Participants: Chris Holland
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201605A
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00:11 >>Announcer: It has stood the test of time.
00:15 God's book, The Bible 00:18 Still relevant in today's complex world 00:24 It Is Written 00:26 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 00:39 >>Chris: Do you remember the tune? Certainly you remember the words. Two all beef patties, 00:44 special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles all on a sesame seed bun. That's right the infamous 00:51 Big Mac. Whatever your thoughts on a Big Mac may be, a study was done a few years ago called "The 01:00 Big Mac and the Ten Commandments." I won't ask how many of you have eaten a Big 01:04 Mac. That little jingle has stuck in the mind of millions for many years? You know, the 01:13 sad thing is that I haven't eaten a Big Mac in a long, long time. Yet, I am able to think of 01:19 the ingredients with relative ease. Here's the amazing thing, the survey that they took shows 01:27 that more people can name the seven ingredients in a McDonald's Big Mac than the Ten 01:33 Commandments. Prepare for yourself to be shocked. They surveyed 1,000 people, and it 01:39 showed that 80% of the people could name the sandwich's primary ingredient of two 01:45 all-beef patties, but less than 60% of the people recalled the commandment "Thou shalt not 01:51 kill." Let that sink in for a moment. They found 45% could recall the commandment "Honour 01:58 your father and mother," while 76% remembered the Big Mac ingredient lettuce. 75% knew 02:06 sesame seed bun. 66% knew special sauce. 62% knew pickles. 60% knew cheese. But don't miss 02:15 the point. All of those ingredients are more than the people could recall "Honour your 02:22 father and mother." It is remarkable that in this day and age, more people know that there 02:31 are pickles on a Big Mac than the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." What is happening in our 02:38 society? A society where more people know that a sesame seed bun is a part of the ingredients 02:44 of a sandwich from the golden arches than the commandment "Honour your father and your 02:49 mother." What's happening in our society? You see, something is going on in our society. We read 02:56 the newspaper, we watch the news, we read the internet. Lines are being blurred, and 03:03 moral standards which were once rock-solid are seemingly non-existent. It seems that our 03:11 society has turned its back on God's moral standards. If we look into the world of 03:20 entertainment, we find competing values. Many studies have been done on this. The average 03:26 18-year-old - let this sink in now - the average 18-year-old has witnessed 200,000 violent 03:35 acts on television and in the movies, including 40,000 murders. Let that sink in for a 03:42 moment. What does that do to the mindset, that someone witnesses violent acts and murder? It has 03:49 desensitized our society. And what we're seeing and that the research reveals is the Biblical 03:56 reality, that by beholding, we become changed. After you witness violent act after 04:04 violent act, murder after murder, it becomes much easier to pull the trigger. I'll never 04:11 forget when I was in high school, when we received news in my 11th-grade year, that one of 04:16 my classmates had been sitting in the back of a car, and someone approached their car, 04:22 whose hat was turned just the wrong way, whose shirt happened to be the wrong colour, whose 04:31 pants were rolled up on one side - the wrong side. And this classmate of mine, pulled out a 04:38 gun and killed this young man. Later he went to trial, was found guilty and was sentenced 04:45 to 65 years in prison. 04:51 And you think about this, this is what's happening in society. It's becoming easier to pull the 04:55 trigger, because if we're pulling the trigger in video games, how much easier is it? 05:00 When we're playing video games that are focussed with one primary goal - how many kills 05:06 can you achieve - it becomes much easier to do it in real life. Children who identify 05:12 with aggressive TV characters and perceive the violence to be realistic are most at risk for 05:18 later aggression, according to the American Psychological Association. In 2013, the Youth 05:25 Risk Behaviour Survey found this among high school students during the past - what does it 05:33 say? - 30 days: 35% of them drank alcohol. I would remind you, in high school, you're 05:37 under the age of 18. 21% binge drank; 10% drove while drinking alcohol; 22% rode with a driver 05:47 who had been drinking alcohol. You see, it's starting younger and younger and younger. Last 05:57 year, I went to Nunavut, and in Nunavut, we are doing a special project to bring Bibles in 06:01 Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit peopleand we're also working to build community 06:07 centres where churches can meet, but are used on a daily basis. However while I was there, I met 06:15 young people 8 and 9 years old, and this young man who was 8 years old, the first question he 06:23 asked me was not, what's my name, where are you from? The first question he asked me was, 06:31 "Do you use drugs?" Why did he ask me that question? Because he lived in a home where his 06:43 parents were doing drugs, drugs that they were obtaining from outsiders, workers, who were 06:47 bringing them in and selling them. Then the parents would buy the drugs and have no money for 06:54 food. And then the children could not eat. And then the children would steal the 06:58 parents' drugs. So you have eight-year-olds, this eight-year-old in particular, 07:02 who was regularly smoking marijuana. It's becoming younger and younger. Our society 07:09 seems to be in decay. One-third of teenagers report that they have used some illicit drug at 07:17 some point in their lives. According to some statistics 57% of all men, 54% of all women 07:25 report some type of marital infidelity. A more disturbing statistic is this, when asked 07:33 the question, would you have an affair if you never got caught? 74% of men said they would. 68% 07:40 of women said they would. What's happening in our society? What's going on? There is moral 07:49 decay in our society. Pornography is rampant. 07:57 When I was in school, and I had to preach on the seventh commandment - thou shalt not 08:05 commit adultery - and I was in a preaching class, and so you know, when you preach to 08:15 preachers, it's a little intimidating, but I wanted to make it relevant, so I started 08:22 doing research. And the research indicates that anywhere between 45 and 55% of all pastors have 08:28 some form of pornographic material on their computers at that very moment. By the way, 08:37 that's not to denigrate the pastors; that's to demonstrate the challenges we are facing in 08:43 the eroding moral situation in this country. You see, Proverbs 28:26 gives this little snippet, 08:52 but how powerful it is: 09:05 That's what's happening in our society. We see it all around. But today, we will look, because 09:12 this is not what God intended. You see the Jerusalem factor is all about turning our eyes 09:20 upward toward heaven and looking to the new Jerusalem. To the tabernacle made by God and not 09:27 man and seek to find answers the ever quickening moral decay or our society. 09:38 Let's step back in time, over 3,000 years ago, God wrote some things in stone, that, if 09:44 applied to the society in Canada, the society in all of North America, and the society 09:50 around the world for that matter.that would make a marked difference in what is happening 09:56 in society today. You see, Psalm 111 verses 7 to 9 says this: 10:18 How long? Forever and ever. That is powerful. You see, God wrote His precepts, which is 10:30 another word for laws or regulations. He wrote them, that they would stand forever. But 10:34 God's law is under attack. But you know, it is very interesting, the book of Daniel 10:40 actually predicts exactly what's happening in society, because there's an entity working to 10:49 actually tear down the law of God. We've read about it before in Daniel chapter 7 and 10:56 verse 25: 11:22 He [speaking of that little horn, religiopolitical power], 11:27 Whose law is he trying to change? God's law. So now we have this entity that's actually 11:29 trying to change the law. Additionally in Daniel 8:25 this little horn power is doing all 11:38 he can to undermine God's governance, it says: 11:59 Who's the Prince of princes? Jesus Christ Himself. But then interestingly enough, when you 12:07 go to Daniel chapter 11, this same little horn power is at it once again, and it says that he 12:14 shall turn in rage against the holy covenant. Whose covenant is the holy covenant? That's God's 12:20 covenant. You see, Daniel told us that at the end of time, when this little horn power would 12:28 rise, in the judgement hour, that this little horn power would actually work to change 12:33 the law, actually work against the law, actually work against the very name of God. 12:46 Why is this all important? Other than the obvious reason of the fact that the law of God is 12:51 the law of God. The book of Revelation says something very interesting about those who will 12:58 be on the earth during the time of the end. In Revelation chapter 12 and verse 17, it 13:07 talks about the dragon. Who is the dragon? It is Satan. He was enraged with the woman. In Bible 13:18 prophecy, a woman represents the church. And he went to make war with who? The rest of her 13:27 offspring. If you're reading from the King James Version, it says "the remnant of her Seed." 13:35 What is that talking about? That's talking about those who are God's people that are 13:41 leftover that look like the original intention of God's people. And how are they 13:46 defined? 14:01 You see, the book of Daniel talks about the law of God being attacked. The book of Revelation 14:06 says that God's people, at the end of time, will be keepers of the commandments of God. And 14:13 this is not just one isolated verse, by the way. Revelation 14:12 says: 14:31 Please don't miss the point of these verses. They are two different verses that describe 14:36 what God's end-time people look like. Those who are on the earth, faithful to God, awaiting 14:43 the return of Jesus, both of these verses say they will be keeping the commandments. And 14:50 here's the amazing thing about the Ten Commandments. Even though the Ten Commandments were 14:54 written sometime about 3500 years ago, the Ten Commandments speak with relevance and meaning 15:02 to the 21st century. Now, let me clarify what I just said. God wrote it in stone and gave it to 15:09 Moses 3500 years ago. But we're going to see in our study, that God's law has not existed only 15:16 for 3500 years. The Bible says that God's law is eternal. 15:25 But look at these commandments. What would happen in society today? What would happen - and 15:33 let's not make it so big - what would happen in Calgary or Toronto or St John's or 15:40 Vancouver, what would happen in Canada, if no one placed any other God before the God of 15:48 heaven? Now, I'm not talking about forced religion. What if people placed God first in their 15:59 life? What would happen? What would happen if we lived in a society where people did not 16:04 worship idols? And by the way, when I speak of worshipping idols, don't say in your mind, 16:09 "Oh, I don't have any statues in my house." But idols being, "th worshipping people or events or 16:19 other things, and caring about those things more than I do about God." What would happen in 16:24 our society if the name of God was never taken in vain? You know, I travel a lot, and I'll 16:29 never forget, not too long ago, we were travelling at the same time, we were sitting in the 16:36 lounge waiting for our airplane, and there was a man across the way that - and I'm not being 16:42 judgemental of him, I'm simply making an observation - literally, not figuratively, 16:47 literally, every other word out of his mouth was a foul word. And I just sat there, and I 16:54 said, "You know, I think I'm going to turn my phone on and I'm going to record him, and 16:59 then when it's really quiet, I'm going to play it back really loud, so he can hear what he 17:04 sounds like. Now, I didn't do that, but imagine a society with clean language. 17:16 What would happen in a society that's overburdened, stressed, and full of people who are 17:22 suffering from anxiety, to remember what God said, that we should have one day that is 17:30 completely dedicated to God? What would happen in society if children honoured their father 17:37 and mother? By the way, let me expand upon that. What would happen in a society that 17:43 children honoured their father and mother because their father and mother were honourable? But 17:50 by the way, that's not a condition of the commandment. But what would happen? What 17:54 would happen in a society where no one killed each other? I'm going to tell you what would 17:59 happen in society. Every news outlet would go out of business. What would happen in a society 18:05 where there was no adultery? Where there was no adultery, no infidelity, ever? What would 18:10 happen in that society? What would happen in a society where no one stole anything, where 18:15 everyone honoured the realities of ownership? What would happen in a society where no one lied, 18:20 no one bore false witness against their neighbour? What would happen in a society? What 18:24 would happen in a society where no one coveted other people's stuff? And I'm going to hit the 18:31 pause button, because I want to be very clear in what I'm about to say. I believe in God. I have 18:40 given my life to Jesus Christ. But here's what I want to ask, for the sceptic that may be 18:46 watching or listening right now. Even if God did not exist, tell me that God's laws would not 19:00 make society a better place. Imagine for a moment - which I don't believe - but imagine for 19:07 a moment that God didn't exist, imagine for a moment that the entirety of the Bible - which I 19:12 do not believe - but imagine it was all just a fairytale - which again I do not believe. But 19:19 imagine that we lived, each one of us, lived our lives in accordance with the Ten 19:29 Commandments, and we got to the end of our life and found out that Jesus really wasn't coming 19:34 again. Would we be worse for the wear to live in such a way? 19:44 But here's the beauty of it all: God does exist. Jesus is coming soon. And Jesus is coming 19:49 to set up a kingdom that looks like that. And it's a beautiful thing. You see, God's law is the 19:59 very foundation of His throne. It's the foundation of His governance. And God's law is 20:04 eternal. It is the eternal moral standard which defines sin and establishes our accountability 20:13 to God. That is the Jerusalem factor. There exists an unchangeable moral standard for 20:22 all time. So I want you to notice now, we're going to try to understand why the law 20:28 exists, because there is a lot of discussion in Christianity about the law of God, with many 20:34 Christians ignoring the law of God. But 1 John 3:4 is very clear. 20:55 Other versions will say that sin is the transgression of the law. You see, sin is defined by God's 21:03 law. Sin is when we break God's law. How do we identify sin? How do we know what sin is? God's 21:09 law defines it for us. The beauty of that is, there's no floating definition of what is 21:16 sin. So that way there is no relativistic approach to moral living, a what is sin for you is 21:25 not sin for me, no, no, no. In God's law, what is sin, is sin There is great beauty in God's 21:38 law, because when you talk about God's law, some Christian preachers will say, "That's very 21:42 restrictive," but see, God's law is the pathway to freedom and genuine happiness. Notice, James 21:55 2:12: 22:09 Do you want true freedom? Are you looking for liberty from those things that bind you down? 22:15 Come to Jesus. He is the one who authored the ten commandments. A moral standard of living that 22:24 leads to freedom and liberty. He gives us the enabling strength to abide by His word. There is 22:34 more to say about God's law and the Jerusalem Factor, but we are all out of time. Friend, let us 22:42 cling to Jesus, the Author and finisher of our faith who has given us a standard to live by. 22:52 Take my life, let it be 22:59 Consecrated, Lord, to Thee 23:05 Take my moments and my days 23:11 Let them flow in ceaseless praise 23:16 Let them flow in ceaseless praise 23:27 Take my hands, let them move 23:33 At the impulse of Thy love 23:39 Take my feet and let them be 23:45 Swift and beautiful for Thee 23:50 Swift and beautiful for Thee 23:57 I am yours, set apart for you 24:03 I am yours, hungry for your truth 24:09 Take my life, you are all I live for 24:15 I am yours 24:22 Take my voice, let me sing 24:28 Always only for my King 24:34 Take my lips and let them be 24:40 Filled with messages from Thee 24:46 Filled with messages from Thee 24:53 I am yours, set apart for you 24:58 I am yours, hungry for your truth 25:04 Take my life, you are all I live for 25:10 I am yours 25:18 Take my will and make it Thine 25:24 It shall be no longer mine 25:30 Take my heart, it is Thine own 25:36 It shall be Thy royal throne 25:42 It shall be Thy royal throne 25:49 I am yours, set apart for you 25:54 I am yours, hungry for your truth 26:00 Take my life, you are all I live for 26:06 I am yours, set apart for you 26:12 I am yours, hungry for your truth 26:17 Take my life, you are all I live for 26:26 I am yours 26:32 I am yours 26:37 I am yours 26:51 My dear friends much of Christianity has been confused on the role of God's law. Today 26:56 I want to offer you a little booklet called "Does God's grace blot out the law". It will help 27:02 you understand more about this law of liberty. Here's the information you need to receive 27:08 today's offer. 28:10 My dear friend, God has, as the foundation of His government, a law of liberty - a law that 28:17 gives you freedom from sin that you might walk in His ways. I hope today that you found 28:22 freedom in Jesus. I'd invite you to join us again next week Until then remember, man shall 28:30 not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. |
Revised 2016-12-12