Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ teachings through australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Tim Matsis.
I don't know about you, but I feel like the world's on fire at the moment. It's like everything is aflame with antagonism. Everyone's upset about everything.
It doesn't matter what it is. If it's not the pandemic, the travel restrictions, economic uncertainty or civil unrest or racial tension or there's something going on everywhere. And I'm sure that you're like many people if you're sitting there thinking what's happening next? What's going to happen next that's going to set everybody ablaze.
And some things stir me up too. You read the newspaper and read a story that kind of gets you going a bit and you think, you know, it's time for action. The other a wee while ago, I read something in a very well known book, actually, most of you will be familiar with it.
It's called the desire of ages. And I thought to myself, well, how would Jesus deal with all these things that are going on? What would he do? And of course, if you ask ten different people, you get ten different answers. But there's a comment in there on page 509.
This is what she says. I think it's in here. Here we go.
She says the government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive. On every hand. There were crying abuses, extortion, intolerance and grinding cruelty.
Does that sound familiar? And then she says this. Yet the Saviour attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses nor condemned the national enemies.
He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our example kept aloof from earthly governments, not because he was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually and must regenerate the heart.
Interesting tactics, hey? You can't see him with a placard or denouncing some president or prime minister, no matter how bad. You realise that to make real and lasting change, we have to change the heart. And that's what I'm going to talk to you about this morning.
Because, of course, there is one thing going on at the moment that is not reaching the newspapers and that's the judgement that's going on in heaven. While all this is going on on earth and everybody's a burst with emotion, things are happening in heaven and nobody seems to notice. So before I begin today, I'd like to offer a word of prayer and ask the Lord to bless our time together.
Let's bow our heads. Our father in heaven. Lord, we thank you that you've given us this time together.
We thank you that you've given us your word to guide us when everything else seems to be so amok. We ask today, Lord, that you will quieten our hearts, help us to listen to your voice and to gain our direction from you. We ask this in Jesus name.
Amen. In the Old Testament, there's a book, very little book, which we often don't read. It's the book of Amos.
And Amos was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel. Some of you may recall that after King Solomon, there was a civil dispute, and some of the tribes went north, and they said, we'll have our own kingdom. And some of them stayed in the south, and that was the kingdom of Judah.
And they had their own king. And it didn't take long before the kingdom of the north began to really go downhill. And so Amos was a prophet, sent by God to warn them of what was to come.
And one day he had a vision. And this is what it says in Amos, chapter eight and verses one and two. It says there, thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold a basket of summer fruit.
And he said, amos, what seest thou? And I said, a basket of summer fruit. What does this mean? What would it mean if God showed you a basket of summer fruit? There's a good way to look at this in a bad way, isn't there? I suppose if I said to you, let's say I got dinner ready, and I said to you, dinner is served, that would be a good thing, wouldn't it? But if I said to you, your goose is cooked, that would mean an entirely different thing, wouldn't it? In both cases, the food is ready, but one meaning is quite different. And so Amos is looking at this basket of summer fruit, and then God says to him, then the Lord said to me, the end is come upon my people of Israel.
I will not again pass by them any more. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God, there shall be many dead bodies in every place. They shall cast them forth with silence.
I think the meaning is, the goose is cooked, isn't it? It's bad news. This is a strange thing for many people to hear. Because today, when we come to church or when we read our bibles, we look for solace in what God says.
We like to read passages like, oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. I'm sure they read things like this many times. In fact, 41 times in the Bible, it says, his mercy endures forever.
And yet that's not what God told Amos, is it? Maybe it was just misunderstood, because God truly is merciful, and in a world of pain and suffering, war, disharmony. We like to think of God as being the one person whose love never comes to an end, who will always love us. You know, when I was a kid, I grew up with the family dog, a Labrador retriever, golden one.
And, you know, that dog was the most amazing dog in the whole world. I reckon there's pictures of me as a kid. I couldn't find any today, but there's pictures of me as a kid climbing over it, you know, two year old.
The dog just kind of moves its head around a bit, but never bit me, you know, and I used to try and ride on its back like it was a donkey or something like that, and the dog just put up with it. Most amazing dog. When I was about nine, the dog got cancer.
We had to put the dog down. Bad thing, perhaps. Did I still love the dog? Of course I loved the dog, but the condition of the dog had changed.
My love for the dog hadn't changed. The dog had changed. So God's love, God's mercy does endure forever.
But here he's telling Amos, even though I love these people, their condition has changed, and there's a consequence to that. So what was so wrong with them? What had changed about Israel that had made God's mercy come to an end for them? Listen to what God says. Hear this, o ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, when will the new moon be gone so that we can sell corn and the Sabbath so that we can set forth wheat.
They were religious, right? But they couldn't wait for the religious services to be over so they could get back to business. And their business wasn't too straight either. Listen to this, he says, so that we may set forth wheat, making the ephaph small, that's a measure of wheat.
And the shekel, that's a measure of money, great. And falsifying the balances by deceit. In other words, they were ripping people off that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat.
They sold rubbish at high prices to poor people who couldn't afford it. And even then they ripped them off. Sound like today.
Do people today cry out that there's injustice, that prices are too high, that they can't afford to live? Seems they're religious. Religious enough. But they didn't care about other people.
You know those last six commandments that talk about how we treat others? They coveted, they lied, they stole. They supposed that gain was godliness. Today they would probably say to you that being financially successful makes you a good person.
John puts it this way in one John 420 21 he says, if a man says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liardhead. For he that loveth not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? This is the commandment we have from him, that he who loves God loves his brother also. Did these people love God? They said they did.
But according to God, did they love God? No, because they didn't love their brother. So it probably won't surprise you to know that their religious appearance, they appeared to keep the first four commandments about loving God. They didn't keep the last six.
But later on in the book of Amos, chapter eight, we find out actually that he says they didn't love God either. Listen to what he says about their love for God. Amos 814, it says, they that swear by the sin of Samaria and say thy God, o dan Liveth, and the manna of Beersheba liveth, even they shall fall and never rise again.
What on earth is that about? You see, after the northern kingdom was set up, the king was worried that they'd go back down to the temple in Jerusalem to pray. And if they're hanging around with the people in Jerusalem, well, maybe they'd join the kingdom in Jerusalem too. So as a way of keeping his subjects, he set up two temples in the northern kingdom.
Now of course, he didn't have the ark of the covenant there. He didn't have the priesthood. He didn't have anything else pertaining to the temple, so he had to make it up.
And what do you think he used? We've seen this before. Two golden calves. As if one in Sinai wasn't bad enough, he put a golden calf in Dan and another golden calf in Bethel.
And he asked the people, if you want to be a priest, just turn up. We'll turn you into a pastor. And so they set up idol worship in the northern kingdom.
So did they really love God? Did they keep the first four commandments? Does the first four commandments tell you you can set up a shrine and worship an idol? No, not at all. And, you know, that has an effect on people. The reason why Jesus said don't worship idols was not because he doesn't like carvings.
God likes artwork. He likes beautiful things. But it has an effect on you when you bow down to something else.
That's not God. And it's a very subtle thing, but this is what it says. Paul says this in two corinthians 318, he says, but we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord.
That means by beholding God, by thinking about God, by reading about him in the Bible, we get to understand what he's like. And if we think about God and we dwell on him, then we will be changed to be like God. Our characters will be developed.
So what do you think would happen if I spent all day playing violent video games or watching terrible movies or looking up to people who do evil things? Will I start to emulate God? No way. You'd get very depressed because that and changed by another spirit. Because now my conception of what I look up to is a very low thing.
I remember when I was a teenager, we all looked up to Bruce Lee. We all thought we were going to be like him or Michael Jordan. We lose sight of God's character and we substitute something that's not godly, something lower in its place, and we start trying to achieve a character like that thing.
You know, today, the highest aim of many people, the peak of society, is to be wealthy, isn't it? They think that if you've made it here, you're really something to look up to. If you were Bill Gates or some other rich person, everybody would be interested in you. You'd get the best seat in the restaurant if you're a good sports person.
You know, if I met the guys out the back here after church today and I said, you know, it's to play for the all Blacks, suddenly I'd have a crowd of people that want to talk to me about the game they watched. And, you know what I did in this game and how that was be very popular, wouldn't I? Others idolise nature or the environment. You know, I gave a girl heart flutters yesterday because she showed me how to print out.
Not to print out an email, but to save it electronically. So that I didn't have to print six pages. And she went into fits of ecstasy as she thought about how she had saved me printing six pages, even though I told her I was trying to support the forestry industry.
Some idolise nature and the environment, don't they? Other people idolise their racial or their sexual identity. Other people are all about family. As long as there's family, they'll tell you.
Which is not to say that all of these things are wrong in themselves, but when we neglect God, when we put something that's not God, something human, something earthly, in the place where God should be, the Bible calls that idolatry. And we end up sacrificing our time and sacrificing our money to things that are not God. And this changes us.
I'm going to read a very difficult passage now. Not difficult because it's hard to read, but difficult because in today's culture it's unpopular to read. It's found in the book of Romans, chapter one.
Romans, chapter 121 23, because Paul understood this process very well. He knew what would happen to christians if they lost sight of God and started looking at things around them. Paul says in verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.
Neither were they thankful. What does that mean? It means they didn't like to think of God as he was. When God said something in his word, they said, oh, I don't like that.
I don't like God telling me what to do. I prefer my own judgement. They didn't appreciate God anymore.
They didn't like what he had to say. A bit like some kids don't appreciate their fathers or their mothers. They don't appreciate what they've done from them.
They don't like their rules. And this is what happened to people. Paul says they became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, to birds, to four footed beasts and creeping things. Is that idolatry? It is.
It starts with not showing reverence for God and not being thankful. And instead we start to idolise corrupt and fallen humans. We start to look up to them.
Movie stars, sports stars, Internet influencers, political leaders, even. These become our standard for right and wrong. Or perhaps we start to look at nature, the world around us, to guide us as to how our lives should be.
Things in this earth that are actually under the curse of sin, we hold up as examples of how our lives should be. Now listen to what Paul predicted would be the result of people doing this, of a secular environment. Now notice carefully before I say this.
He's not posting this on Twitter or Facebook. He's not going down the pub and bashing his friends over the head with it. He's writing this to the Christians who were formerly Romans.
Yeah, the Christians in Rome. Okay. Because the Bible is standards for Christians.
The Bible says the carnal heart is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be so. This is what he says will happen. He says to Christians.
He tells them this in verse 24 to 28. He says, wherefore, because they didn't want to listen to God, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonour their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator, who was blessed forever. Amen.
For this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their woman did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust toward one another. Men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error, which was meat.
Good old King James English there. What's he saying? To many of us who follow this will know that this describes the sexual revolution that's taken place in our society over the last 60 years and is still going. Don't think it stopped.
As society has become less christian, we've developed other models of family that are not biblical, a secular model. And many people today would say, well, live and let live. We're not here to tell others how to behave, who to love, how to live their lives.
Maybe you can live with it. But Paul says it doesn't end there either. Paul warns that when we depart from God, we can't just think that it won't affect us too badly when we depart from God.
When we turn away from light, the direction we will head is further and further into darkness. It doesn't stop. Satan doesn't just want to derail your faith.
He wants to destroy you. And if you think that you can live with a little bit of sin in your life, that's a deception from Satan, because he won't stop with that sin. He will drive you further and further until you want to end your own life.
Listen to what Paul writes in verses 28 to 32. He says, as, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. That's a way of saying a mind devoid of judgement.
They lost their brain to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents without understanding, covenant breakers without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. It sounds like a dictionary here. Who, knowing the judgement of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in those that do them.
In other words, they do all manner of sin. The worst things that you can think of become publicly acceptable. Not only that, they hold up as role models the worst examples of human behaviour.
You know, I found a quote in the book the great controversy, which, if you hadn't read, you need to read, and, you know, she says exactly the same thing. She says thus, in place of the righteousness and perfection of the infinite God, great controversy, page 555. In place of the righteousness and perfection of the infinite God, the true object of adoration, in place of the perfect righteousness of his law, the true standard of human attainment, Satan has substituted the sinful, erring nature of man himself as the only object of adoration, the only rule of judgement or standard of character.
This is progress, not upward, but downward. She says it's a law of both the intellectual and spiritual nature that by beholding, we become changed. Did we see that in the Bible already? By beholding, we become changed? The mind gradually adapts itself to the subjects upon which it's allowed to dwell.
It becomes assimilated to that which it is accustomed to love and reverence. Man will never rise higher than his standard of purity or goodness or truth. If self is his loftiest ideal, he will never attain to anything more exalted.
Rather, he will constantly sink lower and lower. The grace of God alone has the power to exalt man. Left to himself, his course must inevitably be downward, progress backwards.
Do you ever feel like real life's becoming more and more like what we see on tv? Mike Tyson. Do people look up to him? Some people do. Probably the greatest boxer, some would say of all time.
A guy who punches people for a living. Among all manner of other things. Some of you are shaking your heads.
Kim Kardashian I've mentioned before, popular politicians or movie stars, perhaps some royals or some rock stars. Just ask young people who have the posters up on their walls or who spend countless hours watching these people on television, sports stars, drama queens, admired as the false gods of this world. These are the whether you say you do or not, the statistics show that this is what people spend their time doing.
This is where people spend their money, their energy, admiring people whom God does not admire. You know, Jesus said in his day in Luke 1615, you justify yourselves before men. In other words, people think you're something great.
But God knows the heart. And he says, for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. That which most of the world thinks is pretty great, God says, isn't going to make it into heaven.
In fact, God says that these things are nothing less than a sign that this world is actually about to end. Because as we think through that list that Paul wrote in romans, we can see many of these things in today's world. In fact, Paul writes to Timothy in two, Timothy three, one, five.
He actually lists these things as signs of the end. He says, know this also, that in the last days, perilous times shall come. Do you think we're in perilous times? It's not business as usual, is it? He says, for men shall be lovers of their own selves.
We used to think women had a problem with vanity. Covetous, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despises of those that are good. Good according to the Bible standard, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God having a form of godliness.
In other words, they think these people are good people. The government uses them to promote their campaigns to do this or that because people look up to them. They have a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.
Their hearts, their characters, are unchanged by the word of God. Theyre not fit for heaven because God has not changed them. But people look up to them as something special.
Verse eight says, these people have corrupt minds, their reprobate concerning the faith. And so it was in Israel in the time of Hosea, God's people had gotten to the point where, having turned away from God, having replaced what God wanted with human standards and earthly things, they had walked so far from goddess that there was nothing more that God could do for them. God loved them.
His mercy endures forever. But there had been a change in them that made their lives irretrievable, irredeemable. Like a family pet with cancer.
Sin had eaten away at them until there was no cure. You know, you wonder how this could happen. You know, the northern kingdom had some pretty special people.
You may have heard of some of them. Jeremiah 30 515 says that God sent to them his servants, the prophets, rising up early and sending them, telling them to turn away from their evil deeds. They didn't listen.
People like Elijah the prophet. He's a powerful man. Do you know he called down fire from heaven three times? Not just on Mount Carmel.
There were two other occasions he called down fire Elisha, a man who raised the dead and healed the sick. You know, I think if I had seen Elijah call fire down from heaven, and if I had been there when Elisha had raised someone from the dead, I think I would have listened. Or at least I like to think that they had Elijah and Elisha telling them, turn back to God.
They still didn't listen. You know, in the middle ages, we call it the dark ages, the Bible would cost you everything you had and more. Only the very rich had them.
And if you got one, you had to be prepared to burn at the stake to own it. Real Christians worshipped in caves and in mountain strongholds. Today we have churches.
We give bibles away. You know, my phone, a little thing like that, I can have hundreds of bibles stored on it for free. We've got first light hope channel.
Some have got three abn. It's everywhere. And yet, who wants to know what God thinks? I wonder if Elijah or even Jesus himself turned up here today, whether anybody would listen.
God's word is not valued by people, and soon it will be too late. Soon we will be like Israel. How do I know? Look at the chaos around us.
Like in Amos vision, that basket of summer fruit is nearly full. Listen to what God said would happen in the northern kingdom. Isaiah 811 twelve, he says, behold the days come, says the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea and from the north, even to the east. They shall run to and fro and seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. First light will get turned off.
The Bible on your phone might not work anymore. The app is not working. It will stop, and it will be like in Noah's day when the doors of the ark shut and the rain started to fall from the heavens and the water began to gush up.
From the earth. And people started to think. I think Noah mentioned something about this Noah and they began to bang on the doors of the ark.
We're ready to listen now. 120 years of preaching, now we want to listen. What was it that you said God was going to do? The Bible says there'll be a famine.
A famine for hearing the word of the Lord. People will want to know what God says, but it will be too late. Probation will have closed.
They've rejected the opportunity. The basket of summer fruit was full. Every case was decided, every mine made up.
The seeds that had been sown in the lives of the people in northern Israel had grown up, they had borne fruit and now the fruit was plucked and it showed what kind of character they were going to have for eternity. Harvest had come and I wonder if that could happen to you or I today. You know, there are three times the Bible mentions that our probation can close three different ways.
Of course, the first of them is when you die. The Bible says it's appointed unto men once to die and then we will face judgement. You can't accept Jesus after you've died.
If you want to read about that, you can read the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke, chapter 16, which tells us that after we're dead, there's no opportunity to accept God anymore. The second is when you reject the convictions of sin sent to you by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knocks and knocks and you keep saying, go away, go away.
It doesn't take all the sins in the world, it just takes one. And if you refuse to listen to what God says, eventually he realises there's no point trying. Send God away.
And the third one is a little bit like this one here. It's not where one person rejects the Holy Spirit, it's where the whole world rejects the Holy Spirit. You know, the Bible says this will happen at the end of time.
God sends three angels with a message telling people to fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgement has come. It's like he's sending Elijah again to warn people. And once, as Jesus said, this gospel of the kingdom has gone to the whole world.
Matthew 20 414. Once everybody's had the opportunity to decide whether they will be on God's side or not, and they've shown that by the way they're living, Jesus says, then the end will come and Jesus will make this pronouncement. He will finish his ministry in the heavenly sanctuary and he will say, he that is unjust, let him be unjust.
Still he which is filthy, let him be filthy still. He that is righteous, let him be righteous still. He that is holy, let him be holy still.
Every case is decided. There's going to be a harvest, the basket will be full. Revelation, chapter 14, at the end of the three angels messages describes this very clearly.
John says he saw that after these three angels had given their messages, warning people to fear God and give glory to him, warning against the mark of the beast to worship the creator on the Sabbath day. He says he looked and beheld a white cloud, and on the cloud sat one like the son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, thrust in thy sickle and reap, for the time is come for thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle to the earth, and the earth was reaped. And then another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven. He also having a sharp sickle.
Another angel came out from the altar which had power over fire and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle thrust in thy sharp sickle. And gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in her sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
And the winepress was trodden without the city. The final judgments of God on the earth will then be poured out. The harvest will be finished, the basket full.
Do you think that people will be calling out for their bibles, coming to the ministers, asking them whats happening next? How do we get out of this? They will say, whats going on here is of biblical proportions. If you doubt what I'm saying, just look what America did after September 11, 2001. Do you remember? The churches were full, everybody saying, oh, we need God in America again.
Because they thought the end had come. They'd never seen anything like it. Revelation 15.
One says that after this I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous. Seven angels having the seven last plagues. For in them is filled up the wrath of God.
Friends, when the plagues fall, people will cry out for God. They will ask how to be saved, not because they want to repent of their evil, but because they want out of trouble. But there's going to be a famine in the land, you know, some of you have felt what that famine is like, just not being able to come to church.
No church for a few months. There's a famine far worse than that. When every opportunity you have, not just from church, from the Internet, from first light, from everywhere, be gone.
No more mercy. The days come, says the Lord, that I will send a famine. Not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.
And people will wander from sea to sea, even from the north to the east. They shall run to and fro and seek the word of the Lord and they will not find it. You know what? You don't have to look very far.
The Bible tells us that at this time Jesus is not too far from every one of us. There's plenty of bread on the table, there's plenty to drink. The temple is still open.
I wonder how long God will wait. No one knows for sure, but I know this. He wants everyone to be saved.
And if we are lost, it won't be because God doesn't love us anymore. It will be because we've given up on God. What more could God do? A God that would give his own son to die for someone who hates him? What more could God do? If you were God, what more would you do after you've allowed your own child to be killed? God gave everything to save you and I.
And soon it would be too late. My prayer for you and for me this morning is that we won't be distracted by all the things that are going on in the newspaper. Don't let lands and goods and worldly occupations engross the mind.
Don't let social unrest unsettle you. Don't allow the economy or your pension to bother you so much that you forget that the most important thing that you can do right now, the crisis at hand, is to make sure that your heart is right with Goddesse. I know this morning announced ordinances next week encouraged us to get things right.
You don't have to wait for ordinances to be right with God right now. If you don't do it right now. Every morning before you wake up and every night before you go to sleep, as soon as you realise that something's not right between you and God, put it right.
Eat what God has provided and drink what God has provided. It's my prayer for each one of us.
This message was made available by the Masterton Seventh-day Adventist Church.
For more resources like this, visit Mastertonsda.NZ. This programme has been brought to you by 3ABN Australia radio.
