We were talking about these last days that we’re coming into and that perilous times will be coming.  Because of these last days, we see the nation, from the Great Generation, my parents, those that fought WWII, those that came back and were used to build a mighty nation.  We saw that, in that generation—although not all were Christians, by all means, we were not a nation of holiness—our sin was more kept in, swept under the carpet.  Sports writers in those days did not reveal everything about our heroes on the athletic field.  In fact, they had writers, each of them was assigned people that would actually promote their image and cover up their problems.  We did the same for our presidents’ immorality.  There has probably never been a more immoral person in the White House than John F. Kennedy.  Things were hush-hush.

Men who do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior, are under the power of depravity, and in man there is no good thing; amen?  Man is not one percent better than he was a hundred years ago, before all of the psychology was introduced, before all of the social workers and those that had brought to us this hope that, somehow, we would be able to deal with the problems within our nation and somehow take care of the poor.  We’ve shared these different things and I don’t want to belabor that, but the reality is, poverty in the United States will be here as long as the United States is here.  Okay, so I don’t care what any sociologist says, psychiatrist, philosopher, what your opinion is or anybody else’s opinion is.  Jesus said, “For ye have the poor with you always….”  So, poverty isn’t going anywhere.

We realize these are some of the social issues.  We are dealing today with this big uproar about race; tribalism, and we’ve talked about that. There are no separate races; there is only one race.  We are all children of Adam; amen?  As you look into it today, scientifically, as you look and check out now, as they have all that we’re made up of, the color of our skin, the pigmentation, the melanin cells, all these different things, really, everybody is just a different shade of brown.  That is what science has come to find and prove.  We are all just different shades and blends, but our basic coloring is brown and after thousands of years of environmental effects and many other things, we find adaptation and people changing based upon environment.  We, then, our slight adjustments throughout. 

So,we’re living in a time now—and where I’m going with that is—in the rise of secular humanism here in this post-modern era when we begin to be introduced to post-modern thinking, to where we’ve come into now situational ethics—there are no absolutes and everything is relative.  This mindset flies in the face of God because God declares there are absolutes.  We understand very clearly that this is an absolute: God’s Word is truth and anything that opposes it is a lie.  That makes us, as a people, stand out in our culture.  People don’t like us.  In this society today, absolutism is seen as divisive, hateful, and bigoted; amen?  We’re the troublemakers.  The keyword today is tolerance, but the church of Jesus Christ will never tolerate sin; amen?  We will never tolerate other gods being raised up and trying to be made equal with the one living God, Jehovah, the creator of heaven and earth.  Now, we know through the actual effects of creation that Jesus was the agent of the Godhead; amen?  “All things were made by him; (and for Him) and without him was not anything made that was made,” the Scripture says.  “In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4).  Praise God.