Threats To The Church Today - Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Morning, church. We're back in our series in the book of second Timothy, so meet me there in chapter one, please. And we find ourselves in just two verses this morning. Let's read in and pray one more time together. Verse 13, Paul tells Timothy, follow the pattern of the sound words that you've heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Heavenly Father, we believe that this book is your word and we believe that you speak to us. We believe that it is relevant to us. We believe that you are unchanging, that your standards have not shifted. And we ask, Lord, that in this moment that there would be a peculiar sense of your power and that we would sense the sharpness of the sword of the spirit.

We pray, Lord, that your word would be delivered with all boldness and love, courage, and compassion, and that there would be no confusion in the minds of the hearers, and that people would leave here with a sense of understanding that you are the God who speaks truth. Lord, we love your truth. We do not apologize for your truth. We do not shy away from your truth. But Lord, we ask that in this moment it will be delivered in wisdom and love.

We trust that you will meet us this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. Realizing that this man, Paul, who wrote this letter is ready to depart from from the earth and to enter into the presence of his loving savior, Paul shows a holy concern, a righteous concern about how the ministry was going to move forward without him. In his absence, what's going to happen with the message of the gospel?

Where is it going to go? How will it be handled? Not that he didn't trust that it would flourish. Not that he didn't trust it was God's sovereign plan for it to make itself known to the world, but in a practical sense, he's leaving, he's retiring, he's entering into glory. What will be done with the Bible?

What will be done with the gospel? And he was thankful to God that he had this young man, Timothy, who was his protege, who was a pastor, that was discipled by him, and who was open, and who was sacrificial in his service to the kingdom of God. But he also wants to remind him at this point about the awesome responsibility of what it means to be a minister for Jesus Christ. And that's why he tells him right here as you just heard, follow the pattern of the sound words that you've heard from me. He can say from me because as an apostle, he was a vessel at one point in history that received divine revelation that you and I are benefiting from today.

And he's saying here, follow the pattern. Follow the sound words and other translations says, hold fast. Guard it, keep it, hold it, declare it, study it, know it, defend it. Hold fast to these sound words. And the reason for the strong exhortation is because ever since the inception of the true church of Jesus Christ, there has been attempts to assault truth.

And ministers have felt the temptation to either forfeit the foundational truths of our faith, or to cave into the pressure that comes from threats from outside forces, that lead them to abandon what they once stood for. The danger is real. It was real then, it is real today. And I want to show you how real it is. Go to chapter three of the same book and look here in verse 15.

This is Timothy's history. History in the faith. Paul says, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Timothy knew his Bible since he was a child. He grew up with it.

He was saturated with it. And even then with such roots, Paul understood the concern and the temptation that he could walk away from it. He could divert from it. For reason of selfish ambition or preservation, he could change what it has to say. And throughout the centuries, you know this very well, the true church has weathered many storms, many attempts and assaults to corrupt and compromise various elements of what we claim to be true and what is true.

The subjects of these past battles may differ from what you and I see today, but the battle is still real. It is still real. It's alive and well, and it will be until the return of Jesus Christ. I want you to realize something. Notice in the letters that even within the the first few moments of the church coming into existence, there was false teaching trying to creep in right away, like there was no time to breathe.

And today, we're seeing developments of it more and more. And you might be wondering, well, why has the church been challenged in such manners? Well, because the body of Christ is more than a community of people who come together who don't wanna feel lonely. Some people come to church because they're lonely. The church is more than just a gathering of needy people who need some inspiration and counsel, And it's more than an institution that offers some moral guidance for your life.

You wanna know what the church is? Not second Timothy, but first Timothy three fifteen tells us very clearly. Paul says, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. That's what it is. It's the entity that God has placed on the earth that will uphold and unashamedly declare divine truth, objective truth, God's standard and measure of who he is, of who you are, of how mankind can be saved from their sin and from the coming judgment.

This word is God's wisdom, and it is his word concerning how we can navigate through a shattered and fractured universe that has been infected by sin for our good ultimately in mind, but more than that, the glory of God is the chief end. But as much as there is a message that God has given humanity to save us from our lostness and our brokenness, from our sin, from our iniquity, even though there is a message with a grace to liberate your soul and to actually set you free from bondage, condemnation, and the power of sin. There is a devil who hates you, who hates the church, who hates the God that we serve, and attempts since the beginning of time to make you either doubt God's word, ignore God's word, alright, reject God's word. And if he can't get you there, then he will pervert it and twist it enough where it is drained from its power. And we must be reminded that although there were threats then, threats in Timothy's day, there are threats today that are gaining more and more leeway in churches and in pulpits.

And we need to be prepared, lest we find ourselves willing to let go of the unchanging words of our God and our king. It's not very difficult this morning, I'm sure, for you to point out the the threats to the modern church today. I'm sure you can identify them. I'm sure you can even define the reasons why they are wrong and dangerous to the gospel. But I don't wanna just present you a list of dangers.

I wanna tell you that despite the dangers, the gospel will prevail, that this truth will prevail, and that you and I must hold on to that by faith. Right? He's saying, hold on. Believe that this is true, and believe that it has power, and believe that it is God's word for the ages. So no matter what you and I will face, no matter what you and I will see, the disappointments that's that's occurring in our local congregations, the things that prominent names, evangelical leaders are giving into, you and I hold fast.

Hold fast. But there is times, even in the bible, where these leaders have addressed specific issues that seem to be dominating threats in the church. And it is appropriate from time to time to bring up such things for the sake of protecting the flock of God, lest there be confusion or unanswered questions. And, again, today, I'm not here to give you three points or five points or anything of the such, just to just speak from my heart, from the word of God mainly, but from my heart about what we need to be careful of. You and I are seeing a lot of things on the news.

We're hearing a lot of rumors that are becoming less rumors and more truth and confirmed realities. There is many things that the church has to be aware of, and here is one that I'm sure you've heard of, and it is called critical race theory. You've heard of the term. You probably understand what the subject is. And I will say upfront that this worldview is complex.

It is not simple. I mean, you think you understand it, and then there's, like, a web of other things that you have to get to really comprehend what it's about. And it requires a slow and and steady study to understand all that it entails. But for the sake of this message, I'm not here to to to teach you about it in detail as much as I am trying to tell you why it presents a danger to the church of Jesus Christ. Again, the goal here is not to talk about how this is affecting our politics.

That's not my business. Pastors' main focus is the church. Stay in your lane, pastors. Should we address laws? Should we address certain things?

Yes. We should. But your main concern is the health of your church, Nor am I here to talk about how it presents necessarily danger to the educational system or anything of that. That's not the main focus. How does the church relate to this?

And how does it relate to our faith? What is critical race theory? I'm just curious to know who here has heard the term. Can you lift your hand so I can know? Wow.

If you haven't, you will soon. Especially if you're studying. And it doesn't matter if you're in college at this point, if you're below that educational level, you will hear about it soon enough. Critical race theory is a theoretical framework that essentially teaches that racism is not only manifested in individual bias, but it is embedded in our legal system and social structures, especially here in The United States. In other words, if you identify as a minority, you live in a society that is built to oppress and limit you of opportunities to flourish and thrive, especially if you are not of those who are privileged, more privileged than you.

And there is a category according to this worldview that determines who are privileged and who are not privileged. In fact, they go deeper than that. They will say there's a category of oppressed, and there is a category of oppressors. And they have defined for you where you fit. You're either in the class of being oppressed or you are either a part of those, whether you are aware of it or not, where you're an oppressor.

And this term, this general term to coin how this privilege is known is is called white privilege. If you're white, then you are definitely privileged in the West. And whether or not there are codified laws that target a specific race or elevate a certain ethnic group over the other, that doesn't matter because there's something called unconscious bias. Whether you realize it or not, I wanna tell you according to this theory, you're a racist. And racism is real, and racism is everywhere, and this theory endeavors to identify where racism is found.

Now if you hear this morning say you're not racist, that's because you are defending your privilege subconsciously. And you wanna hold on to your privilege, so you do not wanna acknowledge that you are somebody who who actually, whether you are aware of it or not, are biased. And the idea here is that the majority in our nation are largely influenced by that unconscious into institutions. It it it's construction to to look at favoritism towards whiteness and suppressing everyone else outside of that category. Now I can talk about this in great detail, but I I don't want to because that's just the general understanding of it.

And again, it gets very, very complicated as you get down deeper into it. But the point I wanna bring up and how it relates to the church is the solution according to critical race theory. There is a salvation message in critical race theory, and the solution is not for people to apologize for our nation's history regarding save slavery, nor is it about people who fit in the description of the oppressor to repent, whether you acknowledge your racism or not. It's it's more than that. It comes down to this, overthrowing the system, dismantling this social construct that favors a certain group of people and demonizes another.

It's a dismantling. It's a change. It's a reform, one that gives the minority voice, power, and authority. And that's why you and I in this past year and a half have heard the cry, especially it was at a screeching point. What?

Defund the police. Defund the police. Where did that come from? What idea spurred that up? Well, again, the idea is here's an institution, here's an organization that is systemically racist, and it needs to be toppled down and reconstructed or replaced altogether.

That's just one example. So if you feel like this is not a reality in our day, you saw one example of it. That's being that's being encouraged by this theory, this world view. And it's not gonna stop there. Because when you understand this theory in deeper ways, you'll you'll see that the positions of power and privilege in America are not limited to you being white.

It's more than that. Vodhi Baucham, who's an evangelical voice on this issue, wrote a book on the whole subject, and he reveals from an article a list of those who are apparently dominant in our society, and it includes being white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied, native born, you ready for this? And Christian. That's right. You thought this is all about white privilege.

No, there's something called Christian privilege. And the idea is that because America is historically known as Judeo Christian influence, that it has suppressed other religious views and you can imagine how this all intersects and that's a whole another term that I'm not even gonna dive into. So, what's happening in our churches? What's happening amongst evangelical leaders who pastor churches of various sizes? Well, not only are they adopting critical race theory in the name of justice, in the name of being righteous, they are also adopting their solutions.

This is the main issue here. Is racism real? Sure. It's a sin. It's wrong.

It's evil. The debate is whether it's in our system or not, whether it's actually part of our laws or not. I'm not here to debate that. We can talk about that another time. My concern here is how the church is not only adopting this theory, which is if you get down even deeper, totally godless and dare I say demonic.

Deeper than that is that you have people absorbing the same solutions. What do I mean by that? Well, if the solution according to critical race theory, is to bring reform to our laws, our government, our organizations, our social structures, then what you're gonna do as a church leader, is think that the church needs the same thing. In other words, we need to bring change to our power structure within our churches. And so I endeavored to listen to a few of these voices from the other side.

I could not believe what I was hearing. I could not even comprehend how you have people who once even claimed to preach the word of God and still claim to to preach the full counsel of God, buy into this stuff. And so I heard one lady speaking about this and give an example of how a Catholic priest, now that's a whole another subject, but how Catholic This is even going into the Catholic worldview. This is even going into the Orthodox world. Everybody is eating this stuff up.

And how this Catholic priest, realizing that there was a minority of black congregants, wanted to do what? What critical race theory does. Critical race theory calls you, if you are in the oppressor group, to lay down your rights, lay down your privilege, and elevate voices of the minority, and that's what it means to be woke. That your eyes are open to this. Right?

And now you're walking as a woke person. I read a comment and it was astounding. It's a it was a deep thought that wokeness is the devil's substitute, one of his substitutes of the born again experience. And so your eyes are open and you realize that I am a part of the oppressors and so I must do something to to elevate and alleviate the oppressed. And so this Catholic priest endeavored to to cater to their needs.

And how did he cater to their needs? He took classes on how to preach like a black man. A black preaching course, so that when he got up to share, he would preach and sound like an African American. Now you might hear that and think that is, that's strange and that's humorous maybe, but that seems kind of harmless. It's getting dangerous, because now we are determining our elder qualifications based on race.

Can I ask you something? When you go to first Timothy and Titus to see the qualifications of an elder, does race show up in the list? No, it doesn't. There's neither Jew nor Greek in the gospel. No matter what your melanin count is, what your background is, there are qualifications that you must meet and they do not bind you by your culture ethnicity.

Thank God. But again, critical race theory says, there has to be a shift to the power structure, and we have to elevate minority voices. So now you have people entertaining the thought whether you meet those qualifications or not, You have bonus points if you're black, if you're brown, if you're Asian, if you're native American, whatever it is. And I would like to challenge especially those who are from apparently the oppressed category, who are senior pastors, then practice what you preach and step out of your pulpit and let somebody else take it. It's getting more concerning than that.

You even have evangelical leaders now that are saying crazy stuff and that are criticizing other ministers who wanna be faithful to the word of God. I heard one person say, I couldn't believe what I was hearing through my Airpods. Criticizing people who say, just preach the gospel and the gospel is the ultimate solution. No, he says, you don't give that kind of advice for married people when they have marriage problems. Oh, really?

So Paul didn't go to the gospel in Ephesians five and show Christ and his love for the church and the submission of the church to Christ as the inspiration and the teaching tool to how to solve your marriage problems, brother, the gospel influences every aspect of life. It transcends all things. It meets all needs. It is the ultimate inspiration for every facet of why we live and how we do things and how we relate to one another. But no, it can't be.

We have to be open to the analytical tools that critical race theory offers us. Yes, eat the meat and spit out the bones. Let me say this, brother you're eating the bones too and you're choking on them. So this is gaining more and more popularity. It is coming into Christian homes.

It is coming into once faithful churches. It is infecting seminaries and institutions that were once faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I believe, though I do not have a platform and though I do not have a voice like other people have voices, more people need to speak up on this. To be honest, I've heard about this for a while and I've just held back from it, held back from it, but then when I had conversations with so many of you, hearing your stories and other people outside of this church and realizing that things are happening right in our backyard, we cannot remain silent. At least to address it.

I wanna show you something from Luke chapter three. Please meet me there. Beginning in verse one. An interesting passage that will provide some inspiration, I hope. Says here in verse one, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being Tetrach of Galilee, and his brother Philip, Tetrach of the region of Ituraea, and Trochanitis, and Licinius, Tetrach of Abilene.

During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness and he went into all the region around Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Now I want you to realize something. Luke here goes to the point of describing the political scene of Jesus's day. This is more than just providing a sense of comfort that there is validity to the Bible, because we have some historical references that we can point to. It's more than that.

It's more profound than that. When you read these names, you're not only reading historical figures, you're reading the reality of the political scene of this time. There was corruption. There was cruelty. There was oppression.

The Israelites were under Roman oppression and they were dealt with in great severity and injustice. But then you don't only read about the political scene, verse two tells us that there is something wrong with the spiritual scene. Notice here in verse two, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. Why is that concerning? Let me ask you this, how many high priests are there supposed to be?

One. And so now you see that there is something going on, there's something chaotic going on with the the religious system. You have two high priests hanging out together and operating in the same authority. Why do I bring this up? Because when you see the political chaos and the spiritual compromise and the spiritual confusion, what is the solution that God brings?

Well, he raises up a man. He raises up a man and this man had the word of the Lord. You know what God does in an age much like ours where there's much debate and you had religious groups and you had different sex politically, and you had different movements that try to bring about an overthrow to the government. All these things. You know what God did?

He raised up a revivalist. A preacher. A man of God with a message, and the message was, repent. The message was, the Messiah is coming. The message was, you better get right with God because he will cut those who do not bear fruit and throw those branches into the fire.

Do you think John the Baptist was in the wilderness trying to figure out how these different schools of thought wanted to debate and argue their way into seeing this and that happen? No, no, no, no, no. He brought about the message of repentance. And the beauty about that is the solution is the same today. See the trickery of all that is happening here and the danger of it is that we are diverting from the gospel.

We're diverting from the gospel. Whether you believe that our institutions are are broken and all these things, that's a different debate. But my answer, my my call to you is, what is the solution? And the thing that we see here is that, when this man faithfully obeyed God's call on his life, it shook every level of society, every platform in different positions. Proof of that is in verse 10.

Look what it says here in the same chapter, and the crowds asked him, being John the Baptist, what then shall we do? And he answered them, whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise. Tax collectors, tax collectors, corrupt politicians, corrupt people that would take advantage of people's money. Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than you are authorized to do.

Soldiers. Which soldiers? Israelite soldiers? No. Roman soldiers.

Also asked him, and we, what shall we do? And he said to them, do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages. Do you see the sequence here? Christianity is not behavioral modification. John the Baptist didn't go into the court system.

The only time that he had any interaction with politicians is when he told Herod, hey, you're in adultery. I'm not saying that God cannot use those in the political sphere or in our educational system. Yes, we have examples of those in Joseph and Daniel and other places, but the point I'm trying to make here is this, no matter where you are your solution is still the same. See, what John the Baptist declared was a message that didn't change systems, it changed hearts and when you have changed hearts you have changed systems. See, he preached what God told him to preach and then people from that place of receiving the message now ask what do we do as we wanna now fit and follow this message that you are proclaiming.

And we're trying to do it upside down. In fact, not just upside down. We're trying to remove the message of the gospel and try to modify behavior with different solutions. That will not work. It might have temporary relief, but you're putting band aid on cancer.

This man here preached the message, and it shook the nation. It brought the nation to its knees. And the point is is so clear. The gospel alone can break down the walls of hostility. The gospel alone.

That's Ephesians two. And so what we have to understand more than ever, and I would say this if this was a room filled with pastors, Hold fast to the sound pattern of words that you heard from this word, that you were trained with. Don't go into a different place thinking that it actually is going to work. It's not going to work if it's not founded in truth. If it doesn't deal with the root issue and that deals with a heart of sin that's broken and cannot see right and hear right and think right apart from Christ, apart from Christ.

I would say this. This is gaining more and more traction, and sometimes we feel intimidated. I can tell you this. Looking at this stuff, I didn't know where to even begin and where to finish. Do not worry about how much you know about this.

All you need to worry about is truth. You study truth. You see the gospel and how it it affects every aspect of of of our world, of our lives, of our relationship, and you will be more than okay. You'll be more than okay. You will be fine.

But it goes more than that. This is just one issue that deserves an entire message in itself, but we have different threats to to deal with. And this point here may not be a direct threat to the structures of our churches or even affecting the pulpits, though there are people who are now changing even on a denominational level of their views on this. But more than anything, this is a danger to the belief system of the next generation of believers. There is a redefinition of our God given identity.

That is the message of our generation. It's good to see some young people, not that there are many young people here every week, but it's good to see some people here who are perhaps in the age gap of the high school level. I remember speaking at a church once, and after I shared, the one of the elders approached me, and the look on his eyes is what you would wanna see in an elder's eyes. So, brother, next time you come, if God allows you to come, can you preach on homosexuality? Can you preach on this gender fluidity?

Can you preach on on this this this movement? And though he didn't say it, I can feel the concern that he himself and his world could see the youth becoming more and more desensitized. And perhaps to the point where it transfers from being numb to it to now normalizing it and even affirming it. And I think that's what many parents have in regards to concerns for their children as they grow up. And you've heard different times from this pulpit messages on this.

I'm not here to be giving apologetic arguments. I just wanna make a point that will hopefully drive hope into your heart. This is not a new message. This is not a new movement. It's just resurfacing again.

And it's been even said by those who are supporters of this movement, we're not trying you trying to get you to even conform necessarily for you to change. We just want you to believe it's normal. That's the goal. Do you wanna know how it's working in part? Perhaps even in your life and in mine.

Things that once would have appalled you and offended you, you can now just look at and turn around with no reaction. Right? Things that you see, things the music that you hear, the music videos that show up on your YouTube, things that once would have jarred you. Let me say this. Things that would have put people in insane asylums fifty years ago, people are now giving music awards to.

And it's the fear is, it's I don't want my children, I don't want my my my siblings, I don't want my cousins to get numb to this. And I wanna tell you today, this is nothing new, and there is moments in history where we see the spirit of an antichrist movement taking ground and taking hearts, but also leaving a remnant to shine. Go to the book of Daniel chapter one quickly. Daniel chapter one describes the exile, at least one of the exiles from Israel into Babylon as God's judgment against Israel for the unfaithfulness over hundreds of years. And what's interesting is that king Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Babylon, had a strategy, and his strategy was not to just kill all the Jews.

He actually had a strategy to recruit some of them. And it's amazing to read here that who he recruits read verse four. Youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace and to teach them the literature and the language of the Chaldeans. King Nebuchadnezzar realized that instead of eradicating this generation, I want to conform them. I want to recruit them.

And it's a picture of how the enemy, when he looks at the youth in the church, his main goal is not just to kill them off. No. His main goal is I want to change the way you believe and think, and then use you for my kingdom. And so Satan has a discipleship program. The church is not the only one that can disciple.

No. The enemy wants to disciple. It is believed historically that Daniel and his friends were between the ages of 14 and 17 years old. Youths. I want you to think about people that you know that are between grade nine and grade 12.

That's who we're talking about here. Stripped from their home. Their parents probably died. Stripped from the temple. Any kind of connection to faith, to what they what they knew their whole lives, all of that has been taken away from them.

And Nebuchadnezzar had a long term plan, listen, through his educational system to train up these people so that they would work for his palace, for his purposes, for his agenda. Verse five. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time, they were to stand before the king. You see?

Enroll, sit in our classes, and you are going to absorb everything that we tell you. This is not about education. It's indoctrination. Right? And here's what's amazing about all of this.

What's wrong with education? I mean, they're gonna broaden their understanding of life, of philosophy. They're gonna expand their knowledge. No. There is an agenda to change their identity.

How do we know that? Because he goes on to actually change their names. Verse six. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names, gave them names.

Daniel, he called Belteshazzar. Hananiah, called Shadrach. Mishael, he called Meshach. And Azariah, he called Abednego. You wanna talk about being convinced of something?

You wanna talk about how we normalize something? All of us in here identify the men of this story, namely Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego by the names that were given to them and not their original names. Those are not their names. But we that's what k. Those are the names they're given.

We're just gonna call them that. That's not their god given name. Why is this significant? Why is changing their names so important? Because their original name, each and every single one of them, have been given an identity that relates a truth about God.

The true and living God. Daniel Iyal. Dan, Iyal means God is my judge. Hananiah, Yahweh, the personal name of God. Yahweh is gracious.

Mishael, who is what God is. Azariah, Yahweh has helped or will help. And what were their names changed to? Names that had some relationship with false gods. Is this significant?

You better believe it is. Because this is not the first time that we are introduced to the Babylonians. Go to Genesis 11 and notice the root. Notice the foundation. Notice where it all began, and you will understand the philosophy behind this.

In Genesis eleven four, the story of the Tower Of Babel, where it all started. Notice the philosophy. Notice the ideology, the mindset of the citizens of what would become Babel Babylon in the land of Shinar. Verse four of Genesis 11. Look what they say.

Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. Why would they say, lest we be dispersed over the whole earth? What was God's original command to Adam and Eve? Be fruitful and what?

Right. And then when Noah comes on the scene after the great flood, says, disperse yourself in the world. Be fruitful, multiply. Go, spread, multiply. And this is the opposite spirit.

If God wants us to disperse, we're gonna stay right here. Lest we be dispersed, we're gonna remain right here. It's a rebellious spirit, which says something really interesting. Even after God flooded the whole world and started with a blank canvas with eight righteous people, you have this spirit that arises. So much for reform.

So much for deconstructing everything and trying to rebuild everything from scratch. If you don't flood the heart with the blood of Christ, nothing will change. Let us make a name for ourselves. What are they trying to say? Well, it's proving that this society was founded upon creating their own identity apart from God's original purpose and design.

And today that campaign is so aggressive that it has reached the point of convincing people, even teenagers, never mind renaming yourself. You can choose your gender. God created you to be a man? No. Let us make a name for ourselves.

I wanna be something else. God has given you a natural sexual desire? No. You can choose and it's fluid. It can be one thing one day and something else the other, just like your gender.

So the same spirit in Genesis 11 shows up in the book of Daniel and guess what? It shows up in the book of Revelation. Babylon shows up in Revelation, and scholars debate, is that a physical place, Babylon? One thing is not up for debate, it's certainly a spirit that will be real in the end times. And it's the same spirit that was real in Genesis, here in Daniel, and it is this, a culture that says, you choose your own identity.

Someone made the comment that in future generations, it's very likely that identifying as straight will be the least normal thing in culture. You will be seen as a minority in just a very short amount of years. Because everybody else will say, well, I'm this and I'm that and this huge spectrum of different things. If you if you come out and say, I believe in a monogamous marriage and I believe that, we should be attracted to the opposite. Woah.

What planet are you from? That's coming. And we might, especially as parents, are saying, preacher, you're not helping me right now. You're not helping me. Spirit of Babylon, revelation, normal, please.

You can imagine the tension that these young men felt. Saturated and suffocating with this kind of a society. Nowhere to turn for refuge. No mom and dad to call, no temple to attend, no Maranatha conference to go no Maranatha conference in Babylon. You are enrolled in an educational institution that is anti God.

You eat, read, smell, sleep with everything that convinces you with this message, make a name for yourself. But I learned something about these names, and this is what I learned about these names, that these men here had godly parents. They didn't name themselves. Daniel didn't come out of the womb and say, I wanna be named Daniel. No.

Daniel had a mom and dad that says, whenever Daniel's name is called, he will be reminded God is my judge. Whenever Hananiah is mentioned, Yahweh is gracious. Whenever Mishael is called upon, who is what God is? Every time Azariah is affirmed or acknowledged, Yahweh has helped or will help. So they're being trained but notice this, they've been trained before they were trained.

And now they enter into this world, and do you think for a moment that as teenagers they didn't feel the temptation to give in and to just blend in and to even cut ties with God? The God that they knew about in their short lives up to this moment? I'm sure they did. You know why? Because the temptation was not immediately, if you don't submit we'll kill you.

The temptation was blend in and you'll be promoted. You get to work for the government. You'll have a wonderful salary. You'll eat with the greatest men in the known world. And so the poll, I'm sure was, if we just if we just let them call us, whatever, let us call us, let's okay, let's let's forget about this and let's just move forward, and and if they tell us to eat these food sacrificed to idols, we'll do it.

I mean, look at this opportunity. Do you realize all the other Israelites, they're slaves? We were recruited to be up here. Come on, we can't let this up. That was a temptation.

The same temptation today. Don't challenge this ideology. Don't stand for truth. Don't lovingly bring up the reality that God has given you an identity already. No, no, no.

You don't wanna lose your job now. Come on, you wanna get promoted. Come on, you want people to you want more YouTube views. All these crazy things. They felt that pull.

And if we're honest in reading this story, we can almost sense that this is hopeless, man. If you don't know the rest of this, you would think these guys are sunk. You're telling me teenagers pull out of the influence of their home and their church are gonna survive in this kind of environment? But this is the reality. Look at verse eight.

But Daniel You know what's amazing? We're told in verse seven that they were given a different name, but the author of Daniel says, uh-uh, he's Daniel. But Daniel, not Balthazar, but Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself. A teenager? Yeah.

With the king's food or with the wine that he drank. Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. He had conviction, but this young man had character and part of character is that you know how to communicate your conviction. And he does. This man had a standard.

You know what this shows me? Yeah, he doesn't have a temple to attend, he doesn't have mommy and daddy with him, but he knew the word of God enough where he said that food ain't right. I can't eat that as a Jew. You say, why are you bringing this up? I'm bringing this up because it's possible.

It's possible to train before the world tries to train. And as a church and as a family, as as older people, if we're not willing to pour into those who are younger, that are up and coming, if we're not willing to remind them and teach them and preach to them who they are and what their identity is, the world will gladly do it. And notice that once he made this decision that he will not defile himself, God steps on the scene. Verse nine, and God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs. That might not always be the result of standing on your convictions, but the idea is still true that even though Daniel is in Babylon, he's in exile, he's away from everything, God was there.

God was there and he bestowed upon him a wisdom and a grace to make him effective as a witness in a strange land. You know what? This was so real. Right? This was so real in Daniel's life that as you read on in the story, he's called upon much later.

He's a teenager here and later on in most of the book of Daniel, he's probably in his sixties, seventies, eighties. And in Daniel five, I want you to see this in verse 14, he's called upon to solve a mystery. And the king of that time says, I have heard of you that the spirit of the gods is in you and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. This man was recognized even by the world that he was influenced by something else. Despite what was going on around him, there was something happening within him.

Despite who was before him, there was someone in him that was energizing him and giving him a grace and a boldness and a compassion. Here's the point that I wanna make, Daniel can survive because Daniel was connected to God. He walked with God. He trusted in God. And I can spend the rest of this time together pointing at all these other difficulties that are gonna be facing, that are gonna be on the threshold of the church door.

I can do that. But I wanna make this point here in conclusion. We can go on with prevalent issues. And I said earlier, sometimes it's necessary to point out a specific problem that is having its way in the church that we have to be careful about. But if I can tell you what the greatest threat is, the greatest concern, the most attention that we need to give ourselves to is not about how strong and bold the world is becoming with their creative ways of trying to infiltrate truth.

No. Our main concern is that we make sure we're not weak, or fearful or cowardly, but that we are what Paul tells us to be as we go back to our text in second Timothy verse 14 of chapter one. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. He tells him, hold fast, follow the patterns of these sound words. And what he does right after that is he reminds him that there is a power, a wisdom, a discernment, a discretion, a grace that the Holy Spirit is willing to give you as you make sure that you hold fast.

Do you understand what's being said here? God realizes the pressures that we're gonna see as a church. God knows ahead of time of the temptations, of the tsunami of filth and corruption that will crash upon our generation. He knows it very well, but he also doesn't focus on it. He says, all you need to worry about is that you are in tune with the Holy Spirit.

By the Holy Spirit in you, in your children, you will be able to stand strong and guard what's been entrusted to you. That may sound inspirational, but can we get practical? Please. How does this make sense? How does the Holy Spirit help me stay faithful?

I'll give you two points. The first point is this, he will be faithful to guide you and to keep you in all truth. The danger about deception is that you don't know you're being deceived. The danger about all these different movements and their messages is that they divert and distract people from the pure truth of the word of God, but they put a footnote about Jesus or they take verses out of context so that people who are not as in tune with the word of God will eat it up. You know, I saw the craziest things during the riots.

That was back when I had social media. I would read some of these things. I said and then that not it didn't disappoint me seeing the arguments as much as the reaction of professing Christians, believing this stuff, amening this stuff. I saw a picture of Jesus. It was a cartoon, I guess, of Jesus flipping tables in the temple.

Maybe you've seen this. And then on on top of it was, Jesus had no problem destroying personal property to make a righteous cause known. So, yeah, let's go loot and let's go smash windows at Macy's. That's what the argument is. And then you look at the comments, amen, yes, yes.

Oh, do you know Jesus? Do you know what God is like? Clearly not. And that's the idea here that there needs to be at least on our part to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will honor us by protecting us and giving you a sense of knowing when something is off. That's his promise to us.

But listen, you cannot just waltz through life, hear sermons, and think that's all it's gonna take because Jesus says something astounding in John six sixty three. It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. In other words, if you wanna know the Holy Spirit's influence, you better have an interaction with the scriptures.

If I wanna know the spirit, well, Jesus says the words that I've spoken to you are spirit and life. And so as I invest in this word, I also invest in the Holy Spirit's promise to protect, guide, and shield me from falsehood. And that's gonna keep you from believing what everybody tells you to believe even though the majority tell you to believe it. That's gonna protect you from blog post, from popular podcast, from people who have an idea of what is true when in fact they lack discernment. And I think this past year, especially with Black Lives Matter, we have seen the lack of discernment in an appalling way.

And that's not to condemn anybody that might have believed it for a moment, but that is a reminder that Satan deceives. And we need the Holy Spirit to make sure that he guides us and leads us into all truth and to keep us from that which is false. Get in the word of God. Know the truth, cover to cover. Let somebody takes a verse out of context and tells you that you need to do and you need to perform reparations because Zacchaeus said, I will repay those that I have defrauded.

When Zacchaeus was not making a payment for his ancestor's sins, but for his own. Things of the such. But secondly, the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, that's a promise not just a protection as we invest in his word. That is a promise that he will embolden us to defend it and declare it in the face of opposition. Why is Paul sharing this truth with Timothy?

Why is he saying the Holy Spirit within you will help you guard this good deposit? Because Paul is arrested here in this letter for his ministry, for his message, for the gospel, and he's ready to lose his life. Timothy, his spiritual son, knows it, and he's hearing the rumors, and he's hearing the footsteps of the emperor of his day chasing down Christians, and perhaps he's feeling the weight of maybe I should just stop preaching. Maybe I should just dilute the message. Maybe I can just get more politically correct.

And Paul says, you have no excuse because the Holy Spirit lives in you, and he will help you. He will help you know how to be wise, how to be loving, how to be merciful, but also bold and unshaken and unmoved. And so he's calling him to learn how to be dependent upon a source outside of himself to make sure that no matter what happens and no matter what threat is before him, he will stand firm on the truth. And that's why we can relate it back to verse seven of chapter one. It's the same kind of concept.

For God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but of power and love and self control. You know, what this verse tells me in verse 14 concerning what we're seeing today, especially amongst evangelical leaders, is that if it is the Holy Spirit who helps you guard the good deposit, then for these people who have platforms of influence to be teaching these different things proves that something went wrong with their relationship with the Holy Spirit. That's what it proves. It comes down to that. There was a disconnect or maybe there was nothing there at all.

But the thing that will show itself true is that when a man truly fears God, truly wants to walk with God, truly wants the fullness of the Holy Spirit, God will honor him, protect him, embolden him to be a voice like John the Baptist. And that's what we need. And not just in pulpits, brothers and sisters. Not just in pulpits. You have a voice.

You have a voice. You have an audience. And like Daniel, may God give us the wisdom not just to share our convictions, but to do it with with great grace and calculation. All to say in conclusion that as long as we depend on the Holy Spirit, that we indulge in the word, nothing will come against us. Nothing will conquer us.

Nothing will overtake us. The true church of Jesus Christ will stand. She will stand and she will shine for the glory of God, and we have a church, especially in this dividing age, where we wanna stand in truth or in what's popular. And many people think that what is popular is true when in reality, the Holy Spirit testifies of something else. Don't worry about the church, the true church.

Don't worry about your children. Trust God. Yes. I'm not saying throw them into Babylon. I have a feeling that the idea of homeschooling is gonna gain much more popularity in the coming years.

But know that when they work and when they have interactions with the world, don't believe the worst for your children. Believe the best. Believe like Daniel. Believe that even teenagers can stand in front of governors and say, uh-uh. I serve the true and living God.

So respectfully disagree. I'm willing to work for you. I'm willing to sit in your classes. I'm willing to tell you tell me what to do concerning administration. But when you're telling me to to sacrifice my devotion, I'm sorry, boss.

I'm sorry. Let's believe that God will raise up such children in this day of age. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, thank you for the spark. Thank you for the reminder.

Nothing will prevail over your church. And help us realize the seriousness of this moment in history, especially in America, where there is a line being drawn, and people are making the choice, even with a cost, whether they will stand for truth or pseudo truth. We ask, Lord, for this church and for all your church that you would bring about a conviction and a cry to be filled with the spirit of God, to detect falsehood and to stand for the sound words that we know are found in this book. Lord, when the pressure is becoming greater, and when we're having even those close to us believing differently, give us a grace and give us a boldness to speak truth, but also to not give in when the pressure is real. We ask, Lord, that you would protect our children, our youth, those that are in high school, middle school, those who are in college, universities, those that work in government.

Lord, raise up Daniels and Joseph's. Raise up Timothy's and Pauls, Lord. We ask, oh God, that you would use us in this time. Thank you, Lord, that Daniel teaches us that even when the people of God are where their ultimate low, you still had a remnant to continue your redemptive purposes on the earth. Help us believe the same for this age.

You're not finished with the gospel. You're not finished with the business of saving souls. You're not finished with influencing people for the glory of God. We wanna be a part of your program. Lord, we pray for those who are captivated by critical race theory, that you would set them free.

Set those churches free, God. Liberate them. Bring back Christ as their focus and the gospel as their source of power. We pray for those that are even dealing with what we heard even briefly about gender identity and homosexuality and the LGBTQ movement, oh God. We pray that you would give a boldness and a love and a wisdom to know how to communicate and stand firm on the truth.

Lord, you determine who we are, and we give you all that right because it is your right alone. And so, Lord, with all these things, with with I'm sure people in here have different pressing issues in their own lives or what they think is true. We pray, oh, God, that you just keep us filled and keep us in your word knowing that that is the true concern of our age. Spirit filled pastors, spirit filled teachers in Christian institutions, spirit filled parents, and even spirit filled teenagers. Keep us there, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen and amen. We worship the Lord together this morning.