I remember being in a counsel with all these leaders and I had determined I wasn’t going to say a thing and I sat there and kept my mouth shut.  All these preachers and this committee, all these guys were looking to put together this city-wide thing they were wanting to do.  They finally came up with a determination, and one of the men said, “Pastor Scott, we haven’t heard from you.  That’s unusual.”  I said, “I don’t have anything to say.”  He said, “You always have something to say.”  I said, “Well, I don’t believe it’s pertinent in this situation.  You all have already determined the direction that you’re going.”  And he pushed again, and it reminds you somewhat of Micaiah.  I won’t go into all the story, but I said, “I see something missing in all of your planning and that’s the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I won’t have anything to do with anything that doesn’t preach the gospel.”  “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:16), praise God.  I’m crucified to this world and this world crucified to me (Galatians 6:14).  “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel.”  What are you going to do?  Have you already determined?  Don’t wait until your job is on the line.  Don’t wait until all of the circumstances have lined up.  Those are the decisions that we need to make today.

This hour that we’re living in.  When we talk about being friends of the world which makes you an enemy of God, we’re not talking about going dancing and drinking with them.  We’re talking about embracing their ideology of what’s been called secular humanism, which is actually, biblically, called worshiping “the creature more than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).  And that’s the one thing that you and I are to keep before our eyes in this hour.  Who is this thing promoting? 

There’s going to come an outpouring of supernatural activity, of miracles and healings.  This apostate system is ripe for it today.  It’s going to begin to draw men to itself.  It will boggle the minds, even the prophet Jeremiah said; amen?  Do you remember that?  In the last days false prophets are going to arise deceiving many.  If we’ve ever believed in hiding the Word of God in our hearts, we need to hide it in our hearts now and know if what we’re hearing is God or not.

If you listen to preachers today, 98% of what they say is correct, but 2% is false, which ultimately glorifies man instead of God.  Which makes God man’s servant, which makes man’s pre-eminence and dominion and independence and superiority what is worshipped, and not taking upon me a yoke, not coming and learning of Him, not standing and heralding in this last day a doctrine that you and I had better get working in our lives or we will not stand.  We must abide in Him and have His words abide in us or else we’ll be cast off and burned.  We can produce nothing acceptable of Him that doesn’t originate in Him, that doesn’t glorify Him, that men would “see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (1 Peter 2:12).  Everything is about man’s pre-eminence and not the love and the humility that allowed the incarnation, where Jesus came and supernaturally became the sinless lamb that paid for our sins, and suffered on our behalf, received the wrath and the judgement of God upon Himself so that we might be made righteous with His righteousness. (2 Corinthians 5:21) What is the Gospel message all about?  It focuses on Jesus and His redemption, not on the glorification of man and the exaltation and gratification of his lusts; man with all of his self-reliance and self-indulgence.