How to Live Where You Don'T Belong

This message is one of the Times Square Pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge P.O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or calling 214-963-8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends. Live where you don't belong. How to live where you don't belong.

Sunday night as Pastor David was preaching on how to make every day count, as he went through part of the message, I wanted to stand up and said, hold it, you're preaching my message. And I had this message already prepared Sunday night, so I say that because I want you to know we don't, after we hear one of the other pastors, we don't go running home and try to copy what they said. The Lord just seems to put it together and this is a follow-up to that in some degree.

Turn and open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 19. Leave it open. We'll be talking about Lot tonight.

But as you're turning there, I'll read to you. If you can turn and listen at the same time, I'll read to you 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9. It says, The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation.

And open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 19. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the joy that is in our hearts.

Lord, it wells up from deep within us. We thank you that there is an inner flowing river that we can draw upon day after day, moment by moment. And Lord, I thank you that you're also teaching your church today how to live in this wicked world, how to live in these surroundings.

Oh Lord, thank you. Thank you Lord that we have a hope within us. We have a power within us.

We have a strength within us that is able to be a wall of fire about us in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. And Lord, we pray that you would teach us and show us how we're to live in a place where we don't belong. Lord, this is not our home.

This is not our home. This is not our place. But Lord, we have to spend a period of time here.

We want to make every day count and we want to learn to live where we don't belong. Teach your people how to do it Lord. Teach us how to do it.

Not to be sucked in by the world that every day, every day, many messages and voices calling out to us to drain our spiritual strength. But Lord, thank you. Thank you that your joy is our strength in the midst of it all.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen. Could we turn the monitors down just a bit? When I was a junior, or going into my junior year of high school, after about a month in the school, it so happened that my father had changed churches and I had to leave that high school where I had grown up all of my life. David had graduated from that high school and had many, many friends and went off to another part of the state in Pennsylvania and went into a school a much larger school.

And I remember what an adjustment and what a difficulty it was for me because I didn't know anybody. I didn't know one single soul. And by then, many of the students had already begun to pair off.

They'd already had their little groups. They had their little cliques. And I felt like I was living where I didn't belong.

Every believer in every age has had to deal with the problem that we live in a world in which we really do not belong. We're citizens of another country. We're resident aliens.

We're passengers on the gospel train. And it's not going to make any stops. It makes no permanent stops on this side.

And yet we are required to deal with our environment for better or for worse. Mostly it's worse. And there are two extreme reactions of a true believer in dealing with the world.

The first of which is to withdraw from it. I speak of those who wish they could hide somehow from the world. In fact, they're actually afraid of it.

And they'd like to go on a never-ending spiritual retreat and never have to come back and stay on the Mount of Transfigurations or stay on the Mount of Olives. Other Christians think that if I could only get into the ministry, if I could only be a pastor, if I could only be in missions work, if I could only be in ministry, oh, that would be so wonderful. And it is enjoyable to work surrounded by other Christians.

Make no mistake about that. But ministry does not provide anybody with an exemption from temptation and having to deal with the world that is around us. When my wife went to Bible school, she was newly saved and only knew the Lord about a year.

And when she came to Bible school, she thought that it was going to be the next best place to heaven and that the students in the school would be near angels. Angel-like is the word I'm trying to use. And then she met me and I brought her down to earth.

But it was a soft landing. It was a soft landing. There is no real escape from our earthly environment.

Now, we are called upon to be the salt of the earth. We're to be a light and the salt loses its savor when born-again Christians do not know how to live where we don't belong. And the end result is that we either run or we try to hide from the reality of our environment.

Or we go to work or we go to school with what I would call a fortress-type mentality in which we want Jesus to come back at any moment. We long for his coming. Not so much because we love him.

We may do that, but more so because we want to leave behind the hassles that we have to deal with. It's more of an escape mentality than a mentality of wanting to go to be with the Lord. Now, Jesus said of his disciples, John 17, 14, he said, they are not of the world even as I am not of the world.

However, our Lord did not take his disciples with him when he went out of the physical world. He went on and he prayed this. He said, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

Now, in another scripture, it describes what God's will is for you and I as resident aliens. It says that we are to be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom he shine as lights in the world. That's God's first intention that we be that we not withdraw.

Now, another extreme to dealing with the world and to living in the midst of a worldliness is to become a part of it. I believe one of the reasons why the church of God in this present time has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church. I'm somewhat of a student of church history.

And whenever you look through church history and whenever the church was most fruitful and was experiencing a time of revival and even a time when there was a spiritual awakening that spilled over into the society, there was always a marginal footnote to such a period that would read like this. In this age or that age when God was moving, men could readily see where the church begins and where the world ended. And because of that, they had the times of fruitfulness throughout church history because the church was not married to the world.

And the church had a very, very clear testimony as the choir sang about it tonight. And I think what is so sad about the state of the church today is that we are living in unprecedented mixture. There has never been a time in recent history that if you were blindfolded, and this is sad, if you were blindfolded and you were taken to some meetings, a gospel meeting, but you were blindfolded, you didn't know it was a gospel meeting, you might think you were at an Amway convention or a hard rock convention or something of that sort rather than being in the house of the Lord.

And it's always been throughout time that the world and worldliness has been in the hearts of God's people who are in the church and who are so-called Christians. But now, but now we have greed and carnality and idolatry and worldliness emanating from the pulpit. It's become a part of some of our church teaching.

It's in the music, it's in some of the worship, and it's even in some of the evangelistic methodologies. And so, that's the other extreme. Those, some who want to run away, they want to escape it, and the other extreme is the mixture that you have within the world.

Now, given these two extreme approaches to the world, what is a proper biblical view of how we live in the world and yet not permit ourselves to belong to it? Could I have that water? I'm having a terrible time getting over a cold, and that's why I had you turn to Genesis 19. I want you to look at how Lot dealt, excuse me, I'm having some throat problems. Lord, I just pray that you would touch me right now.

Lord, strengthen my voice and my body and my mind. In Jesus' name. Amen.

I want you to look at how Lot dealt with his environment. Now, I've used Lot before as an example. Some of the other pastors have used Lot as examples as well, but I felt led to return to Lot as an example of learning how to deal with the struggle of being in the world and yet not being of the world.

Now, first of all, we find Lot in Genesis 19 working at his job. Now, I know that the primary emphasis in this chapter is dealing with the angels coming to bring judgment, and we'll see that a little bit, but I want you to see at the beginning, verse 1, it says, And there came two angels to Sodom and Even, and Lot sat at the gate of Sodom, and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face towards the ground. Now, what Lot was doing here, he was working, and he was working late that night because you see, the term sitting at the gate was a way of saying that Lot had a position of authority in the city.

He was the mayor, the town council, and the town manager all wrapped up into one. That's what his job was. And there was nothing worldly or unrighteous about Lot serving in that position.

And you see, if you work in Sodom, and if you live in New York City, you work in Sodom, you may be like Lot in that you find yourself sitting at the gate overseeing certain responsibilities for your boss or your employer. Now, there is nothing wrong in and of itself to hold down a good secular position, assuming that you're not violating scriptural principles in order to fulfill your job. Now, very clearly, there are some types of jobs and professions that a godly person ought not to be involved in.

But that is not the subject of my message. But what is the subject of this message is that your work matters to God. He does place godly men and women in positions, in business, in government, in industry, and in other secular roles.

In fact, I've seen some of the finest Christians that I know who are sitting at the gate in the Sodom of our day, and they have been placed there by the Lord because He gave them that position. We know from Scripture that Joseph was given a secular position, as it were, in Egypt, a position of authority. Daniel kept pure in a secular, humanistic, heathen environment.

Jesus worked for 18 years or plus as a carpenter. Paul was a tent maker along with being a preacher. In Philippians 4.22, Paul sent greetings from the church, and he adds this interesting note.

He said, all the saints salute you, and chiefly they that are of Caesar's household. Let me repeat it again. He said, all the saints from here salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household.

You see, the emperor had right in his palace, right in his household, and right under his nose, believers in Jesus. Some of the staff, some of the maids, some of the secretaries, some of the cooks and other workers had sworn allegiance to a higher power greater than Caesar, and though they worked for Caesar, they lived for Jesus, and thereby they lived and they worked where they didn't belong, but they nevertheless held their testimony, and they had a pure light. And would to God that we had more saints in Caesar's household, and it's clear from Scripture that it is possible, it is possible to work in Sodom.

It's possible to work for Caesar or to be like a Daniel and work for heathen king and yet not defile yourself with the menu that the king lays out for you every day. It's possible to do that. And it's important to be a proper witness for Christ as you sit at the gate on your job and work for Caesar.

Now you may or may not have opportunity to share the gospel on your job. Many of us are convicted for not sharing more and it's probably true that we miss certain opportunities that we let slip by. But you see, there's something worse than missing an opportunity to talk the talk, and that's when we blow our testimony by not walking the walk.

You see, some Christians like to witness, but they don't like to work. And some will use church or witnessing or so-called ministry as an excuse for not working. Not a young, but a missionary told me recently, he said, what's happening in America? He said, I haven't been back there for years, but the young people that are coming out of our schools and colleges, he said, they're all looking for positions.

Nobody wants to work. Nobody wants to work. He said, where's the work ethic in America? Now other people use their job and believe that God has given them their job as a platform to witness and that's good.

But if you let your light shine on your job, it better shine on your job performance as well as on your verbal witness. Because if you're always late, wasting time, cutting corners, cheating, letting the other guy do it, and then saying to people, I love Jesus, and they're going to say, yeah, he sure, or she loves Jesus, all right, but she sure doesn't like to work. You see, God judges us.

God judges us by how we sit at the gate and how we work for Caesar and we cannot call ourselves a separated or different people than the world when we go to our jobs and then act in an ungodly manner or a worldly manner. We are to be without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and being without rebuke means you have a good testimony as to your work ethic. Now, I knew I wasn't going to get a lot of amens tonight, and I was prepared for it, but the Lord promised me to keep right on going.

Listen to what Apostle Paul said and taught working class people. Listen to this. He said, obey your earthly masters or bosses or employers with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart just as you would obey Christ.

Now, I had to read that again. I've read that before, but I had to read it again. It says, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart just as you would obey Christ.

Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like good workers doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly. Now, remember, Paul is talking to people in secular employment.

He said, serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord. You say, Brother Don, you don't know who I work for. Well, I'm sorry.

Here's what it says. Serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord and not men because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever he does, whether he is a slave or free or whether he is in secular employment or whether he is in the house of the Lord. You've got to do better than that.

Now, another thing about working in a secular environment and among unsaved people, and here's a very important principle. Judge their sin, but don't be too quick to write off certain people who give you hassles or who seem so ungodly. Don't be so quick to write them off as being candidates for salvation.

Turn with me to Genesis chapter 20. And as you're turning there, I was thinking about some of the jobs that I've held. I have been a tour guide.

I have worked for the post office, U.S. Post Office. I've been a mailman. Two Christmases, I worked extra as an extra mailman.

One summer, in the Catskill Mountains, I drove a bagel bakery truck all summer long. And I drove up to the Jewish bungalows where all the Jewish women would come out and buy their bagels in the morning. I worked for a good old Jewish owner, a baker, and that was quite an experience.

I worked in polishing cars. And I would remember, as I look back over some of those positions I held, that there were certain people, when I would observe them, and I'd hear them talk, or they would shoot arrows at me, and I would write those people off. I'd just write them off.

Sometimes I'd treat them like they treated me. And I concluded, in some cases, that they were a waste of my time. But oh, how wrong I was, only to find out later that some of the most unlikely people that I had worked with were saved.

No credit to me. No credit to me. I had written them off.

And when Abraham went down to Egypt with Sarah, his wife, he lied saying that she was his sister. Now Abimelech found out in time that Sarah was Abraham's wife and he didn't touch her. And look at Genesis 20 and verse 10.

And Abimelech said unto Abraham, Abraham, what sawest thou in me that thou hast done this thing? In other words, Abraham, what did I do to deserve this treatment? What did you see in me that caused you to come to the conclusion that I am an evil man? And Abraham's answer is very interesting and it's a warning to us all. And I want you to hear it, verse 11. And Abraham said, because I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place and they will slay me for my wife's sake.

And Abraham, you see, did what we often do. We write people off even before we know them. Or we come to quick judgments because we hear them.

Now I want to tell you something. We learned a long time ago, working with the gangs, that the guy that yells the most, the guy that's the most hostile, is the guy that probably has the greatest conviction going on inside him. The one who has the greatest fear and the one who is the best candidate for the Lord to get a hold of.

He did it with Nikki, he did it with others and we see God got a hold of some of the worst kinds. He always does that. And we sometimes make too quick judgments on people on our jobs and we assume everybody is alike.

You see, don't live in the world with an Elijah mentality and that you're the only one that loves and fears God. Listen, the true church of Jesus Christ is not as big as many people are claiming it today. But on the other hand, it's a lot bigger than some of us think it is.

And don't write some people off because like Abraham, you thought surely there's no fear of God in this place. It may very well be that there is a God-fearing person, there's a hungry person and God has placed you right there in that position to be a witness to them. Or worse, don't hide the fact that you're married to Christ for fear.

They will slay me for Christ's sake. That's what Abraham said. He said he covered up.

He covered up his testimony. He covered up who he was because he said, I was afraid they're gonna slay me. And we can do the very same thing on our jobs.

Now next I want you to note Lot's compromise. Two angels visited Sodom to observe his wickedness and to bring judgment, to observe its wickedness and to bring judgment against it. And while the two visitors retired for the night as Lot's guests, the Sodomites gathered around Lot's house.

And verse 4 says, But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, come past the house round, both young and old, and all the people from every quarter. And they called unto Lot and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out to us that we may know them. Now it looked at first, it looked as if at first, Lot was gonna do the right thing and he was gonna stand up to the lust and the perversion of the Sodomites.

Look at verse 6. And Lot went out at the door unto them and he shut, he shut the door after him. You know, there comes a time in dealing with a world and the spirit of Sodom that you have to shut the door after you and you have to say no to evil. Lot said, I pray you, the next verse he said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

And from this we see that it seemed to be and for a moment it seems as if Lot is a clear testimony that a clear line has to be drawn between the house of Lot whom the Bible called a righteous man. A clear line has to be drawn there when Sodom knocks at the door and says come out and be with us or party with us. And if you don't know how in your dealings with the environment around you, if you don't know when to shut the door to seductive spirits, then you're not gonna overcome Satan or Sodom.

It's gonna overcome you. Now it appeared that Lot had shut the door to sin. But as it turned out, he had a back door that he opened called compromise.

Look at verse 8. Lot says, Behold, now I have two sisters which have not known men. Let me, I pray you, bring them out to you and you to them and you do to them as good in your eyes unto these men do nothing. For therefore they came under the shadow of my roof.

Now that's a very sad picture of a so-called man of God. Lot closed one door to sin only to open another. Think of it.

He would prostitute. He was on the verge of prostituting his own daughters in order to not lose his position at the gate. And you see, the world and the devil will do everything they can to break down a righteous man or to deceive you through compromise.

And though you may shut the door on one area, he'll come around the other way and hit your blind side somewhere else. And Lot offering his daughters, you know what that's like? That's like if you're asked to go out and party and somebody said, Hey, we're gonna do cocaine. You say, Oh no, oh no.

I don't do cocaine. But I'll go have a few beers with you. I've heard the devil lie and deceive Christians into compromising by the same standard of reasoning or offer that Lot made to the man at Sodom.

You see, there is no such thing as a lesser sin in God's eyes. There's no dark sins or gray sins and then more acceptable light ones. And I know that there are people perhaps here tonight in the language of the courtroom that you have copped a plea.

You have copped a plea and you said no to a felony and then overlooked lesser things and said, Oh, it's just a misdemeanor. It's just a little thing. And the devil has deceived you and you said, Oh, you shut the door on one hand, but you open it somewhere else.

Lot shut the door to the Sodomites, but unfortunately, he didn't shut his mouth and he didn't say no and he didn't resist the enemy. Now, there's another important part of this story and it's how and why Lot got himself in the position to have to face such wickedness in the first place. One verse says it all.

Genesis 13. Actually, it's two verses. Genesis 13, 12 and 13.

It says, Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent towards Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. How you and I deal with the world depends upon how and where we pitch our tent.

It's a place where our hearts and our desires are. As the Bible says, where your treasure or your tent is, there will your heart be also. And Abraham pitched his tent towards the city of God and Lot pitched his towards Sodom.

And how you deal with the world depends on where you pitch your tent. If it's towards Sodom, you may end up sitting at the gate of Sodom in some good position. But if Sodom was in your heart and your goal is to make a name for yourself or to find a position in this earth or making money or fame or fortune, then one day, just like Lot, listen to what it says back in Genesis 19 and 4. It says, The men of the city, even the men of Sodom, come past the house round.

Get the picture. They're surrounding his house because he has pitched his tent. He has put himself in a position where that could happen.

It didn't have to happen. And Lot was simply overwhelmed by Sodom, the wickedness of Sodom. He had no moral strength or power to combat it because he chose to live too close to the world.

And he put himself in a position to be surrounded by evil men and evil ways. And tonight, if you find yourself compassed about by Sodomites, as it were, and they seem to be overwhelming you, is it because you have purposely pitched your tent there or too close to them? And if so, it will overwhelm you. Now, all of us have to pitch our tent somewhere.

And when we do, it's either towards Sodom or it's towards heaven. You see, Lot was not satisfied. Lot wanted what Sodom offered.

He fell in love with the good life of Sodom. And once you pitch your tent too close to it, if that represents your aims and your ambitions, you know what happens. Pretty soon, the smells and the sounds and the seductive spirits of Sodom begin coming up to your door and seeping through and pulling you out and into it.

You see, Abraham was as successful a businessman as Lot, more successful. But Abraham didn't pitch his tent towards Sodom. He looked for a city whose builder and maker was God.

And Abraham knew how to live where he didn't belong. And God can trust a man with a good job. God could trust a man to sit at the gate as long as his heart and his aim and his ambition is not all wrapped up in this earth or in his job but is directed towards heaven.

Hallelujah. Now there's another thing about Lot and Sodom in which we all have to face living in a world in which we don't belong. And I want you now to go to 2 Peter 2. 2 Peter gives us just a few verses describing what Lot went through.

And this is what it says in 2 Peter 2, 7 and 8. And oh, I pray that the Holy Spirit would help you to understand this tonight because I see this is what's happening to the church of Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 2, 7, 8 and it says, And delivered Joshua Lot, vexed. Vexed, that's the word in the King James.

I want you to grab ahold of tonight. And delivered Joshua Lot. He was living where he didn't belong and he went too far.

He lived where he didn't belong but he didn't understand how to deal with it. And so he was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. For that righteous man dwelleth among them in seeing and hearing, vexing his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.

And what this means is this, is that Lot was fed up. He was fed up with seeing and hearing the wicked conversation and the deeds of the unlawful. Now he should have gotten fed up a lot sooner.

But at least he came to a point where he was vexed. And that means that he was distressed. He was righteously indignant.

Something in his spirit rose up against what he was seeing. I believe the New American Standard says Lot felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their unlawful deeds. And I don't know about you but I can identify with Lot.

I don't know if you ever feel like him and you feel your righteous soul being vexed. And I believe that I'm speaking to some here tonight that you may be on the very verge of giving in or giving up your job, giving up your living, giving up what may God has provided for you because of the environment that's around you. You find yourself, you can't deal with it anymore.

Or you may be, it may be, it could be that God wants you to leave your job. I'm not saying that that can't happen. And sometimes the filthiness and immorality and lawlessness is so bad on a job it may be best to leave it.

But in one sense, however, you gotta remember that until Jesus comes we're gonna be vexed by this environment. It comes with being a resident alien on this earth and living where we don't belong. There would be something wrong with you if you were not vexed and you didn't feel your soul tormented day after day with a lawlessness all around you.

You see, there are some Christians that don't get vexed. They're not troubled by what they see on their jobs. They're not troubled by what they see in their own families.

And sometimes they're not troubled by what they see in their own young people, their own children. And sometimes even in the church we don't get vexed like we should. I know in my own ministry I look back and I regret the fact that I would see things happening in the church or see things happening in the ministry that I was responsible for.

And I was passive towards it. It didn't vex me. Something didn't rise up in my soul against it to come against it.

But if we're gonna live in this world we're gonna be vexed. A minister friend of mine told me recently of how 20 years ago he went to the board of directors of a certain organization to tell them that the director was living in immorality. And they said we can't make waves, let's let it go.

And for 20 years they let it go. But finally God was vexed and God removed the man and He removed all of the board members and they went through torment as a result of it. And there's hardly a day goes by when we do not see all around us things that ought to vex our souls.

Those that may be even close to us. You see, look what happened. Look what happened to Lot.

Verse 14, chapter 19. When finally it was time to leave Sodom the angels were saying get out, get out. Look what happened.

He goes to his and Lot went out and he spake unto his sons-in-law which married his daughters and he said up, get you out of this place for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one who mocked unto his sons-in-law. In other words they looked at Lot and said Lot what are you getting so upset about? We've never seen you upset like this before.

In other words he had tolerated what he had seen going on around him. And so when it got down to the very end when judgment was about to fall his own children didn't know where he was coming from. Thought he was mocking.

They said you must be kidding dad. You must be kidding. Because it took too long for him to get vexed in his soul.

And you and I that live in this world God wants us to be vexed by what we see. Psalms 119, 104 says from thy precepts I get understanding therefore I hate every evil way. Psalms 119, 113 says I hate those who are double minded but I love thy law.

Proverbs 8, 13 says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil pride and arrogance and the evil way and the pervergent mouth. He said I hate. And God you see wants to put that in our souls.

Being vexed. Something rising up within us recognizing we're being vexed. Ah but when you are when you are it has a toll it plays a toll on us.

And I believe the Holy Spirit would have a warning for some here tonight. And it's this. Don't let Sodom get you down.

Don't let Sodom get you down. Don't let the sensual conduct of unprincipled men wear you down spiritually. You know we pastors we feel it sometimes in the services.

And we've commented after the meeting sometimes during the meeting. And we sense in certain services people come in and they're weary. Physically weary.

Oh but it's more than that. And I believe it's this vexation. It's feeding this distress because of the environment that we live in.

And if we pastors had to put up with what some of you have to put up with we probably might come to some of the services tired and weary like you as well. On the other hand we might trade you some of our days as well. But I believe that one of the reasons that God and this is really what the Lord showed me in this message.

I believe one of the reasons that God is blessing and pouring out his spirit in the Times Square Church is that we have a lot of vexed people who come here. And the more vexed the more disturbed you get about the unrighteousness that's going on around you even in your own heart. The more you are vexed the more God blesses you when you come into his presence.

You see if you're not easily offended by the lawlessness and lifestyles around you when you come to church you're not going to be vexed as maybe someone else is. And the reason it may be that somebody else next to you seems to have a greater hunger for God and God may be blessing them more and they're all caught up in God's presence is because they may have come to the service a lot more vexed, tormented, disturbed by what they see around them having fought the battle against sin and standing up against it and they're weary as a result of it. And when you are vexed, when you're disturbed, when you're out there fighting the battle, you're going to come to the service drained physically, emotionally and spiritually and I want to tell you the service is going to become a filling station for you.

It's going to become a place where God meets you because you're putting up, you're resisting or you're not putting up is what I mean to say you're resisting what's going on around you and you're refusing to be sucked in as lot and so your soul is vexed. You see a people who are passive when it comes to the influences of the world are going to be passive when it comes to the things of God. But a people who are worn out by the lewd conduct of the lawless the Lord meets them in a very special way.

Psalms 2713 says, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Now, let me close by taking you back again to 2nd Peter. 2nd Peter 2nd chapter and if the burden of living in a world in which you have no future you have no home you have no business being entangled with to which we do not belong if it's getting you down then let this word right here tonight pick you up.

It says verse 7 and deliver just lot just means righteous lot, vexed tormented in his soul with a for that righteous man dwelling in among them and seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds and then here's the verse the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under the day of judgment to be punished. Don't worry about Sodom God is waiting to take care of it. There are already angels, I believe they're in literally in the city of Sodom as you read the story, the two angels came there and they were walking the streets because they were marking it for judgment they were marking it for judgment and listen, the angels of God are already in this city they're already in America, marking it for judgment don't worry about it, God's going to take care of judging it, judging sin more importantly is for you and I to know that the Lord knows how to take care of his citizens that are living in this foreign land and if you're in a situation where you feel drained and weary and persecuted or tormented by what you see going on around you take encouragement from this tonight, it says the Lord knoweth the Lord knoweth he knows what you're going through Job 23 10 says, but he knoweth the way that I take and when he hath tried me I shall come forth as pure gold hallelujah you see people around you are trying to save up the gold you and I are the gold we are the gold especially if there's something that rises up against us, against what's going on around us and we hold the standard and we shut the door and we don't compromise the Lord knoweth them that are his and what does he know? he knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation why? because he's been there, he's been down that road and he knows exactly how much you can handle and he says to you tonight my grace is sufficient for you Isaiah 46 4 says even to your old age and gray hairs I am he and I am he who will sustain you I have made you and will carry you I will sustain you and I will rescue you oh over and over again is the promise that God helps us to live where we don't belong because he will surround us by a wall of fire 2 Corinthians 1 10 says he hath delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will yet again in the future deliver us on him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us oh my friend I stand on that promise tonight and listen I don't care where you live I don't care where you work I know some of you may be the only Christian in an ungodly family you may be the only Christian on your job you may be the only true Christian in your school and you may feel the fires and your soul is being vexed and you may think you can't make it anymore but the Lord said I am able to keep you I am able to deliver you he knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation hallelujah and to keep you in the midst of that how to live where you don't belong God's given us all the equipment all the wherewithal to be able to stand against all the wiles of the devil hallelujah you can make a stand God will give you the courage hallelujah to live where you don't belong one of these days he's going to come and take his back sooner the better but in the meantime you got to live here you got to live here don't run from it don't try to escape from it God's given you a job thank God you've got one thank God you have one you got a bad boss thank God you got a bad boss you got a bad job thank God you got a bad job you got a bad environment thank God you got it he said he'll keep you in the midst of it hallelujah God give us those kind of saints in this day and age let's stand together all the grave clothes that have been left behind all the things that God's dealing with people who he's liberating people who he's changing people who he's saying yes I'm speaking to you lay down that hurt lay down that attitude lay down that jealousy lay that thing down God puts his focus