who claim to believe in God but don't practice our religious beliefs like attending a church or a synagogue. So it's a great category to be in. You don't go to a church, you don't pray, you don't study your Bible, but you can say I'm spiritual but not religious. So that's a category, again, that's gone up 8% in just five years. Those who consider themselves religious and spiritual, which I'm sure most of you would, they have fallen from 59 to 48 percent in five years. Less than half of those who say they believe. So that's actually the hidden poll within the poll that shows that many people who claim, again, to be spiritual, claim to believe in God if you took a poll, still like 90% of Americans, yeah, I believe in God. It's just that I don't plan on doing anything about it. That's a convenient thing to say. It kind of makes me feel good. The pollster wrote it down, but it doesn't mean anything to me. I might as well hedge my bets. In case there is a God, maybe he'll like me if I say that answer. So that's what we find in the world today. I want to point out here that what these statistics tell us is that Christian religious faith in the United States is in an absolute free fall. You can't describe it in any other way. The old mainline church denominations are declining rapidly. We now worship in a building that is 60 years old. This year it was built in 1959, and it was built by one of the mainstream Protestant denominations, and over the years it got smaller and smaller and smaller, and about five years ago it died. And that's happening each and every day to these mainline churches throughout the United States. Now it was a blessing for us.

God has blessed us with a wonderful building to worship in and call our own, but my point is that mainline Protestant religious faith is in a free fall. I'm going to give you another example of church domination of my youth. When I was a kid, I attended the Methodist Church. That's the church I was brought up with.

My paternal grandfather was from Wales. John Wesley had preached powerfully in Wales. He converted a lot of people in Wales, and so my family lineage from that part was a Methodist. Mark Tooley, who's president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, and who is a practicing Methodist, said this recently, quote, "'Methodism in the U.S. has lost membership every year since 1964, more than 4.5 million members.'" And now it stands less than seven million members in the United States. So there's seven million now. They've lost four and a half million members. Continuing, he says, quote, "'There's nothing in its U.S. policy that can or will reverse the decline in the near future. According to the most recent data, in the last 12 months, the United Methodist Church lost 116,063 members.'" That's just in the last 12 months. That's the stark equivalent of losing each and every day a 318-member church, every day vanishing, gone. And the Methodists are a stark example, but they're not much different than many other groups. As we'll see in a minute, I'll read from Wikipedia, there are now more Wiccans in the United States than there are Presbyterians.

Let's take a look at verse 31. "'Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For after these things the Gentiles seek.'" So again, there are two masters. One master is God, and he guides our life, and because of his love towards us and our faith and his grace towards us, we seek first the kingdom of God.

And if you don't have that, you know what you look for to solve all your problems? You look for government to solve all your problems. And that's basically what Jesus is saying here. You can either have one master that's God, or you can have another master and rely on the government to provide you for all of your needs. We live in a Gentile culture. It seeks as its first priority material gain. Now look at our magazines and newspapers. There's a section on leisure. There will be a section on fashion. There will be a section on sports so people can idolize and worship people who play with balls. There will be a section on entertainment, what the latest movie is. And all of these shallow, materialistic things will be the different parts of the online magazine that you're reading. Look at the tabs across the top. They're all secular. They're all based on materialism. They're all based on worshiping and idolizing physical things. People, celebrities, sports, whatever it may be, that's basically where the focus is. Verse 32, for your heavenly Father knows what you need, knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Now Jesus used the word there, Gentile, in verse 31. It comes from a Greek word ethnos, which means someone who's foreign, a non-Jewish person, or a heathen. Let's allow the prophet Hosea to talk to us. Hosea chapter 5 and verse 3. Hosea chapter 5 verse 3, an extremely powerful prophecy by Hosea about our modern times. And he's looking at the modern descendants of the nation of ancient Israel, and he has some very profound things to say here. He'll be the focus of a good part of the rest of this sermon. Again, Hosea chapter 5, beginning in verse 3. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me. God says, look, I see everything that's going on. They're not pulling the wool over my eyes. I know everything these people do. For now, Ephraim, you commit harlotry. Israel is defiled. So do you think modern Israel commits harlotry? That is statistic out this week. The top 10 websites watched by Americans.

Guess what three of the top 10 were? Sports? Nah. How about architecture? History? Fashion?

No. Three of the top 10 websites viewed in the United States are pornography sites.

So when the prophet says here that Israel is defiled, you commit harlotry, the prophet looked into the future and knew exactly what's on the minds of modern Americans.

Knew exactly what they're watching, what they're thinking, what they're doing. Verse 4, they do not direct their deeds towards turning to their God, for the spirit of harlotry is in their midst. Sure it is. They're watching it all the time on the internet. They're addicted to it in many cases. And they do not know the Lord. The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore, Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity. Why do we have all of these social problems, all of these children who continue to live in poverty, generation after generation, all these children born out of wedlock who don't have dads to help them in their homes, all of the dysfunctions, the drug addicts, and the opiates, and everything. It's just one cycle after another of these huge social problems. Why? Because Ephraim stumbles in their iniquity. They don't know how to solve their problems because they've rejected God and his law. Judah also stumbles with them, with their flocks and herds. They go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him. He has withdrawn himself from them. God says, I've had it with you. You make me sick.

I see what you do to yourselves. I see how much you defile me. You literally make me sick.

They have dealt treacherously with the Lord, for they have begotten, pagan children. Now a new moon shall devour them and their heritage, meaning in a very short period of time when God pulls the trigger, when God says in the future that enough is enough, that it's all going to come tumbling down very, very swiftly. I want to focus on this phrase, for they have begotten, pagan children. Where and how did that begin? Recently, author Stephen D. Smith, he's a law professor at the University of San Diego, he wrote a book called Pagans and Christians in the City Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac. And here's what he says. He says, much of what we understand as the march of secularism, he says, is really just an illusion. This cultural secularism, he says, it's just an illusion. Behind the scenes is what's really happening in our modern culture war is the return of a pagan religious conception. He says it was always half-buried within Christianity. Now, you and I would know that probably more than most people, because we know what most symbolism in Christian so-called Christmas observations are, right? The way that they worship, the way that they borrow pagan worship practices and apply them to God.

What this author says here is that the paganism was there all along. The only difference was it was half-buried, and now it's emerging once again on its own, shedding Christianity and saying here, I'm back. He's back. So how did all of this begin? What began that we got to the point where the prophets could say, you have begotten pagan children? Well, it began in 1962. On June 25th, 1962, the United States Supreme Court decided in a case called Engel versus Vitali that a prayer approved by the New York Board of Regents for use in schools violated the First Amendment because it represented establishment of religion. A year later, Madeline Murray O'Hare, you may remember her name as a blast from the past, took another case there, and basically prayer was outlawed in our schools. So why was prayer? What was so bad about prayer? Why was prayer outlawed in our schools? I want to know what's so bad about taking one minute out to begin a day and having everyone stand up and say a common, generic prayer in which they acknowledge and recognize something bigger than themselves. Where they humbly say, it's not all about me, that there's actually a superior power up there in the heavens, that has obligations, that holds me accountable for my conduct, and is looking down in my life and on the deeds of this nation, and I need to accept that and to acknowledge that to begin each and every other day. So tell me what was so bad about that?

Then in 1980, in a case called Stone versus Graham, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a Kentucky statute of posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional and a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The statute required the posting of a copy of the Ten Commandments on the wall of each public classroom in the state, while the copies of the Ten Commandments were purchased with private funding, so the school wasn't spending anything on these blacks, it wasn't being taken out of taxpayer dollars, it was privately funded. The court ruled that because they were being placed in public classrooms, they were a violation of the First Amendment. So what was so bad about reminding children, again, that there is a supreme being and that when we talk about him, we should talk about him respectfully and in awe, and that we should look at that person sitting across in that classroom of mine, and I thought I shouldn't steal from that person. I shouldn't lie to that person, I shouldn't covet what that person has. What is so bad about being reminded that there are rules and obligations in life? As the prophet said, they had begotten pagan children, and the results of these kinds of decisions, which basically kicked God out of our schools and of our public discourse, and left it up to the parents to teach their children about any respect for a deity, or any kind of acknowledgement or respect for God, has led us to the place that we are today.

And here are some of the things that we're doing today. This is from sputniknews.com.

It says, on the aircraft carrier, this was last week, the USS John Stennis sailors will not only be welcome to attend a run-of-the-mill religious ceremony at the carrier's chapel, but also an informal heathen religious service. Heathenry is a modern pagan religion with strong roots to the Norse culture and mythology. The latest development was recently revealed in a news release from the carrier. The nuclear-powered supercarrier's heathen lay leader said, quote, we do a lot of praying to the God of seafarers, Nord. He added, expressing that reports of animal sacrifices within the religion were the farthest from the truth. Heathenry, however, is no stranger to the U.S. military. In 2013, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs approved a measure allowing the hammer of Thor to be added to the list of religious emblems for engraving on VA-issued headstones or markers. What did the prophet say? They have begotten pagan children. The Wicca is a contemporary pagan new religious movement, according to Wikipedia. In the United States, the American Religious Identification Survey has shown significant increases in the number of self-identified Wiccans from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001 and 342,000 in 2008. Wiccans have also made up significant portions of various groups within this country. For instance, Wicca is the largest non-Christian faith practiced within the United States Air Force, with 1,434 airmen identifying themselves as Wiccans. In 2014, according to the Pew Research Center, 0.4% of the population of the U.S. identified as Wiccan or pagan. That, by the way, is about 1 million people. Wiccans now outnumber Presbyterians in the United States." Again, that was from Wikipedia.

What did the prophets say? They have begotten pagan children. Religious author Julie Royes, she's formerly of Moody Radio, she told a Christian post, which is an online magazine, quote, "...the rejection of Christianity has left a void that people, as inherently spiritual beings, will seek to fill." Royes added that millennials are attracted to witchcraft because it is effectively repackaged. No longer is witchcraft and paganism satanic and demonic, says Royes, it's a pre-Christian tradition that promotes free thought and understanding of earth and nature.

Well, that seems innocent enough, doesn't it?

From Hot Air dot com, an article, Americans' Faith and Faith is Failing, by author Andrew Malcolm.

This was December 26, just a few weeks ago. He says, after one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar, Gallup is reporting that a record low percentage believe religion can answer even most of society's problems. It's down to 46 percent of people now believe that religion can answer most of society's problems. And a record high proportion, 39 percent, say that such beliefs are old-fashioned. See, your beliefs are old-fashioned. You're not with it. You actually believe that there is a God, that His law can offer solutions to the problems of this world.

CNN, American Catholics' Faith in the Church and Clergy, has fallen sharply in the last year, according to a new Gallup survey. As the Church struggles to regain credibility amidst damning sexual abuse in a scandal, continuing in 2017, nearly half of Catholics, as 49 percent, told pollsters they had a high or very high opinion of the honesty and ethical standards of clergy. So, again, that was 49 percent in 2017. In December of 2018, that number had dropped to 31 percent in one year. So that's a drop from almost half to less than one-third of Catholics now have a high or very high opinion of the honesty and ethical standards of their clergy members.

Kind of scary, isn't it? Second Timothy chapter 3. If you'll turn there with me. Second Timothy chapter 3.

A deeper idea of what we can expect to see, the tone that we can expect to see from our politicians, the tone that we can expect to see from social media, from our institutions. Second Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1. But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, or violent periods of time, for men will be lovers of themselves. Do we see that today? Is it all about me? Is it all about what I'm entitled to? Is it all about my basic human rights? Is it all about me, mine, I, what you owe me? Lovers of money, boasters. Tell me if you see this in our politicians.

Boasters, proud, blasphemers, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power from such people.

Turn away. You know what I thought of when I saw this last verse? Remember I mentioned earlier how the Pew Research had this new category, spiritual but not religious, and it was actually 27% of adults now said, American adults, that they're spiritual but not religious. I just thought of that when I read that it says having a form of godliness but denying its power. On the outside, yeah, I'm spiritual. I don't go to church. I don't pray. I don't study my Bible. But hey, I'm spiritual.

That's become fashionable today. That's actually how people think. According to LifeNews.com, it says the headline was for every 1,000 babies born, New York City kills 544 babies and abortions.

This is from January 11th. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that's a pretty reliable source, the CDC, most recent abortion surveillance report for the year 2015, New York City performed 544 abortions for every 1,000 live births. This means roughly one in three unborn babies are aborted in the city.

That also means that New York's abortion rate makes up more than half of the city's birth rate.

With the state's voluntarily reported data, the CDC found that 63,646 abortions occurred in New York City during 2015, one city in the United States. 63,000 lives snuffed out.

Let me ask you, is there any consequence to becoming heathen? Is there any consequence to raising our children to be pagan? Well, again, we'll go back to Pew Research. They decided to poll American atheists. According to the Pew Research, whereas 62% of the general population supports same-sex marriage, 92% of American atheists support same-sex marriage. Should we be surprised? They have no values. They don't believe in any of laws, any biblical commandments, any morals coming from a divine source. According to the same poll, 87% of atheists believe that abortion should be legal in our general population. I'm sad to say it's 58% of the general population believes that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, but in atheists, it's much higher. It's 87%. And again, those statistics shouldn't surprise us because if someone does not have a religious moral base, they basically are idolizing themselves, their own values, what they think is right in their own heart. Again, going back to the book of Judges.

Recently, during the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards, an actor whom I've never heard of, and by the way, I watched the Golden Globe Awards probably 45 years ago for like 15 minutes, it was about as exciting as watching Lumber Warp. That's how exciting it was. And what it basically is, are people who spent their entire careers pretending to be somebody they aren't. We call that acting. An actor who I never heard of received an award for being in a movie that 99% of people have never heard of is a movie about Dick Cheney, a former vice president. I never watched it. And I can assure you that 99.9999% of human beings on earth never saw the silly movie.

So therefore, it was entitled, he was entitled to receive an award, because it's a participation award, I'm sure. And as he's accepting the award, this just happened a few weeks ago, he turned his attention downward and said, thank you, Satan, for giving me inspiration on how to play this role. Now, in the America that I grew up with, you would never have worked again. After making a stupid, insensitive, arrogant remark toward God, offending him in that way, he'd probably never work again. But this man will probably have more movie role offers than he can handle.

But again, my purpose of the sermon today, and we're almost at the conclusion here, is for us to realize that our culture is shifting and changing under our feet in very dramatic ways.

And because we all kind of know each other, and we do worship, we're not in the world as much as many other people who are not spiritual or religious in any way. So we're a little bit isolated from the dramatic cultural shift that's been going on since the 1960s. It actually has accelerated since the year 2000, the last two decades. And that acceleration is only speeding up. How long after the same-sex marriage debate did it take before the transgender issue was put on the table? Like five minutes?

So again, we need to prepare ourselves and understand the kind of pressures that we're going to be facing in the next two decades. Well, what's the antidote for us? Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 23 in my last scripture today. What do we need to do? Because we are going to be sickened.

We are going to face these things in society, in our culture. We're going to have an unbelievable degree of pressure put on us to conform and be like everyone else. So what is the solution for us to make sure that we are, as Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 13, enduring until the end and not giving up our values, not forsaking God's law, and patiently dealing with the cultural dysfunctions and the spiritual diseases that exist in this world today.

And verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. That's going to be so hard because pressure comes from everywhere to just compromise, to just be like everyone else, to begin to accept that agenda. After all, you want to be on the right side of history, don't you? That's another one of their popular phrases. You want to be on the right side of history.

So continuing here, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Every one of God's promises are sure and faithful. His promise for you, for eternal life, his promise of the kingdom of God, his promise of the eighth day and the meaning of the great resurrection, and all of those souls who have died without knowing God will have an opportunity themselves for salvation. All of those promises are absolutely sure. Verse 24, and let us consider one another to stir up love and good works. I want you to notice it doesn't say stir up anger or frustration among yourselves. It doesn't say stir up hatred among the flock of God. He says stir up love and good works. Those are two positive things that we should be stirring up within ourselves and within this congregation, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. So if we want to endure to the end, if we want to be able to stand strong, if we want to be able, without wavering the hold fast to the confession of our faith, we need to faithfully attend Sabbath services, worship our Almighty God on his Sabbath day, and be encouraged and supported by people of like mind. We need each other. And unless we're very sick, we need to be here each and every Sabbath day. We need to be here to help others and to allow others to help us, to take our lives to another level. So not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some. We talked about declining church attendance in the United States, again in a free fall, not in the manner of some, but exhorting, or that Greek word is more properly translated, encourage one another and so much more as you see the day, that is the literal return of Jesus Christ approaching. So, brethren, the antidote to what I've been talking about today, the way to survive, the way to endure into the end, is make sure that you are not just spiritual, but not religious, but spiritual and religious, and that you are coming to God's Sabbath each and every Sabbath day to worship Him in spirit and in truth, and to fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, and reaffirming the beliefs and the truth that God has revealed to you. So in conclusion, brethren, what can we expect in coming decades? We can expect greater decline in religion. We can expect a challenging of more biblical values. We can expect a rejection of our Judeo-Christian heritage, of our founding fathers being mocked, of our whole history being rewritten in a different way. We can expect a dramatic increase in the worship of cultural icons, celebrities, actors, actresses, secular morals, what we know to be righted true, replaced with humanistic ideas about basic human rights and hatred towards those who are people of faith.

Because, again, the tolerance is only expected in one way. It's not a two-way tolerance. The tolerance is demanded of people who are religious values and faith to be tolerant towards those who are dysfunctional deviants in some way. So, brethren, let us hold fast and, to the end, let us keep God's law, let us respect God's way of life, let us make sure that we're here each and every Sabbath day, that we're worshiping our great God, and that we are fellowshiping with one another.

Have a wonderful Sabbath day!