In John 15, passages that we’re all very aware of here, the vine and the branches... the real topic that we’re going to be dealing with is what is probably—if not the most important truth, and in this hour, needs within the body of Christ—is to remind ourselves and reinvigorate ourselves toward the necessity of intercession, of prayer in this hour.  So, as I've been prayerful, we’ve heard already utterances to comfort our hearts in these hours that we’re going into.

I just want to remind us that what we’ve seen to this hour are just the footmen.  And if the footmen have wearied us, we need to strengthen ourselves for what’s on the horizon.  And that’s these chariots, these horsemen, these trials, that the Scripture speaks and says perilous times are coming upon the nations.

Now, not only perilous times as it pertains to society and the interaction of society and the philosophies of men, the fact that we’re living in a post-modern era where there are no absolutes—we’re living among a people who practice situational ethics, there are no absolute truths.  There is not right or wrong.  It’s what each individual perceives is truth at this moment, in this circumstance.  And it speaks, of course, of those times in the Scriptures that we’re aware of where men did evil continually, that every man did what was right in his own eyes.

And in those hours, of course, God looked down and saw this wickedness and would no longer tolerate it, and we see the judgment of God that came in the days of Noah.  And He said, “As it was in the days of Noah, as it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, so shall it be in the days, the hour, of the coming of the Son of Man.”  It’s on us—men calling good evil and evil good.

There’s an innate knowledge of right and wrong called “conscience” in every one of us, but it can be seared.  Amen?  God Himself, in fact, at times has turned men over and will again to reprobate minds.  But we’re living in an hour when you look for conscience, and it’s not there.  It’s been erased.  Conscience is something that has to be fed by truth.  Conscience is something that has to be fed by truth.  “Thy word is truth.”  Without the Word of God, there is no pure conscience.  There is no true conscience.  Even though the knowledge of God through the heavens declared His glory, that knowledge of God is within every man, Romans says; therefore, men in general are without excuse.  They will be judged based upon the knowledge that they have at this time.  But conscience has to be fed.

I think it’s tragic—we’ve just had one of our young people leave the church, and it just breaks your heart as you see these things, but one thing that stood out very clear to me—this is a young person, some of you probably already heard.  Information transfers quickly among us, and [we] are aware of these things, but the one thing that stood out to me, and I was telling a couple of the men as we were talking the other day—I know at times many of you sit there, and you go, “We’ve already heard this.”  And, you know, with you being here thirty, forty years, yes, you have heard it.  There’s no new thing under the sun.  We have only one source from which we deal.  The question that comes to me is “Have we really heard it?”  A young person born here, went through DT, sat in church every Sunday, and when a time of trial comes, the inability to apply truth to a common every day situation was totally lacking.  No evidence of being able to take these great truths, that for their whole life they sat under, and make a right application.  Take heed when you think you stand.  Amen?