Despite the world's wickedness and challenges, believers live in a 'great day' characterized by unprecedented expansion in geography, population, commerce, and education. However, this expansion carries the danger of neglecting the spiritual center, God, for the outward circumference, leading to a loss of biblical principles and a reliance on worldly expertise and expediency over divine wisdom. The core lesson is that true fulfillment and a right relationship with God are found through Jesus Christ, not through worldly achievements or compromises, urging listeners to prioritize God as the center of their lives amidst these expanding, yet spiritually perilous, times.
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Verse one says he, that being often reproved, hardness his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. I'd love to be preaching on that verse tonight. It's a warning that if we hear the word of God, the more we hear it, and the less we heed it, the more we're going to pay in our experience. I'm not thinking about the individual tonight.
I'm thinking about the world around us. Look at verse four. The king, or a king, by judgment establisheth the land, but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it. A man that flattereth his neighbor spreadeth a net for his feet. In the transgression of an evil man there is a snare, but the righteous doth sing and rejoice. The righteous considereth the cause of the poor, but the wicked regardeth not to know it.
Scornful men bring a city into a snare, but wise men turn away wrath. A wise man, if a wise man, contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest. The bloodthirsty hate the upright, but the just seek his soul. Let me read that verse to you again. we have a presidential election coming up not so very far away.
Listen again to the verse. The bloodthirsty hate the upright, but the just seek his soul. There is a very definite movement abroad, and I'm not finished reading from this chapter yet. that is aimed at bringing the Christian church down. And you only to listen to our politicians of the day, you've only got to read the voting habits of our senators and leaders in the House to realize that the church is being targeted and Christians are being deprived Today you ought not to be a Christian because all you do is want your own way.
That's what the world of politics says. Sig on these believers because their voice is too loud and they are making themselves heard. I heard a woman in a talk show that I found by accident but she was just talking about the Lord's prayer in the schools and the bill that has been passed to permit it. Why should these Christians be allowed to have an influence in the public schools, she said. She forgot that the Ten Commandments come from the Jewish scriptures.
I wish I'd been there. I would have challenged that. We believe them. And we know that they cannot be posted without doing good. But there are men who are bent upon destroying Christianity in this country. And I'm not going to talk about that anymore. Look at verse twelve. If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked. Now I suppose that when the chapter here speaks of the king and the king and the king, Since you don't have a king, you have to apply it to the president. The king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever.
Now that would be very difficult for an American president. I mean to have a throne established forever. The rod and reproof give wisdom. But a child left to himself. bring of his mother to shame. Remember that, because I do want to make reference to that. When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases, but the righteous shall see their fall. And that's a guarantee from God. Look at verse twenty-five. The fear of man bringeth a snare. But whoso puteth his trust in the Lord...
shall be safe. Many seek the ruler's favor, but every man's judgment cometh from the Lord. An unjust man is an abomination to the just, and he that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked. Maybe we have a clue as to why we see around us and here in our own land from those verses that we've read. Now, if it's a good day for you, and there is a word that we, I don't know whether we love it, but we use it very often, if we're in a good mood, somebody says to you, how are you getting along?
You feel so good, you say, great. Somebody says to you, how are you feeling? If you're feeling good, you say, I'm feeling great. How is your business doing? If it's not going down, but going up, say, my business is doing great. We seem to like that word great. And I want to talk about the day in which we are living. Now, we are really living in a great day. I know that we are surrounded by a lot of things that grieve us to the heart and that drive us to our knees. and make us wonder what the next day is going to bring.
But we are living, I believe, in the days that the prophets long to see. We are seeing the Scripture prophecies being fulfilled in a number of different ways. This is a great day to be alive. But there are some greatnesses about the day in which we live and the world in which we live. that are not so inspiring and happiness producing. We may question whether we live in a great day, but we certainly cannot contradict the statement that we live in a day of great things.
You go and visit Cape Canaveral, and in the course of a guided tour they'll tell you It's only eighty years, only eighty years, and you've gone from the cars with running boards, the first light, and now a trip to the moon. Great things, lots are happening, lots of things are happening to impress upon us that we are living in a day of great things. Let me suggest five to you tonight. I'm sure that we're living in the days of the great expansion.
The walls are being pushed further and further apart. Now that's true geographically. There was a time when people never left their own country. Now they traveled the globe. And since Many have been all over the globe and we've gotten used to the globe. Men now have turned their attention geographically to the sky. And there are footprints on the moon. The deepest depths of the ocean are being probed in these days and remarkable things are coming to light.
You have to... listen to some of the scientific programs in order to realize what is happening way out in space and down in the depths of the oceans. Geographically, we are living in the day of the great expansion. Now numerically, that is true. So many people are being born today, the world is getting overloaded. I don't know how many more people can be born into the world and the world not fall apart. The tragedy is so many of them have single mothers and no fathers.
And their number is being tremendously increased. I heard some specifics about this recently. And I was amazed at the percentage of children born that are born of single mothers. I believe it was twenty-one percent of all the children born in this country are born to unward or single mothers. We are expanding numerically, not doing it oftentimes in a way that God is happy with.
But it's happening. We are told we are living amid a population explosion. Well, that gives us more people to witness to. That gives us greater opportunity, if we are on our toes, to give a testimony for the Lord. But there are so many of them that no Christian ever rubs shoulders with. So many lost ones in the world today. and they are being born every day. We are born in sin and shapening in iniquity. In sin, said the psalmist, did my mother conceive me?
What psalm, you say, is that? Well, now you can find out. All the psalms are not in the book of psalms, you know. Maybe that's not a psalm. But however, these are things that we have to realize. The world is becoming overpopulated, and one has to wonder where that is going to lead. But we are not only living in the days of the great expansion geographically and numerically, but also commercially. You know, this is a great day for people in the stock exchange. Next week, it may be very different. But lots of people are making lots of money in the stock market these days, and many of them, I think, are going out on a limb.
Only the Lord knows what a day is going to produce. The little man is into the stock market, sometimes up to his neck. We have to be very wise in things like this. but commercially there is as big an explosion as there is numerically. We are living in the day of the great expansion educationally. I can remember when my children were younger, and that's a long time ago, when new math came on the books.
How many of you remember new math? They had to abandon it eventually because it was a dismal failure. But however I can remember struggling with them over new math, I never understood it, but however at least they had a shoulder to cry on and it proved not to be what it was touted to be. I really feel that we don't understand how far we're going with learning knowledge. Now, you take the computer. In two years, a computer, maybe less than two years, is obsolete.
You've either got to update it or you've got to buy another one. Just imagine how much Data is being fed into the thousands upon thousands of computers across the face of the globe. Men were never learning like they are learning today. Some of the things that they are learning are not worth learning, and some of them are very destructive. But educationally and certainly, the computer is an instrument for education, good or bad. And there's an explosion in that area. We're living in a day when people were more educated than they ever were.
And yet the world is more wicked than ever it was. Surely these things are not enough to bring about happiness into the heart of man. But we are living and cannot gain say the fact in the day of the great expansion. Now these five things all carry with them a danger. And I believe God would want us to be aware of it. That's why I'm mentioning them tonight. Now because things are pushing out and pushing out and pushing out, the danger of the great expansion is that the center is being neglected for the circumference.
That's why God is being left out of things in the world of today. God's old fashioned. You don't have to believe in God. Look at man. Look at what he's accomplishing. Man doesn't need God. If ever there was a day when man needed God, it's today, the day in which you and I live, sin has never been as rampant. Man's behavior has never been as vile. Man's need has never been as great. And yet what are they doing in this country? They're shutting out our young people from the Bible. They're trying to keep their contact with Christians at a minimum.
My what a shock it must have been to the people of this country after the shooting in the Columbia School. To find young men and young women stood up. and was shot for their testimony. They were asked the question, you believe in God, yet pow, and their life was taken away from them. But they didn't lie and say, well, I'm not sure. I don't know. They stood up to be counted. And then whether there were those who didn't run, but they helped others, and they were believers. I really do think if the history of that event is ever really written up, you will find that Christians in that school really shone.
And a testimony for God that was unmistakable was made, and some laid down their life. We talked about five young men this morning. It seems hard to believe that in our own country, in this day and age, someone would have been shot for saying yes to the question, do you believe in God? But it happened. The danger of forgetting the hub, the center for the circumference. If you have not God in your life, you are nowhere and you'll stay nothing. Because God is the only means of success in the best sense in a world as wicked and weary and dying as this one is.
And you cannot know God. unless you take his son into consideration. If the Lord Jesus is not living in your heart because you invited him, he's outside of your heart and he's saying, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If you will open the door, I will come into you and will sup with you. But if you've never done that, you haven't taken God into consideration. You cannot get to God. Apart from the Lord Jesus. What did he say? No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
He's a secret. I am the way, the truth, and the life. That's what the Lord Jesus said. You can't know God apart from the Lord Jesus. Do you hear these testimonies? of young men and women, sports figures and so on, and they are advertising a little book called The Power of God. And they are testifying that an experience with God in their lives changed their lives. Now it had to be through the Lord Jesus. But I believe the Lord Jesus is not mentioned because there are many who would not send for the book.
But knowing the foundation that is issuing them, I am sure that when they get the book, they'll find they can't get to God and have a right relationship with God, have a personal relationship with God without trusting the Lord Jesus. He's the only way. There isn't any other way. So we are living in the day of the great expansion. And the danger is neglecting the center for the circumference. And God is the center. Now we're also living in the day of the great expertise. I have a doctor.
I suppose you would call him my, what's the phrase they use of your, what used to be a family doctor. I don't think there's such a thing as a family doctor today, but the problem arises. I better send you to doctor so-and-so or doctor somebody else. I know your doctor does that too. They've got to send you to what in England we used to call a specialist. Do you know what a specialist is? A specialist is a man who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.
Now that is a specialist. And we are living in the day of the great expertise. Everybody is a specialist. Even your garbage man is a sanitary engineer in these days. There was a time when you worked hard for a high school diploma. Now it doesn't matter because when you, they're just trying to introduce right now, it's in the works, an examination for graduation right across the country. And the educational system is screaming at the top of its voice.
It isn't fair. to teach young people and then not have them graduate just because they couldn't pass an exam. What are things coming to? It's astounding. In this day of the great expertise, our young, in fact, one man said, I'm a critic of this because how can these young people answer questions when we haven't taught them these things? We've got to start, they said, with the teachers. I think he had something there. The day of the great expertise. I was going to say a lot about this, but my time is gone. It's going.
It hasn't gone yet. It hasn't gone yet. But there is a danger in being so well-taught and so knowledgeable and so self-sufficient in the mental area, and it is this. It's the danger. of exchanging simplicity for complexity. We're getting the idea that the more complex a thing is, the more it is likely to benefit us. And yet the fact is that the simple things are the things that are more vital to us than so much that's complex around us.
The Word of God is a very simple book. It really is. Or you say, there's lots in the Bible that I don't understand. Yes, but there's plenty. You may not be able to fathom some things now. God says, what I do now, now, thou, what I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. If you will soak yourself in the Word of God at some point, The Spirit of God will clear up your difficulties here and your difficulties there. But one would expect God would produce a book that in some areas would be beyond our ken, beyond our knowledge or knowing. God, after all, is the Creator of all things.
And when we have the Word of God in our hands, there are things that are hard to be understood. The Bible says so. But there's a lot of simple things, and all the vital things that concern your soul and heaven and hell are in the Word of God, and they are very, very simple. You couldn't get much simpler than this. Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. God is saying very simply you have to celebrate two birthdays every year.
One when you were born into your human family and one when you were born into the family of God. A day of birth, a certain sure. Mind you, some people were saved. They did what the Word of God said to do. They acknowledged their sin. They thanked Jesus for dying for them and they asked him to come into their hearts. They expected something to explode in here, some kind of flashing lights, and they didn't get any. The simple God had taken them simply of their word, and Jesus had simply answered their prayer and simply come into their hearts. It took a little time for them to realize life was different.
Things were happening that they just couldn't explain apart from God. God takes you at your word. You say, Jesus, come into my heart. I know I'm a sinner. I know you've died for me. You've paid such a price. I want to be yours. Please come into my heart and be my Savior. He'll do it. If you get up from your knees and say, I don't feel any different, I would say, if I was there and you say that, praise God, because tomorrow you might be feeling different. Your feelings can never be trusted. Don't trust your feelings. Trust the word of God. I will come into him. Simple, positive and absolute.
The great expertise I find myself sometimes very suspicious of the experts. The danger of this is exchanging simplicity for complexity. You know, we have a bad habit some of us of making simple things complex. Why we do it, I don't understand, but the gospel is simple. The way of salvation is simple. The word of God speaks very simply. God deals with men and women in a simple fashion. Don't fall for the danger of exchanging simplicity for complexity.
That's what happens when your head is so full with knowledge that you keep falling over your feet. I remember a young man, twenty-six, in a conference where I was speaking along with another speaker, and I watched this young man, he was a handsome young man, he's very sure of himself, and so on, and I asked someone, do you know that young man? Yes. I said, he seems to be a very intelligent man, or he is. How old is he? Do you know, yeah, he's twenty-six. Can you tell me what he works at?
Oh, he's a student. Twenty-six, he was a professional student. He could not get enough learning, but he wasn't able to earn his living. He had forsaken simplicity for complexity. I gotta get and get and get knowledge in the head. Well, what you needed simply was knowledge in the heart. The day of the great expertise. Then there's the day, we're living in the day of the great expediency. Do you know what expediency is? It's opportunism. Opportunism. The language of expediency, of opportunism, is first of all, communication.
They love that word communication. Now the dictionary says that communication is to share, means to share. But they don't interpret it that way. And so what comes out of this communication is, I talk and you listen. I talk and you listen. That is their idea, the opportunists. They can see what it means to take advantage of you and their opportunism seeks out an opportunity to do it with you.
Communication. But communication is not something that goes one way. Communication is an exchange. But not with these people whose motto is, it's my opportunity. Here's another word that's in their language. Accommodation. Accommodation. Don't be solidly this or solidly that. The other man disagrees with you. Well, accommodate, accommodate. Find a middle road. The other word for it is compromise. Now, Christians are often challenged by the devil with this thing called compromise.
They call it accommodation. Accommodate yourself. Move a little in their direction. You can't do that if the Word of God is your guide. If you're a Christian, you can't accommodate the man who loves his sin and uses bad language and gets drunk every night. You can't accommodate yourself to the ways of others that are not along the lines of the Word of God. The Word of God says you've got to stand up and be counted. You've got to be ready to stand for the Lord, no matter the cost. When they say accommodation, they not only say it's give and take, but they mean you do the giving and we do the taking.
That's opportunism. And we are living in such a day and with such a generation. Now what is the danger of this great expediency? It's the danger of deserting principle for convention. Trying not to tread on anybody's toes. If you're a witnessing believer at some point or another, you'll tread on somebody's toes. If you're going to open, you're going to stand up and be counted to God, you're going to offend somebody. But they say... You've got to be pliable.
You've got to be pliable. You know, there are a number of different kinds of expediency. I don't have time to go through them, but one of them is moral expediency. That is a compromise with morality. Our children are suffering in these days. because many, many of them are latchkey kids. Now there is a moral deficiency in the home that has latchkey kids. When kids come home from school, they have to make their own supper because mother is out working.
Why is she out working? Well, father doesn't own enough. Why doesn't make enough? All right. Well, now how much does he make? Well, we are not willing to live on what he makes. We've got to have an extra wage packet so that we can live at the standard that we want. Why shouldn't we have the nice things in life? Why shouldn't our home have the best of furniture? Why shouldn't we choose to go and take outings and travel expensive journeys? Why shouldn't we do that? What's wrong with us compromising a little what's happening to the kids? is what's wrong.
In the days when there was always a mother home, especially if it was a Christian mother, the children were brought up to know right from wrong. But now they live mostly on the streets. Their company is not supervised. Their actions are not supervised. What was that word I used? Well, they're not that. The fact is that in these days the country is falling apart because the children are being neglected for a higher standard of living in many, many, many, many homes.
A woman's place is in the home, and the Word of God makes that very, very clear. When she has a family, I can understand it if she's home all day alone. Why don't I get a little job to occupy my time? Why do I get depressed? I'll go out and work. Well, that's between her and God, I suppose, and her husband. But when there are children, she has no right working outside the home. All I have to do is pull down the expenses and live simply. I do not believe in a home, if it's a Christian home, I do not believe that God is honored.
when a mother is not there to receive her children when they come home from school. This is the day of the great expediency, opportunism, and we want what we want when we want it, and if two of us have to work to do it, our children can suffer. Let them suffer. They wouldn't say that, but their actions are saying just that. I have two more to go, but I've said enough. We are living in these great days. How we should be praying for one another. How we should be asking the Lord to impress upon people the solutions to many of their problems.
And that is not to desert principle. for compromise. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank you for the guidance of your word. We thank you, our Father, for the times your word challenges us. For the times when we read it, our hearts skip a beat, not because we are excited, but because we are convicted. And Lord, we pray that we may be open to the convicting power of the Spirit of God as we read the Word of God.
Help us, Lord, to get our priorities straight so that we might not put you in last place, but in first place, and let everything else follow. We know this is the only happy life. This is the only productive life. This is the only life that can glorify God. We commend ourselves to thee and these thoughts. May they be a challenge to our hearts. We don't want to compromise, but sometimes we do. And, Lord, we don't want to live selfishly, but sometimes we do.
We pray that our testimony will be blessed to others. But sometimes we compromise.