Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Do You Have What it Takes to Endure to the End?

 Do You Have What it Takes to Endure to the End


Praise Jesus this morning everyone. The other day I was remembering back on my life when I was younger and I remember a few times where I was very encouraged to spread the gospel to people. Not because my church told me that I should or my parents told me that I should tell people about Jesus, but simply because I wanted to. And I remember a few of the first times that I shared Jesus with people. A couple times that come to my mind is one time when I was really young, praise Jesus everyone, I shared with my brother before Y2K. Do any of you remember that? I'm sure if you're older than 40 you'll remember the whole Y2K scare. And a lot of people went into a panic during this time of Y2K, which was year 2000. And there was this whole scare that people thought it was the computers were going to all be shut down because it was going to reset, remember that? People were panicking thinking that it was going to go back to the year zero and that maybe the whole economy would be disrupted due to Y2K. But if you can remember what happened, nothing happened.


But for a month before or a few months before Y2K happened, everyone was going into that panic. And I took the opportunity to tell people about Jesus, that possibly the Lord's return was happening imminently, that it could happen right at year 2000. And I told people this. And I remember one night, late at night, staying up and talking to my brother about Y2K and the return of Jesus and how it could be right on New Year's. And I remember my brother being panicked and wanting to give his life to Jesus right then. And as I recall of some of these experiences, telling people about Jesus and his return in end times, what I recall is people for a moment being genuine, wanting to repent, people for a moment wanting to get right with the Lord. But the only reason, guys, that they wanted to get right with the Lord was out of fear. Now, clearly we have to fear God and love him. We have to have both of those elements to our faith. If you have one without the other, you'll be in great trouble. And as I recall, okay, there was another instance where I knew someone from high school, and this guy came over to my house. And again, I told him about end times, and we stayed up late into the night talking, doing a sleepover. And through the night, I talked to him about Jesus's return and the uprising of the antichrist. And I just spoke about end times and the things that I knew were true from the Bible. And this guy listened. And like my brother, he also went into a panic. He was panicked and he wanted to repent. But these guys' repentance only lasted for an evening. And then by the next day, when the Lord hadn't returned, or by New Year's, when the Lord hadn't returned at Y2K, they went straight back to their way of worldly living. It wasn't enough to carry them through life. If we want what it takes to carry us through life, we need Jesus's true love. 


And sadly, most Christians don't have what it takes to endure to the end. They either have love or they have fear. They fear God while it looks like His judgments are coming. While the fires come down in LA, they say, the judgment of God is coming, we better shape up. But as soon as the rains come, they say, the fires have died down, we can go back to worldly living. And those who only have love and no fear, they say, God's grace is with me. And look, there's no judgment of God, so His grace is with me. I have love, I have what it takes to endure to the end. But they don't have fear of God, so they don't respect Him. And they also begin to live ungodly because they don't see the judgment that will happen if they don't live righteously. I want to read to you what Jesus said about end times, and I encourage you to read the whole chapter of Matthew chapter 24, but about this servant who fell away once the fear of God was no longer with him. Jesus says, then who is then faithful? And the wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food in due season. That means, which one of us is living on the food of life and also feeding that food to others when Jesus returns? Who of us will be doing that when Jesus returns? Who will be spreading the true gospel out of fear and love? Then Jesus says, blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, my master is delaying his coming and begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and an hour when he is not aware of and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. That is pretty severe guys. That is not the grace gospel that we traditionally hear in church. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 


So we know about these parables that Jesus taught. We know that he taught about hell. So the question is, do we have what it takes to endure to the very end, the end of the age, the end of our life? And I propose to you, it takes much more than just the grace gospel kind of love. And it takes much more than just a moment of fear of God, because many men fear God, the devil fears God, and the devil's not making it into the kingdom. And you will not make it into the kingdom of God if you just fear him in a moment in time. And too many Christians, they turn to God out of fear. You know, there's a tent revival. And so they hear the preacher speaking about hellfire and brimstone and they go, my goodness, hell is real and demons are going to take me to hell if I don't repent of my sins. So they go down to the altar and they confess their sins and they say, Lord Jesus, I repent, come into my heart. 


And the pastor prays over them and he prays over all of these people with this altar call. And then they leave that tent and maybe for a month or maybe for six months, they're on fire for God. But as soon as that experience starts to dwindle down and the things of the world start to arise, those weeds start to choke them out. And their foundation was never on solid rock. It was based just on a moment of fear from a preacher speaking about end times. So you can't endure with Jesus to the end just on a moment of fear. 


You have to get past this until you have a genuine love for God. How do you obtain a love for God when you don't have that? A lot of Christians, they're just fearful. They want to escape hell, but they don't have a genuine love for God. They don't have genuine love for their neighbor. And you see this kind of shallow love from Christians when they receive the fear gospel, because then they go on the street and they're preaching, repent, the kingdom of God has come. You all are going to hell. Homosexuals are going to hell. Wicked churches are going to hell. And they love to tell how others are going to hell and how they have escaped hell because of fear. But these sorts of Christians don't have what it takes to endure to the end because they haven't received the spirit of love from the Lord. We know that love is what separates us from the rest. Love separates us from the world. And when they see we have something different, then the world also desires to repent and come into this true love that can carry us along. This love has to be bought from the one who sells, but not from the ones who sell it in the world, but from the one who gives without cost. Jesus laid down his life for you and for me on Calvary. 


He died on the cross. We know he resurrected on the third day. He overcame death and he gave us the new covenant, the new testament, which is if we eat his flesh and drink his blood and partake in his new testament, then we will have life.If we have read the gospels and we know the stories about Jesus, but we don't have that love and understanding of who he really is, we need to pray and to ask him to revive us. How can a dead heart beat? How can a heart that has grown cold become hot again? How can you revive that fire? It starts when you pray and ask the Lord to revive that fire in you. Say, Lord Jesus, give me what it takes to overcome. 


Revive that fire in my soul so that I will become alive. And if you can pray and ask that prayer out of faith that the Lord would deliver his spirit, deliver on his promise that he would come to you and make his abode in you, then he will speak into your heart and he will start to lead you. But you have to walk by faith in him, not out of just this primitive fear of death. Of course, we have to fear God. Of course, all of us know that we're going to die. All of us are men who have breath in our nostrils. And we know that one day that we will be laid in the earth. And then comes the judgment of God, the final judgment, where we will spend our eternity, heaven or hell. And we have to fear that God has the power and authority to send us to hell or to allow us into heaven. We have to respect that and also fear that, of course. But that is not enough to lead us forward into everlasting life, because the devil is very good at making you feel like you're safe and secure. You're good enough how you are. 


You don't really need to fear God anymore because everything is now at peace. Even when the world isn't at turmoil, even before COVID happened, people were thinking everything is fine. And then as soon as COVID struck, then people went into a panic. We need to remember how this cycle of life works, how we become fearful and then we go back to complacency. And remember that that fear does not carry us along. And remember how in the end times, how it says in Revelation that all these judgments of God, all these terrible things will happen on the earth, and still the people do not repent and turn from their evil ways. They don't come to the light of the truth. So we need the love of Jesus. We need to pray and say, “Lord, mold us to your image. Give us a new heart. Renew our mind. Let our conscience be right before you. Speak to us so that we can hear your voice and be led along by your love, your righteousness, and your purity.” And if we receive the true things, the true food from God, then we will have the nourishment and the strength it takes to endure to the very end of our life. And I want to read to you now about this parable of the wise and the foolish virgins, because the foolish did not have what it took to get to the end. They had some form of spirituality because they had some form of a candle or a flashlight, so to speak, but they didn't have what it took to endure to the very end. Jesus said, then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, see, this is a big thing. A lot of Christians believe Jesus is going to come right back and rapture them. 


But after there is no rapture, after the return of the Lord is delayed, they all slumber and slept. And at midnight, a cry was heard. Behold, the bridegroom is coming.Go out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, saying, No, least there should not be enough for us and you, but go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves. This parable is a bit of a mystery, guys, because you can't buy salvation like Simon the sorcerer. But in the scriptures, it does say about the gospel, go to the one who sells without cost. So the true gospel you get from you get from Jesus Christ without buying it from some pastor. You can't buy salvation like that sorcerer, but you can go to Jesus on your knees and pray to him for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and oil in your lamp. But also this parable could be interpreted to go to those who sell like Simon the sorcerer. It could be Christians telling you, go to your church. If you think your church is going to save you and the pastor is going to save you, go back to those ministries. Go back to those that you've went to all along. All along, you haven't come to the one who gives without cost. You haven't come to Jesus all along. All along, you have went to your church. You've went to your Bible. You've went to your Bible studies. You've went to your elders and your leadership. Why don't you go back to them now if that's what saves you? And I think a lot of people are going to wake up when more of these pestilences like COVID-19 hit the earth. When more of these disasters hit the earth, they're going to realize, man, my church can't offer the hope of salvation. My Bible can't save me. My pastor can't give me life. And they're going to go and they're going to try to trim their candles and they're going to find that they have no oil in their lamp. The oil that they thought was in their lamp ran totally dry because it wasn't genuine faith. It was only faith in their Bible study, only faith in their church, in their groups, but they never had true oil to sustain them from the Holy Spirit. And they will be terrified because they will know they don't have the truth. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding and the door was shut. 


Afterward, the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. These guys were too late. They didn't have fear and love. Maybe they feared God. But as soon as the Lord delayed his coming, that fear diminished. Their hearts became black. They began to eat and drink with drunkards. They began to look at pornography. They began to cheat on their wives. They didn't stand for the truth. They weren't preaching the gospel. They weren't separate from the world. They let evil creep into their life and they became just like the rest of the world. And then when the Lord's return was imminent, right around the corner, they had no more opportunity to get right with God. They couldn't get their candles back to light. They had no more opportunity to find their way to the door. The door was shut in their face. I hope that this will not be you, but this will be many Christians, not 50% of Christians. Most Christians will be too late. They will not be able to enter into the household of faith because they trusted in the things of the world. They trusted in things that were created. They trusted in the creation of the church, the creation of the Bible, the creations of their own mind that thought saved them. And Jesus said regarding the scriptures, these are they which testify of me, yet you're unwilling to come to me to have life. And way too many people have a false kind of faith or only faith that leads them as long as they see fearful things happening in the earth. But what you need to sustain you to the very end is the love of the Lord Jesus. You need his love in your heart. If you have not received his love today, you need to receive his love. You need to pray and say, “Lord Jesus, please baptize me in your Holy Spirit.Let me receive your love with joy. Restore my heart that my heart may not be full of sin and blackness, full of greed and the temptations of the world, but purge me and purify me and let your love come into my heart. Consume me with your love. Let me have that oil that fills me that I may have light to endure to the very end.” 


So I want to pray for those of you that want to have this love, not just fear, but fear working with love that you can also follow the Lord to the very end of the age, because we don't know when he's going to come. None of us know if he's coming in the morning or at night, but we have to stay awake. We have to continue to watch and pray. “Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters that they will be filled with the love of the Lord and they would be vigilant to eat your flesh and drink your blood and be in communion with you, partaking in the new covenant. We pray that you would be filling our hearts and our minds, that our minds would be renewed in you, that we would have renewed strength, not that comes from people, but that comes from heaven, that we would have the wings as the eagle to fly with you.So I pray for people to come out of dead religion, to come out of lust, to come out of all the desires of the flesh, all the parasites of sin, that they would be made clean and that they would be able to follow you in purity, that you would fill them with the love of your Holy Spirit and that they would love you with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength and love their neighbor as themselves, such as that it would lead them to testify of your goodness, that more people would repent and come into the true body of Christ. In your name I pray, Lord Jesus, Amen.”