Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Moral Decay | Junior Kline
Ever wondered why vigilance in your spiritual walk is crucial? Listen to this episode where we unravel timeless wisdom from seasoned preachers about the power of God and the necessity of relying on Him. Through personal anecdotes inspired by morning devotions and Scripture, we draw vivid illustrations, like ignoring check engine lights and observing deer behavior in Holmes County, to highlight the dangers of becoming desensitized to sin. This episode is a call to Christians to remain steadfast against moral decay and to nurture our children, ensuring they feel valued and heard.
Uncover the secrets of discernment as we navigate the maze of Christian denominations and varying beliefs. Drawing from scriptures such as 1 Timothy 4:16 and John 16:13, we emphasize the need to stay rooted in God's word. Hear the story of a man whose life was transformed by genuine faith, finding clarity in the scriptures after being born again. Reflecting on the lessons from 1 Corinthians 10, we stress the importance of avoiding idolatry and maintaining fidelity to biblical doctrines, encouraging listeners to remain open to the truth and live faithfully.
Journey with us through the Israelites' trek from Egypt to the Promised Land, a story rich with lessons on faithfulness and the perils of disobedience. Drawing from Hebrews 4, we discuss the importance of mixing the preached word with faith to avoid falling short of God's promises. Personal stories of loss and community support underscore the significance of godly influences, especially for our children. Concluding with a heartfelt prayer, we express gratitude for the teachings gleaned from Hebrews and the Gospel of John, seeking blessings and protection for all listeners.
hear the old preachers. When I was a young boy, I would hear the preachers saying about the power of God and how that we can't live this, we can't live the Christian life on our own and you know I was. I didn't know what they were talking about, but praise God, I do now. The power of God is available. He meets us, as we heard this morning. He meets us on where we are very vulnerable, where we admit that we're not able to do it on our own. So, yeah, that's just, it was wonderful. I just want to personally thank you all again for your contributions to this forenoon. Anyway, I'd like to move, I'd like to get on with the message here, and I guess some of these messages that I have gotten here recently are simply I'm not going to pretend that they were thoughts perhaps on my own, pretend that they were thoughts perhaps on my own, but on our still waters. Some of those morning devotions that are written in there are tremendously inspiring for me, and you know it's so how God wakes us up sometime, and you know we read the Word of God and what it was that one morning about a month or so ago, I believe it was the title of it was Be Aware. And I thought to myself it was a wonderful written page there on being aware and I thought you know what does the Bible actually say when it says beware, or take heed. In the Scripture we read the Scripture and maybe you're like me, you're reading here and it says beware of false prophets or whatever it may be. And when there's a beware, do we sit up, do we take notice, beware, there's something here for us to check. And I think maybe I told our home congregation that perhaps some of the times we do these take heats and beware we kind of just kind of gloss over them. And I said that maybe kind of like our check engine lights that come on in our vehicles, like you know, we look at it and we think, well, surely there's nothing wrong. And you know we see it every morning when we go to work or whatever, and you know the car's still running very well and you know the lights are still on and you know what. We get acclimated to it, we get acclimated to it, we get acclimated to that, and so it's just a little side story here about getting acclimated and not doing anything about it.
Speaker 1:I remember as a teen I was about 12 or 13 years old when we first ever seen a deer in Holmes County. When I was in school we'd seen a deer and you know those deers didn't hang around, they were wild. You know. You would maybe just kind of see a flash of a tail in Holmes County and we told everybody that we'd seen, that we'd seen a deer. And here about three weeks ago we were at our daughter's and one Sunday evening and they live on top of a hill and to the north of their property there's a wood and the deer came out there and there was a spirited volleyball game going and the children were running and jumping and everything know. They were just having a great time and the deer were completely fine with that. They kept drifting over and over and over and if I would have been a hunter I could have probably killed one and I thought to myself what really is the lesson here? What can I glean from that experience there?
Speaker 1:That you know, is it? You know the things that are creeping from the world, the things that are going on right now. You know, at one time there used to be a real shame of sin, and the sins that were at one time in the backstreet alleys are now marching with a float down mainstream. It seems like we get as Christians you know, we see it, and it seems like we're almost stifled, we can barely say anything anymore about it, and slowly but surely, we seem to get acclimated or maybe we don't, but there is that tendency of getting acclimated to sin, and I'm just it's sobering to think that you know the things that are forbidden in the word of God, the things that are truly forbidden, that we would come to the place where we would truly forbidden, that we would come to the place where we would well, we, you know, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe people that are, maybe, people that love each other and they're not married yet and they decided that they're going to move in with that, and you know they're so deeply dedicated and so deeply in love with each other and you know we ah, it's just, you know we don't really think it's okay, but we don't say anything about it, or do we? So those are challenges, those are challenges for us as Christians.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I thought to myself that when Archer John was here, dedicated and given to the Lord the take-heeds, one of the first take-heeds that I thought is that we are to take heed to the little children, that we don't despise them, that we care for them, that we you have a lot of children here that we respect our children, that they have a say in a sense. At that time, I believe that the children were supposed to be seen and not heard, and so I think that there's a cry. I believe that there's a cry for young children to be heard, to be considered, to be cared for, to be considered to be cared for, to be loved. Just recently I heard of a man that said his dad had never had time for him and it really still really hurts. And so we were. We grew up on a farm and we were busy, and but we had, we tried to make time for family and it's, I think it's very important that we do that, to continue to do that.
Speaker 1:I'd like to turn to Matthew in Matthew 7. I believe it's one of the take-heeds that Jesus told us to take heed to, and it's in Matthew 15, just to start off, there I'm going to be. I'm just. I guess I'm preaching to myself, I'm not very organized, but I just thought maybe I need to be honest with myself and to be allowed this scripture to minister to myself and to be aware of what God is speaking and maybe the things that I need more than maybe you do.
Speaker 1:But it says here beware of false prophets. Here in Matthew 7, verse 15, it says Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? And recently in my study I came over something that I had never seen before. I had never, ever heard anybody preach on this passage of scripture, and so I'm kind of intimidated to actually to share this here.
Speaker 1:But this is what I found, and maybe you have heard of this, but I think there's a deeper truth to this. You know these false prophets, you know, in my time, in my time and I'm not singling anyone out but I have seen quite a few people what is the right word, denominations, and I'm not mentioning any names but I've seen them come and I've seen them kind of like rise and then plateau, and then they're gone again, maybe a period of maybe 15, 20 years, and they always had a strong leader, and once the leader passed on, it seemed like it didn't go on anymore. And so I wondered here, in this passage of Scripture, what I wanted to tell you is that you shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns? Do they actually gather grapes of thorns? Well, we all know that's not true. It doesn't happen. But over there, where this was written, in Israel, it tells me I found it in my studies that there were actually thistles or thorns that actually looked like grapes. And when you would walk up to them, if you would see these grapes and you would decide that this is what I want, I'm going to get myself some grapes, you'd come up there real closer, closer to it, and you'd discover that they were actually. They weren't grapes, they looked like grapes but they were berries.
Speaker 1:So I'm thinking here what ministers to my heart here is that just simply, is that we need to give false teachings. We perhaps need to be careful. Instead of just reaching out and accepting anything, we need to maybe get a little closer and look what are the results, what are the fruits of this, what are the fruits of this teaching? And a lot of times you will find that there's in false teachings, like there's somewhat a provision of the flesh, and I had to think already of false teachings. You know, have you ever seen anything like the Christian faith? How many different denominations and slices and dices and everything. You know we've got Protestants and we've got you know, we've got a list of all the churches and everyone seems like almost believes a little bit different. They're all strong maybe in one area and maybe weak in other areas. And I wondered already, I don't know how the Mohammeds believe. I don't know what the Buddhists believe, but I would say they're probably just, they have their belief, and it seems like it is by design of the enemy to confuse us. What do we really actually do? What are we really believing? And so I think we, we can know.
Speaker 1:There's some scripture, and I don't want to, I don't want to leave a negative note here. I want to. I'm going to turn to some of the scriptures, and I have to, I think it's. I wrote them down here, on my notes here, and if I can find them real soon here, I will continue to do so. Okay, in 1 Timothy 4, I would like to turn to a scripture there, in 1 Timothy 4, verse 16. Here's another.
Speaker 1:Take heed, and it's an encouragement for us. It says here for us, it says here take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrines, continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. There's the solution, there it is. You know, we need to continue in them. And I like what Charles Spurgeon said in them. And I like what Charles Spurgeon said, you know, we need to live in the word.
Speaker 1:And here's one of his I would say his classics. And he said live in the suburbs of the celestial city, live in the suburbs of the celestial city. Live real, close to God, real, close to the word, real, close to God, real, real, close to the word. Have a connection and study and be in the world. Be in the word, sorry, be in the word, and continue in the doctrines, you shall both save yourself. And in John 16, in John 16, there's another verse that I want to turn to, verse 13,. It says here how be it, when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you in all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak and he will show you things to come. Howbeit, when the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth. What an encouragement when the Spirit of truth, when the spirit was poured out. And today, when the spirit, when God's spirit moves into your life, he will, with revelation, you will be able to read the scripture.
Speaker 1:I had some very old, very conservative friends that were. For years they were living in darkness. They were just in a setting where that and this was so special to me. The man said to me he had tears in his eyes and he said you know, I could never understand the word of God. I never knew what the word of God. And then this is what he said until I became born again and the scriptures became alive to him. How beautiful is that the spirit of truth coming into a man's life and guiding him. So we need to be careful. Yes, deception is out there, but you know, I think it depends on your honesty and on my honesty. Are we open to the truth? I trust we are. I trust we are open to the truth.
Speaker 1:I would like to one of the scriptures here now. This is shifting gears a little bit here, but I would like to turn to 1 Corinthians 10, and it kind of correlates on what we heard this morning and it's talking about the children of Israel and over the course of the times we find ourselves getting some scripture out of 1 Corinthians 10 here for our communion, and always we kind of leave these examples that they had here of the examples here of the children of Israel and how Paul writes to the Corinthians and brings the children of Israel's life back into here. And there's a take heed in here that I would like to address here and to look into it. It says here in chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians, verse 1,. It says Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant how that all the fathers under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual drink, me, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things were examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things. As they lusted. They also lusted Neither be ye idolaters, as some of them that were written. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed and fell in one day. Three and twenty thousand. That's as far as I'm going to read now.
Speaker 1:There's a take heed in there, and this is what really ministers to my heart here is that we look at the children of Israel, and they had a glorious deliverance. They had a tremendous experience. Millions, maybe up to two million people had the privilege of walking dry land through the Red Sea. It was a glorious, glorious experience. But it tells us here that for many of those that God was not well pleased, we need to take heed. To take heed here is to think that if, when we're thinking that we're standing, there's a tendency of us to look back and to look at our experience and just to simply go off of that, but we need to continue. It says here for many of them, god was not well pleased, and even Moses, that great leader, didn't even make it in, and so that's always a sobering thought to me, although they arrived in the promised land, I'm sure. But there's really something that I believe that ministers to our heart, and how that we need to continue to be faithful. With many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Speaker 1:Now, these things were in our example to the intent that they should not lust after you.
Speaker 1:They lusted, they became very wicked. When Moses went up to the mount, he was gone. We were discussing that in our Sunday school here a couple of weeks ago actually. How long he was gone, and I'm not sure that I know for sure how long he was up on the mountain, but it could have been maybe a month or more. And you know, in that time they really backslid and they made a golden calf and they actually bowed down and they worshipped that golden image and they said that's what brought us out of the Promised Land. And so how? Yeah, terrible.
Speaker 1:We would say, okay, neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication and fell in that day, three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of the serpents they tempted, they were unthankful and they were ungrateful for the provision that God had made for them. They were unthankful and unthankfulness is always a sin. It says neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. A murmuring that's. When we murmur, when we're ungrateful, when we're unthankful, we are just simply in the flesh. We are in the flesh and we murmur and probably we all know, and people in our life that were. It became just an automatic. They were just routinely ungrateful and unthankful, and I think that that's the way the children of Israel were. And now these all things happen unto an example that we're written for our admission of whom the ends of the world were come. They were. These, these happenings here. We can apply these to current day Christianity. We can.
Speaker 1:And I want to turn to Hebrews here. I'm not going to make it real long here, but I'm going to wind it down here pretty soon. But it says here in Hebrews 4, and I would like to read it here. It says Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into the rest. Any of you should seem to come short of it, for unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them. That heard it. And it says here I just printed it off on the commentary and I thought it was just so fitting. I'm going to read it off here, what it says here Some of the Jewish Christians who received this letter may have been on the verge of turning back from the promised rest in Christ, just as the people in Moses' day had turned back from the promised land.
Speaker 1:In both cases, the difficulties of the present moment overshadowed the reality of God's promise and the people doubted that God would fulfill it. You know, that's really, isn't that really how that, when the children of Israel just the type of person that I would be is. This is how I would calculate that it would take me 40 days from going to here to over here. I'm the type of person in my mind that I would have a calendar in there day one, check mark, day two. This is going to be only 35 days. Let's keep marching, let's keep going on, let's keep going.
Speaker 1:But here's what happens, and I want to just acknowledge that some of you in here have gone through some very difficult times. I don't understand. I'd like to say I understand, but I don't, and so I want to be very careful that you know, regardless of what happens, that we just plunge ahead and we just march, and you know, we just keep on going. But I think we need to be careful and allow God to work in our life what he actually wants to work. But you know, we can really become how should I say? At the moment of time we just don't see a way forward and we just simply want to hunker down and we just want to give up.
Speaker 1:And you know, the Bible tells us here in Hebrews that we are to lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees. You know, the people here in Hebrews were discouraged, and there's so many interesting things here in Hebrews. Is it Hebrews 6 where it says you know, if we sin willfully after we have, you know if we've come to the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice? Oh, that used to strike a terror in my heart when I was young, but you know, I've come to realize. We need to know what it's actually saying. He's saying that if you put Christ back on the cross and you go back to the old way of Judaism and you go back to that old way of the, the old way of with sacrifices and offerings, he said there remaineth no more sacrifice for you, you're actually cutting off the limb of what you're sitting on. And so that's what he's saying here, and so we need to know what.
Speaker 1:For myself, I like to know what it really, what it's really saying, and I can just relate to a lot of this portion of Scripture here, and it's such an encouragement for me to continue on, regardless of what we experience in our life, that we continue to go on. So, yeah, that's my encouragement, that we would continue to take heed, that we would be careful of how we live. And just in closing, here again coming back to the baby dedication, I just, john and Becca I think it's so wonderful that little John, archer John and your child here were given to the Lord. But you know, as far as that's wonderful, but I believe what is equally important is that you and we as parents, that we exemplify Christ in their lives. And I would say this that in my time, when I was a young boy I don't know how much I should say, but when I was 15 years old my oldest brother was killed in a tractor accident and that was a tumultuous time for us.
Speaker 1:And what I want to bring this in, tie it in here, is what happened is that we got a lot of visitors, we got a lot of company, and these people were people from out of state. I remember people from Pennsylvania coming over. They stayed at our place overnight and what they did is they testified of the goodness of God through their tragedies, through their heartaches. And you talk about having a burning within my heart, like an Emmaus road where Christ was walking with those disciples and opening unto them the scriptures, and didn't they say, oh, how our hearts burned. I remember as a 15-year-old boy how my heart yearned and longed for having what those people had.
Speaker 1:I knew I didn't have what they had, and so that would be my prayer that your children, that you would surround yourselves with godly people and allow those people, those godly saints, influence your children. And you have committed yourself to do that this morning. I think it's very wonderful and it's just God is good, and so it's one thing. It's one thing. I've said this numerous times in our church already. I want to close. It's one thing for us to, kind of on the top of our head, say that God is good, but when a person is going through the valley and God is real in their life, and when they say that God is good, it has a lot more weight, doesn't it? It has a lot of weight when people like that share that, and so, yeah, so let's pray.
Speaker 1:Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning. We just want to thank you for this wonderful time, lord, that we've experienced thus far in your word and the wonderful book of Hebrews, and how that we were expounded and taught out of John this morning and, lord, just for revealing us the scripture, how that we need to take heed and to be careful how we live our lives, lord, and that we would sit up and take notice on things that should grab our attention. So, lord, we just commit this service into your care. We give it to you. We pray for everyone that is here today. Lord, we just commit this service into your care. We give it to you. We pray for everyone that is here today. Lord, we just pray that you would bless them, keep them and keep us as we journey to our homes, that you would keep us safe and those that have come from afar. We just pray that you would continue to bless them and watch over them as well. Commit this service into your care. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.