This sermon emphasizes the importance of preparing to meet God, focusing on purity, rejecting the seductions of the world, and being willing to stand alone for God. It challenges believers to prioritize holiness, address sinful behaviors, and be ready for the imminent return of Jesus. The message highlights the need to be dressed in readiness, keep lamps alight, and be willing to face rejection from the world for the sake of following Christ.

It's good to recollect who Jesus said those words to, drink from this water and you'll never thirst again. He said it to a woman who had been married five times, divorced five times, living with a sixth. Are you as bad as that woman? Very few of us are in that category. Even to such a woman, Jesus says, drink of the water I will give you and you will never thirst again. I don't know what your situation is in life. I don't know what sin you have committed or are committing that makes you think that the living water of Christ is not for you, but that's a lie. There's one group of people, however, that will not drink and find Jesus to satisfy. It are those people who are not thirsty. If you're not thirsty, you will not drink of Jesus. Are you thirsty? Let's bow our heads. If you didn't come thirsty, if the worship didn't get you thirsty, let's take a minute to acknowledge the deep thirst that all of us must have to drink of Jesus that we may be satisfied. Father, you keep reminding us that you need us to be thirsty. We're not thirsty like we ought to be. Father, create a keen awareness of our need for you, our absolute, the absolute impossibility of getting any kind of water that would satisfy if it is not from you. Father, we come to you as hungry and thirsty souls desiring a word from you. May this meet the need of this congregation, Lord Jesus. May you speak in your unique way, speak through my lips, that the words that I speak may be good seed that falls on fertile soil. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Look, this church is going through a critical – is in a critical juncture. There are a lot of questions that is obviously needing to be asked, a lot of questions that are being asked. I am in a position where I get to speak up here and able to teach from God's word, but I'm not the person who is a person in authority to lead this church. The people who are in authority to lead this church are the elders, and as we heard from Pastor Eric, it is very, very important that you pray for the elders at this time. It is very important that the church of God are led by holy people, people who look at Christ and Christ alone, people who are pure in their inner lives. We must pray for the elders that they are that, and that the church of God is what we have our allegiance to. Not a particular church here or a particular church there, but the church of God, and the church of God is led by holy people. And wherever that church is, God desires to birth in us, the rest of us, submission. Especially, I speak to young people who are filled with creative ideas and next-generation thoughts. It is so important for us to learn the rare virtue of submission. If you don't prefer the elders, or if you don't like the leadership in a particular place, leave and go somewhere where you learn how to submit, though. Submission is what you ought to learn. Submission to godly leadership. Submission to people who say, we are looking at Christ, we're not trying to please people, we're not trying to impress people, we're trying to please God. Submit to them. I speak as one who's trying hard to do that, and is trying hard to look at godly men who've been put in my life, and I say, God, I will submit to them. If they tell me to go this way, but I want to go that way, I will stop going that way and I'll go this way. It's so hard to beat that spirit of the flesh out of us, that spirit of submission, but God will not work, this is the way of our master, who although he was God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself and submitted, as a servant does to his master. We ought to follow in the way of our master. And God has not left us without warnings, God has not left us without his word that teaches us exactly how to get through every situation in life. And the Old Testament is full of stories of how God deals with his people. Now, we're not under the old covenant anymore, the agreement between God and man was one for the Old Testament and given through Moses, that old covenant has been torn up, it's been burnt up, we've got a new agreement through Jesus Christ. However, the Old Testament is full of warnings and stories that help us understand how God relates to humans, and how humans tend to relate with God. And back in the old covenant, there was one group of people that was the chosen people, they were called the Israelites. I'm from India, we were not the chosen people, 4,000 years ago, there was only one chosen nation and that was Israel, and God chose in his sovereign will, chose the Israelites and said I'm going to show you my word, and my word, it's not human ideas, it's my will, my word, all the others didn't get it, but the Israelites were a chosen people and they got God's word. But that wasn't the only word that existed, there were many other words that existed, and even as the Israelites lived, there were many other nations that lived around it. You know about that, there were some of the Assyrians, there were the Babylonians, there were the Philistines, the Amalekites, and you name it all. And they had all these different nations that lived around them that didn't have the word of God, but then you had this relatively small number of people called the Israelites who had the very word of God. And those were the two systems that existed, and you read through the Old Testament, you see a basic underlying conflict, yes you see wars, you see all kinds of stories, but there's an underlying conflict between the system of Israel, characterized through Jerusalem which was the capital, and the system of the other nations. And you see how it is that the Israelites got the word from Mount Sinai and they received God's word from there, and they said we will obey it. And they got detailed instructions of what they should do and what they shouldn't do. But we read through the Old Testament how the people of Israel went away, even though they were the only ones lucky to get God's word, they slowly went away and started worshipping the idols and the gods of the nations around them. Now what were these idols? These idols were blocks of stone and wood. If you're like me, you've probably wondered how stupid could they have been? If you're going to worship something, at least worship something that breathes. What is so attractive about a block of stone? What is so attractive about a block of wood? Have you wondered that? I have. And let me tell you, they were not that stupid. It wasn't that they were so attracted to this beautifully carved stone that they suddenly thought that that was God. Let me tell you what happened. They were Israelites and they were worshipping this Yahweh God, Jehovah, and they got all these Ten Commandments and all these other rules. You should do this, you shouldn't do that, you should do this, and you shouldn't do that. And they lived under that and God protected them. But then they looked across the fence, they looked across to the other side and they saw all these other people, the Philistines, the Babylonians, who had more than what they had and who had gods made of stone and wood who allowed them to do whatever they wanted. They could go nuts. They had sexual orgies, they had parties, the rich could keep on getting richer, the poor didn't really matter, it was the people in power that really mattered, and on and on and on. And you could do whatever you wanted. You could have a free reign, do whatever you wanted. That was the God of the stone and wood. But this God said, no, you can't do anything you want. You can't do this, you can't do that. So the Israelites, after some time, looked at the Philistines and said, we've got the right religion, you've got the wrong religion, but you know what, you've got everything. In fact, you're getting stronger, you're able to produce people like Goliath, we can never produce a person like Goliath, you produce people like Goliath, and you're getting richer, and you're getting stronger, and you're not getting any diseases, and you're not getting burnt up. You know what, I don't know why we're dealing with all these restrictions. This God of stone and wood seems to be able to protect you as well as let you do whatever you want. I think I'm going to choose stone and wood. And slowly they drifted away from the God that gave them restrictions of you can't do this and you can't do that, to say, I can do whatever I want. And we know what happened when God saw that happening to his people. The one select group of people that God said, I'll give you my holy word. When they started to worship other idols, they were defeated. Now let me be clear about this, the Israelites were never defeated because the enemy was stronger than them. No, the enemy was always stronger than them. God made winning as an underdog an art form with the Israelites. He loved it, he enjoyed stacking the deck against them and saying, let me show you it doesn't take a lot of people to win this thing. If you've got me on your side, you remember the story of Gideon where he whittled down 32,000 people down to 10,000 down to 300 and he says, now game on. Now let me show you that I don't need a lot of people. It is not in the quantity of people that matters. It is in the quality of people. The people who will be prepared for war. And God sent the rest of them home. This is Old Testament, but you keep on seeing these stories. You didn't have some big hulk like Goliath who took down Goliath. It was a shepherd boy. It was always the small and significant group of people that took down enemies much greater. But when Israel did fall, it was because they started worshiping other gods and enjoyed all the perks that the other gods gave. And primarily, the biggest perk that came with that was sex. Rampant, uncontrolled, liberated sex. With whoever you want, how often you want, whatever. That was what the biggest perk was. Now you come to the New Testament and just like you had two systems, Israel and let's say Babylon, you have two systems now in Christianity. You have two systems in the church. Two kinds of churches. You've got the spiritual Jerusalem, which has the heart of the bride, and let me explain that for a second. In the Old Testament, when the Israelites were not faithful to God, God used the word, you played the harlot. You committed adultery against me. Because God was saying, you and I have a bridal kind of relationship. When you are an adulterer, it's somebody who's married who decides to sleep with another woman. And in this case, it's a woman, so it's a woman who's sleeping with another man. You were married to me, Yahweh, but now you want to get married to these other gods. You are a harlot. You play the harlot. And today in the church age, where we are the people of God, we are the people of the promises of God, we are the children of Abraham, those who are in Christ, we who are the church are split into two categories. We are split into a system where you are the bride of Christ, which you could consider spiritual Jerusalem, whose heart is for God, whose bodies and churches are sanctuaries for God, pure and holy. Then you've got other churches that are spiritual Babylons, where there are adulteresses. Now let me be clear about this, an adulteress is a person who's married. The world and the heathen are not adulteresses. They don't even claim to be married to Jesus. The church is married to Jesus. And then the church becomes an adulteress when they say, yes Jesus, I'm married to you, but then sleep with the enemy. Who is the enemy in the New Testament? Who is the enemy that attacks us? Yes, we all know it's the devil, but how many of you really kind of worship the devil lately? Are you being tempted to go to some occult ceremony and worship the devil? Is that your problem? Is that what is plaguing the church today? God's saying, I'm really concerned about my church because the devil is trying to draw people to worship him and they're going into occults and things like that. Maybe it's true in some places, but not here, is it? What is the enemy? It is not that pointy-eared or this twitching-tailed devil in all of his glory. In fact, if the devil did come and attack us directly, it'll probably drive us quickest to God, which is probably why the devil doesn't do it that way. But he uses the art of seduction. It's another suitor that says, let me draw this woman away from her marriage to her bridegroom and let me seduce her. And that is the world. It's the world system. It's not the people in the world, it is the world system. That is the imagery that Paul and James use. Second Corinthians chapter 11 verse 3, it says that, I am jealous for you, Paul is writing to the Corinthians, I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy. This kind of jealousy is from God, for I betrothed you. God looks at the church outside time and says, you're already the bride. We who are in time have not yet seen our consummation as being the bride because that'll happen when he returns and then we'll be married. But until then we're betrothed, we're engaged to one husband, that to Christ I might present you one day as a pure virgin, a church, a body of believers that have not been given to the world, has not given herself to the world. James calls it being unstained from the world. That is true religion. And in James chapter 4 verse 4, a verse that I've quoted before, he says, you adulteresses, he's talking to Christians, he's talking to Christians in a church, he's saying you could be an adulteress because you are having a friendship with this world system that proves that you're hostile towards God. Do you not know that he who wishes to be a friend of this world and this world system makes himself an enemy of God? Family, this is what spiritual adultery is. Spiritual adultery is when the bride of Christ that was meant to be set apart for Jesus alone enters an unholy union with the world system controlled by the devil. And the call of God has always been and will always be that we as individuals and we as a church be pure brides for Jesus. And that we root out every spirit of adultery that seeks to creep in through the spirit of the world. And the thing that gets in our way is the world system. And the world system seduces the bride. But we are not unaware of the tricks of the enemy. 2nd Corinthians 11, sorry 2nd Corinthians chapter 2 verse 11 it says, in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan for we are not ignorant of his schemes. And 2nd Corinthians 11 3 which I pointed out earlier, it says just as the serpent deceived Eve, you're going to commit spiritual adultery. I talked about the worsened a few weeks ago where I talked about the worsened stem from the garden of Eden where we decided to eat out of the tree of knowledge of good and evil which symbolizes independence from God. In the same way this is the same trick of the devil that he's been going on it for thousands of years. It's the same trick just as Satan deceived Eve. Not that you're going to go rape somebody. Not that you're going to go and worship the devil. No, your hearts are going to be led astray from a simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus. This is what marriage is about, a devotion one to the other. And that is what the devil is primarily trying to do. Those are the schemes of the devil. But Paul says we are not unaware of those schemes. And it is my purpose and the opportunities that I get from this pulpit to teach from this pulpit some of the schemes of the devil. It is not to condemn us even if we find ourselves being tricked of the devil. I'd rather we find out right now the schemes of the devil so that we can fight the devil now and to live our whole lives in deception and go to heaven and find out that we were deceived the whole time. So don't take any of this as a condemning word, but a word intended to open our eyes to the schemes of the devil. And I want to talk about two ways from a story in the Old Testament that I've started to see the draw of this world. And it's a story in Daniel chapter 3. It's a famous story. Most of us who are Christians maybe know this already. It's the story of three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who attempted to bow down to an image that was created by the king of Babylon. But they were the only three people, not just people in Babylon, but people who were Israelites in Babylon, people of God in Babylon who said we're not going to bow down to this idol. Only three people. And they were thrown into a furnace because that was what was warned, if you don't do this you'll be thrown into a fiery furnace. And they were thrown into a fiery furnace, but they were not burnt up. In fact, one of the people watching it said, hey, looks like there's a son of God with them too. There's a fourth person there. And the king Nebuchadnezzar had a change of heart and brought them out and glorified God and praised God because of that. But I want to show you a couple of lessons that I learned that I think are applicable to us as we are trying to be pure brides and how the world can try to seduce us, this pure bride, into an unholy union with the world. Daniel chapter 3, verses 4 through 6, then the herald loudly proclaimed, to you the command is given, O people, nations, and men of every language, that the moment you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the trigon, the psaltery, the bagpipe, and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. But whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into the midst of a fiery furnace. Family of God, I want to talk about two primary mechanisms from this passage that I see in which the world seduces the bride. The world seduces the bride first by the seduction of entertainment. There is a great need for us to open our eyes or for our eyes to be open in how much of our spirituality is driven by entertainment. The world also has entertainment. There's place for music, and there's place for worshiping God, there's place for praising God, it's commanded by God, it's supported by God. But worship and praise should never be reduced to entertainment. And there's a spirit that's pervading Christianity today that is all about the music and how tight the band is and getting the most exalted worship leader to lead, and all the beats must be hopping so that my car can bounce as I'm listening to this worship music, because that's how the world is, and I don't want to, I want to give up my worldly music, but I want to listen to Christian music that makes me hop too. And there's a spirit of the world that's creeping in, and I'm not knocking a particular kind of music, I'm not saying this music is good, all songs must have a beat of 80 beats per minute or less or anything like that, I'm not talking about that in any way. I'm talking about the spirit of the world that can come into our worship songs, and what do I mean by that, and this is how I prove what it means by it, it doesn't matter about the beat, it doesn't matter about the style of music, I'm more interested in the words that we sing and let into our beings through the music, through the Christian music that is being played today. There's a philosophy in secular music, and there's a philosophy being perpetrated through Christian music sometimes too, and we have to be on guard to not let the spirit of the world enter our beings through Christian music too, and Christian entertainment, and coming to church where it's all about having a good time, and where it's all about, man the music was off today so I really couldn't worship God, really? That's what was the problem? But that's what's happening to a lot of our worship services. One wrong chord by somebody playing an instrument and that's it, you just ruined my whole worship evening, and we buy the CDs and we replay the songs on repeat, the songs not that have the best lyrics that convict us, but the songs that have the best beat. I know what I experience myself, I'm not listening to other people's, reading other people's blogs or something, I'm looking at what I'm tempted in my own flesh, but I have noticed I have to watch over the words that come in with these hoppin' beats. Let me take one song, this is a song that I don't know who wrote it, and I'm not knocking the person who wrote it, I sincerely believe and hope that the person who wrote it meant it in the right way, but now I'm listening to it, and I might be singing it, and you might be singing it, and I want to ask you and me the question. The song is called The Presence of the Lord is Here, I Can Feel It in the Atmosphere. I have this question for you, family of God, how exactly do you feel the presence of the Lord? What is that atmosphere? The presence of the Lord is here, I can feel it in the atmosphere, and you say it, and you say it, and you say it, and you say it, and you sing it, and you sing it, because it's got such a killer beat. And a hundred times later, a hundred times later you sung that song, you started to think that the presence of the Lord is in a particular kind of atmosphere, and what kind of atmosphere is that? It's out here in church where you're all jumping up and down, and you're getting all excited, and it's in the beat, and in the good tune, and you're like, yeah, the presence of the Lord is here, because I felt good, and that guitar solo was so off the hook, that presence of the Lord was there, yeah, for sure. And some of us Christians may say, no, no, no, it's not the presence of the Lord and the feeling, it's love, joy, and peace, okay, fine, if the Spirit of the Lord is identified by love, joy, and peace, it better, it better, it must extend past this room into your marriage. If you do not have the love of God, if you don't have the joy of the Lord, if you don't have the peace of God in your marriage, and I find, and we find that the marriage is really all about arguing with each other, and constant fights, and grading with each other, the presence of the Lord is not there with you. No matter how many CDs you play at home, the presence of the Lord is proved in your marriages, and in your life, and in your workplaces, not by a song and a beat. And I'll tell you how I feel the presence of the Lord. And if you're going to tell me the presence of the Lord is a particular way that you feel it, you have to back it up with Scripture. And that's what I'm preaching about, because I'm concerned that we sing songs by half-hearted Christians who are talented musicians who don't know the Word. And so they reduce it to a feeling. Come and receive your blessing, because the presence of the Lord is here, the atmosphere is also here, just come and receive your blessing. That's not how God gives blessings on people. The presence of the Lord, if I read my Bible right, is always introduced by holiness. I've said this before, but it's as simple as that. I know that I'm interacting with the presence of the Lord when I'm studying my Bible, or when I'm meditating on the train ride up to my workplace, or when I'm sitting here in church and there's a clear call from God saying, I am holy, you are not. And the conviction of the Holy Spirit decimates me, and I say, God, I am completely unworthy. But He doesn't leave me there, every time I see the presence of the Lord, He also picks me up from that position. And He says, I'm the beginning and the end, I'm the alpha and the omega, I send my son to die for you, don't grovel in the dust because of your unworthiness, come and sit on my lap. But that's how I know the presence of the Lord is with me. It's not an atmosphere. It really isn't. If it is an atmosphere, it's an atmosphere of holiness, and I back off, and there's a holy hush in my secret closet because God's convicted me of sin, not a pump me up, get me dancing kind of sin, and I'm not against the beat, I'm not against the song, I'm just saying let's not let these music songs affect our theology. Let's not let these songs of influence our thinking about who God is if it is not clearly backed up by God's Word. But the reason why there is the spirit of the world and the reason why we have a seduction in the worship stage is because there's a seduction in the pulpit, and I indict myself the most in this. There's a great seduction in the pulpit because the sheep or the churches influenced by the world want to prop up preachers and speakers and gifted teachers who can teach well but do not know God. The adulterous church, the church that commits adultery, I'm talking about the church, not the world, the adulterous church looks most for gifts. How talented the speaker is, how many jokes can he crack per minute, how can he draw me in and keep me engaged for 50 minutes, that's going to be number one for me. The pure bride looks most for fruit. It's not that gifts are completely unimportant, but the pure bride of Christ looks first for fruit and character, and I wrote this one down too. Now this was spoken from this pulpit a few months ago, but I wrote it down just in case you missed it. I hope you can read it and see it and it'll sink into your system that this is the difference for you to investigate and to inspect your worship CDs and to investigate your sermons to find out if the people preaching those sermons and singing those songs are people who have fruit, who have good marriages, who are living in holiness, who are not running after money. I wrote this down too, it takes a gifted man to preach the Bible and to sing well, unfortunately there are way too many of those, but there are only a few godly folks who are reverential and faithful before God who hear from God. Honestly, family of God, would you rather hear a gifted sermon or a word from God? I think we'll all want the right thing, but it doesn't come in the form we sometimes would like it to come into. It's not as fancy and polished as the world would like you to have it, but it's delivered from people who live with God in secret. So many times the Lord has reminded me what you get to do on this stage is so immaterial compared to whether you have a pure heart before me in private. Family of God, I wish I could sear that thought into you, I wish I could sear that thought into my own heart all the time, that I will live with the constant recognition that God is not going to ask me too many questions about my gifts compared to the number of questions he's going to ask me about the purity of my heart. And so many young people are bound up by the adulterous church into constantly thinking I need to use all my gifts, I've got to maximize my talents for God, I've got to do all these things for God, and God is saying I'm not so concerned about that as I'm concerned about the purity of your heart. I wish you would put all those spiritual inventory questionnaires on the table for a while and leave it there for a while and concentrate for the next six months on those pornographic websites that keep you addicted to sin. It's the purity of heart that God has the biggest issue with. And I speak out strongly and every time I'm up here against the draw of sex because that is what drew the Israelites away from God almost invariably in the Old Testament. And it is so hard to find men and women today who can honestly look you in the eye and say my eyes are trying as hard as possible to be pure before God, and I'm experiencing faithfulness, and I'm experiencing victory in this area. Those are the people who should get up and teach and those are the people who should get up and sing. People who are experiencing victory and can teach others on that. Otherwise, the devil has you doing going on short-term mission trips, has the devil going you worship, working on different service teams, but then being felled day in and day out by lust. And for men it's lust with the eyes and for men it's pornography or even adultery. God forbid. And for women it's an addiction to the way the world tells you your body should look like, and the kind of clothes you should maximize the amount of cleavage or whatever it is. And it's felling sincere women and men left, right, and center. Just that one area. And I haven't even gotten into talking about how we use our tongue, but that keeps me busy most of every day. Just watching those two body parts, my eye and my tongue. I'm good to go for quite a while. I've got my assignment cut out. I don't have much time for politics and analyzing church situations and this and that. My eyes and my tongue has plenty of homework, God, for me today. One litmus test of a church of Babylon versus a church of Jerusalem is that there's very little preaching against sin. Because the preachers are living glamorous lifestyles, lowering in their fancy cars and their fancy suits, which are made out of the sacrificial giving of the poor sheep, or they're living lives of indulgence, using and abusing their flock for their own lustful pleasures. This story has been repeated for thousands of years. There's nothing new about it, but God is saying, wake up. One other thing about the story of Daniel. If he will not seduce you through entertainment, from the pulpit, from the worship stage, he will threaten you with the punishment of the fiery furnace of rejection. If the world can't draw you in and say, hey, look, I'm better than, I'm better than this, I'm better than this, come, come join me, he'll say, you'll stand alone, you'll be rejected. Can hundreds of people who say on their Facebook page that they're Jesus lovers all be wrong? Surely they can't be wrong. I must be wrong. My stance must be fanatical. I must be narrow-minded if all my tens of friends tend to think it's okay to wear this outfit. The world will try to reject you, and the Christian world will try to reject you, too. The churches are filled with adultery, spiritual adultery, that the spiritual adulterous churches are drawing the bride away, either through seduction or through outright rejection, saying, your numbers will decrease. Don't be dismayed if your numbers decrease, because it was a narrow way, isn't it? And it is a few there be that find it, isn't it? And that was my next point, expect only a few people to stand up to this world system in the church. Expect only a few people. In the time when the Israelites were trying to get into Canaan, there was just Joshua and Caleb. Two people, did you get that? Two out of tens of thousands of people, two people would say, I'll fight those giants. How many people were willing to stand up against Goliath? How many people didn't worship the image of Nebuchadnezzar? Three people. You think you're going to expect a lot of company? Get that thing out of your mind. You're going to have to stand alone and with a few if you're going to go after the heart of God fully. Don't expect a lot of people. And you read that in Daniel chapter three, verse 16 through 18. You hear that, you read the spirit of what these people had. They were men of a different sort. And they said, oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer. We don't need to think about this. This is not some big dilemma I need to pray about. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if he does not, let it be known to you that we're not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Simple. The heart of the bride that is so captivated with the bridegroom is not tempted by the suitor. Because she's so captivated by the bridegroom. These three men reflect the spirit of saying, I don't need to think about this. The spirit of the world, no place in my heart. I got to root it out. Look, we sang this song, my God won't you rain down on us. We need, the Holy Spirit is what we were asking for. We need a saturation. My God won't you, you know what God is telling you? My dear child of mine won't you. I'm not holding back my rain. You're the one who's sitting inside the cave, not willing to get outside, into the rain. You want fire? He's got the fire. It's called the fire of rejection from the world. We don't need to plead to God, my God won't you do this? He wants to do it. He's raining it down outside. He says get into the fire. Stop sitting in the coziness of your arms, just looking outside, won't you, won't you. Meanwhile it's raining cats and dogs outside and you're saying my God won't you, won't you. He's there. He's raining it down. It's just fire. It's the spirit of fire and it's the spirit of fire that says you've got to be rejected by the world. I want you to listen to this very carefully. This is a word that the Lord gave me, for me primarily, a few weeks ago. But as I prayed about this, I believe that this is something that you could use as well. Luke chapter 12 verse 49. My God won't you rain down on us. Jesus says yes I have come to rain down on you. In fact I've come to cast fire upon this earth. And I have a baptism to undergo and I want to baptize you too into the Holy Spirit. Verse 51. Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you but rather division. For from now on five members in one household will be divided. Three against two. Two against three. Fathers and daughters. Fathers and children. Children and fathers will be divided each other. What does that mean? When the fire of God comes you'll even find in the same family some people who are saying we will be pure for God. And you'll find your spouse or you'll find your parents not willing to stand up for God. This is the fire of God that comes to. My God won't you. Are you going to be able to sing that next time we sing that with the same kind of desire? That's what comes with the fire of God that Jesus tells me he's going to baptize me with. My God won't you rain down on us. He wants to. He's raining it. But he says get in the fire of the world's rejection. And you read that in verse 40 of Luke chapter 12. He starts off this passage. He's talking about the last days. And he says this. You too be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect. And this is my point. And listen to me carefully family. The Son of God desires these last days, this fire in the last days. This is a sign that these are the last days that he's sending a fire to purify his church. And here's the word, prepare to meet your God. I don't know if you heard me right because I didn't hear God right when he told me that the first time. You know who God is? Prepare to meet the creator of the universe who holds things in the palm of his hand. Prepare to meet him. Do you have to hold on to something? He's coming back. He's outside the door. He's pulled out his keys and he's fitting the key into the knob. That's how close he is. Just like this he'll be here. And all these trivialities. But why God you allow this to happen? Why did you do this? On nothing compared to prepare to meet your God. And that God is going to come as a judge. That I know. And he's going to judge every word that we spoke. And he's going to judge every action that we are doing. Are you prepared? Are you preparing for that? Or are you preparing your next blog post? Or your next email of problems you still have? Or are you going to go home and complain some more at your spouse? Family of God, I plead with you, may this group of people become a people who have only one agenda in mind, to prepare to meet their God, individually and as a church. In verse 35 it says, be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps alight. Is your lamp alight? If your eye is not clear, the whole body is not clear, it says in Matthew chapter six. How are your eyes doing men and women? I speak so much against the eyes and I'll repeat it till my dying day. Until I see a body of believers whose men have been freed from it. And women who do not think they can dress as they please. Be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps alight. Prepare to meet your God. Stop worrying about things that don't concern you. Stop spending most of your conversation discussing the rightness or wrongness of what the elders did or what this other group is doing or can you believe what's going on in this part of the world or is Israel going to be, you know, the actual, is all Israel going to be saved or is there going to be a real Armageddon or whatever it is? Prepare to meet your God, family. Your God, not my God, your God, that God that is telling you to get rid of those DVDs and those videos and to delete those links and to take that pornography seriously. Prepare to meet him. Is the only way you're going to get free from pornography or lusting of the eyes because you're going to be put in a dungeon because of Jesus? Let's say this country experienced persecution and you suddenly were imprisoned for your faith. Will you look back at that and be like, man, now I'm free from pornography? Well, that's because you're in jail. But is that the only way you're going to be free from this stuff? Now you'll dress modestly. Sure, you'll dress what they give you to wear, but that's when, is that what it's going to take for you, for our Christian sisters to dress modestly? He's coming soon. Worse still, Jesus comes back and then you'll be free from pornography. That I guarantee you. But is that what it's going to take? The bride says, I'll make my linens ready now. I'm going to stop walking around in my nakedness. I'm going to stop flaunting, thinking I have a spirituality, thinking I'm alive when I'm dead, thinking I'm rich when I'm poor, thinking I'm well-dressed when I'm naked. That's the message to the church in Laodicea. I don't want to end on a hard note. Let me add with a little bit of goodness. You know how the story of Daniel chapter three ends. When you are being thrown into the fire, when you see the fire in front of you, do not expect to see Jesus just yet. All you'll see is the fire. All you'll see is the heat. All you'll see is two other guys who are with you and that's it. Then you'll go into the fire, but when you are in the fire, you will see him. He will meet you there. But you have to be in the fire first. That means getting rid of all the attachments of this world. Some things on your playlist, even though they're not evil, may need to go because it robs you of intimacy with Christ. And it robs you of that sense of urgency. And maybe certain websites you go to, they may not be pornographic, but they need to be still not visited because they rob you from time spent with Christ. And it's an unhealthy attachment to the world. Looking at all the latest dresses on Gap.com and what, I don't even know the websites. But we keep on. I need to see what's the latest fashion. Oh, it's fall again. I need fall wear again and winter wear. Then winter part two wear. Slightly colder. I need a little more wool on my scarf. Is that what our lives are consisting of? Oh, I need iPhone 4.2, 4.3. Have they come out with it yet? It's a constant, that's it. Prepare to meet your God, family. What's got a hold of your heart? Is it really Christ? You want rain down on God now? He's raining. He's raining His fire and He says, get burnt up, all of that world. And we need a people who will say to the world, today I'm bidding goodbye to you. I'm done with this world system. I do not want to be relevant anymore the way the world defines me. I'm going to burn up all those DVDs. Not this evening. Not at 3 p.m. In fact, I'm not going to lunch. I was going to go to lunch with some friends, but I'm going home, because I'm going to delete those things first thing. I'm going to skip out on lunch and I'm going to go home and reinvestigate my closet. Where are those people, pure bridal people, who even skip one meal to take care of business with God? Because we have so few people, that's why we have this, my God, won't you rain down, please, please, please do it. He says, I'm there. Just go home and delete those files. You'll meet me there in that fire of rejection of this world system. And the Spirit of God will meet you there and He'll fill you with the love of God. Family, this is what keeps me away from sin and this is what draws me back when I do sin is the love of God. He loves me so much. I'm not just saying that. I mean that. He loves me so much. You need to see that. I don't love Him that much. I really don't. He loves me so much. It's easy to go to somebody who loves me so much. Don't focus even on your love for Him. Focus on how much He loves you. Let that be the draw, the constant draw that draws you back to Him. That's what comes with the fire of rejection. It says in Romans 5, 5, the love of God is spread abroad, spread abroad. You won't get burnt by this fire, believe me. Thousands of men of God have walked singing into the fire and have not been burnt up. They just got a whole baptism in the love of God. It costs everything that's holding you back. Don't think it's going to come easy. Sit down. Count the cost. Let's bow our heads. Father, we're a weak people. Our hearts are full of adultery. But we want to be pure, Lord. We repent for the times of a lack of pureness that has infiltrated our spirituality, both personally and as a body. Father, we desire to be pure brides for You. Father, open our eyes to Your love. Help us to remind ourselves from Your Word how much You love us. It's written right there. We don't need some fantastical experience. We just need to come to our senses, dear God. We who are out in the pig farms of this world thinking we're having a good time. Father, help us to come to our senses that we may recognize that the time is short. You're coming soon. Father, I want to be ready to meet You. I have so much work left to do, so little time. Have mercy on us, Lord, individually. Have mercy on us as a people. And may we be a people who concentrate on purity most of all. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.