Sermon: Facing Cultural Headwinds

Living in an Anti-God World
#1774
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 27-Jul-24; 77 minutes 2024-07-27

In the Carolinas at this time of the year, we are in the midst of hurricane season. And so far, for us at least there in the Carolinas, it has not been much to speak of. The only big hurricane went way in the southern Caribbean and then across Yucatan and then into South Texas. I feel for them, they had a bit of a problem there. But in the Carolinas, nothing really happened that I should report about, but it is still early and from history the worst storms tend to hit in the late summer in the Carolinas. And it is always right before Feast time and you are always wondering in a place like Myrtle Beach, is it going to get hit again? Please pray that it does not. But that is just one of those things that we have to think about every year as we go into this time of the year.

Many of you have experienced hurricanes probably one time in your life, and you know how dangerous they can be. If you have not experienced one, you have probably seen one on TV, and know how bad it can be. So if you live on the coast, you worry about hurricanes, you worry about the storm surge, you worry about the fierce winds that come along with the hurricane. You worry about the heavy rains that are going to pound you for hours or days, just depending on how big the storm is. And depending upon the storm speed, you actually want a storm to go through quickly because you do not want it to linger where you are because that will just increase the amount of water that comes out of those clouds. And it gets worse and worse.

I mean, a hurricane, if it hits you in the right place, can ruin your day. To me though, the wind is the worst part. The higher category storms can pick up anything loose and just hurl it, fling them about, and really cause a lot of damage. Do not leave any loose two-by-fours around when a hurricane is coming because they can be thrown at 100-plus miles an hour. And if they hit just right, let us say on the end, it can be like a spear, like a javelin, or a battering ram against cars, homes, businesses (hopefully not people), but things like that are very, very dangerous. I mean, we have had hurricanes pick up our furniture out on the back porch and sling them about. We had just a regular storm the other day and I stupidly forgot to put the umbrella down and it picked up that umbrella and the stand, which weighs about 35 or 40 pounds, and moved it about 15 feet into the backyard. Broke my umbrella. Well, that is a lesson for me.

But, you know, like in Texas with this latest storm, it can rip roofs off of buildings, like peeling an old sardine can top; it just rolls right back and everything inside gets damaged and you have got another bad day. As the hurricane comes through, the heavy rains that come at the front of it weakens tree roots. This happens a lot in the South. And then the winds come and topple even huge old trees whose roots are firmly in the ground, and deep.

When Hurricane Hugo came into the Carolinas in 1989, it was a Category Four when it hit, I think it was on Sullivan's Island near Charleston. It had sustained winds of 135 to 140 miles an hour and it just ripped through the South Carolina low country. It was a pretty much a direct hit on Charleston, South Carolina; and listen to this, this just tells you what a storm can do in a place like Charleston, which has a National Forest right outside of it, the Francis Marion National Forest: 1 billion (that is billion with a B) board feet of lumber was felled in an hour or so in that National Forest. That was 70% of lumber quality trees. They lost 70% of their production, if you will, of lumber out of that National Forest in about an hour. And it is really an interesting picture to see. All of those trees were in a line. They had all been felled in the same direction. And you know where they pointed? North to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Hurricane Hugo went straight north from Charleston to Charlotte and devastated the city, especially the electrical grid there around Charlotte, North Carolina. It was still a Category Two or something when it reached Charlotte. Maybe a one. It was still a hurricane. We were not there yet. This was in '89, we did not get there until '92. But our neighbors said that they were three weeks without power after Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

On a lighter note, when a hurricane hits anywhere in America, we always see Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel all geared up at the site of landfall. I do not know if you go watch the Weather Channel when hurricanes happen, but he is always there. He is the hurricane expert. He goes out there and faces all these high winds. But almost every time there is a hurricane, we see pictures of the rain falling at an angle, almost horizontal as the wind howls over wherever he happens to be. And you always see Jim Cantore bracing himself against the force of the wind trying not to be blown over or even blown down. You have probably seen video of him or some other storm reporter showing you in video how hard it is to walk against the wind, and they are struggling and just cannot seem to move forward against the wind. Or they do not walk, they show you by leaning over just how much of an angle they can get just to be able to stay upright with the wind coming at them in their faces.

Now, this is what I have been leading to this whole time. Struggling against headwinds is a very vivid picture, a picturesque metaphor for someone striving to make progress against the grain, against something, some force that is coming against them. So all these forces, whatever they happen to be, are against him. They are all going in one direction and he is trying to go in the other directly against them. He is trying to forge ahead to a goal that he may have but it is contrary to these forces that are coming at him. So he is going against the odds, against the majority, against the times even.

It can be an image of the courageous fighter trying to accomplish what other people say is futile or impossible. Or it can picture someone desperate to prove himself, willing to go against all the odds against him. Or it could be the picture of one who is trying to go his own way, like a maverick, you might call him a nonconformist or someone who is countercultural. It could be all of these things at once, depending on the person, depending on the times, depending on the goal.

Now, the world that we live in, our society, our culture, is generating hurricane force winds right now, and have been for quite a while. The winds are predominantly anti-God, anti-Christian, anti-moral. Did you see any of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony last night? I saw it on Twitter. I did not watch it last night. I saw just a little bit going through the airport. It was not enough to really see a whole lot, but I saw clips and there were sections of it that were very anti-Christ. There was a display of supposedly Leonardo's Last Supper—but they put transvestites in it! And it was sad to see. Here is an event that has been billed for generations as bringing the world together, and the Paris Olympics is pushing what we call wokeism to the masses all around the world. It has made people want to not watch it anymore.

Because we live in this world but are not of it—you can jot down John 17:11 and 14-16, if you would like, where Jesus says exactly that, that we are left in this world, but we are not of it, and also because we are commanded to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, which is another memory scripture, Matthew 6:33—we find ourselves battered and struggling against heavy cultural headwinds every day. And when one headwind seems to die down, another gains strength out of another quarter and challenges our morality and our commitment to God and to Christ. These cultural headwinds are trying to take us down.

So today I ask, what do we do about this? How do we react to this? How can we continue to face these cultural headwinds day after day, year after year without feeling like giving up, without surrendering to them? How can we endure in the face of so much constant oppression? That is what it is. It is moral oppression, this opposition that we face. If we have a hard time enduring, how are we supposed to grow in conditions like these, conditions of spiritual war?

You know, when you are busy fighting a war, you do not have time to grow normally because you are just defending yourself. You are just trying to stay on your feet. There is not a lot of opportunity for growth. As a matter of fact, that is what James 3 says. That if you want to grow in righteousness, the best place to do it is under conditions of peace. And that is not what we are facing right now. We are facing warfare, constant moral, spiritual, religious warfare. So how are we supposed to hold it off? How are we supposed to fend off all of that, this stuff that is coming against us trying to break us down?

These are the sort of questions I hope to answer today. Maybe not specifically answer each one of them, but just by principle how we can endure during times like these. So, how can we continue to live in a world that is dead set against us? That is the big overall question I am asking today.

If you will, turn to John 15, we will be reading verses 18 through 21. This is where Jesus lets us know that we are to be separate from this world, but that the world will hate us because we are different.

John 15:18-21 [He says during this last Passover service or after it in his sermon] "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me."

The Savior here confirms that we are separate from this world. This world is not God's world. Do not let anybody tell you different. He created this world to be His world. But at the foundation of the world, in the Garden of Eden, things were set in motion where the society, even though there was only two people, their culture was anti-God after she bit the apple, as it were, and he followed suit.

The cosmos, this world, the society that we live in, the world system whose values, beliefs, and morals are anti-God, is what we live in and He has called us out of it. We have to live in our own world within this world. One that is pro-God, pro-Christian, pro-morality. But because the world hates God, remember what it says in Romans 8:7, that the carnal mind is enmity against God. That means hate. They hate God, they hate His law, they hate everything and everyone associated with God—His Word, His laws, His aims, and everything and everyone associated with God.

Now, you know this comes from Satan the Devil. Mr. Armstrong loved to quote Revelation 12:9, that Satan, the great dragon, has deceived the whole world—everyone, and you and me until we learned the truth, and he still tries to deceive us. But he is the great hater of God. He hates God because he wants to be in charge. He wants to impose his way of life upon everyone. But that deception that he has, whose attitude goes out into the world, has made everybody else, all humanity hate God too. And because they cannot get to Him, they take their hatred out on His representatives: us, you and me. They cannot kill God, but they can kill us.

So we have a problem. We have a problem because we live in a town where everybody thinks that we are the dunce and they can do whatever they want to us. They can bully us, they can kick us around, they could deny us jobs, they can do whatever just because we are not like them. What do we do? How do we face that?

Let us go to I Peter 4, if you will, and we will read verses 12 through 16. Now here I want to add another element to our discussion here, our thinking, because I do not want us to think that this is unusual, not for us.

I Peter 4:12-16 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

As I said, we should not have the attitude when we are thinking about this situation we are in, that we are being treated more harshly in this age than in other times of church history, at least not yet. Frankly, the modern church has suffered only mild trials and persecutions over the last few centuries. There have been a few bigger ones, but the ones that come from the world have not been all that sharp. In some places it has been harsher, like outside of of America and Northwestern Europe, and some of the places where, let us say, Catholicism is much stronger or some other religion like Islam is also strong. Those places have gotten more persecution. But here, where we have had a tradition of Christianity of one sort or another, it has not been that bad. So overall, I could think we can say safely that the church has enjoyed an extended period of peace and safety over the last couple of centuries.

Now, that period may be coming to an end. The Bible's prophecies like Matthew 24:21 foretells the worst period of history is just ahead of us. The Great Tribulation will be worse than anything that has ever happened on this earth.

In any event, up to now we have not endured anywhere near the level of hatred and persecution that, let us say, first century Christians faced or those where the Catholic Church was beginning to get its strength in the early Dark Ages, or in the Middle Ages, or during the Reformation, and other times throughout history. Those were tough times and people really paid the price for being Christian in this world. But us, not so much. I think it has been easy, if you know what I mean, to be a Christian in this age.

I went through this in I Peter 4 because I want you to notice the attitude that he recommends that we take during this time. He provides the correct godly attitude that we need to show. Well, I should say to show when we suffer as Christians. It is not the same attitude that you would take necessarily when you suffer for just being stupid or whatever, as he mentions a little earlier. But notice the positive words that he says here, that is what strikes me the the most. He says, "concerning the fiery trials which have come to try you," he says, "Rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings." He says, see it as a blessing from God that you have been chosen to suffer for Christ's sake. And he says, glorify God that these things have come upon you. That is a really high standard, do you not think?

I mean, just right now, today, as you are thinking, if someone came with a fiery trial on you to the point of taking your life if it would lead to that, but you rejoice. Could you see that as a blessing? Would you go out and glorify God for what He has given you to suffer? I doubt it. I know I would have a hard time doing those things. But this is kind of standard for what the first century apostles said. Did James not say "count in all joy when you come into diverse tribulations"? Well, those guys could do it, but I do not think I could.

If we would go back to chapter 2 in I Peter here (we will not read it), but from verses 19 through 23 he tells us to follow Christ's example and it is exactly this that he is using as the model for what he says our attitude should be, and our reaction. He says, do it like Christ. What did He do? He took what they gave patiently with endurance. He says, do not sin in your reaction. I mean, how many of us guys, especially if someone came against you was going to take your life for being a Christian, how many of you would fight back for with all you are worth and you would kill the other person if you had it in you? But Peter says here, Jesus did not sin in His reaction. He took it patiently.

He says, do not lie; because a lot of times you get a chance to give some sort of a defense or whatever, you know, try to try to get these guys off your back, whatever it happens to be, and the human reaction is to lie to get out of the situation. "Oh, I wasn't doing that. I don't go to church on Saturday. Why me? I go to the First Baptist church down the block." How many people would do that?

Another thing that we do, and in this Twitter generation it is very frequent, but Peter says, do not revile. It says, do not threaten. So what did he do? He gives us a positive thing here. He says, commit yourself to the righteous judge. Let Him decide how this is going to work out. Are we to that level of righteousness? No. I will just answer that for you. No, I do not think most of us are. I have in my notes, answer that for yourself. But I figure that with the nodding and the head-shaking I see here, we are actually not ready for that kind of tribulation.

Now, let us dial it back a bit from this extreme level of martyrdom that I have basically been talking about here, that your life is on the line. We are dialing it back from there. So we are going from outright life-threatening persecution to just living in an anti-God, post-Christian, hyper-sinful world. We are just living. We do not have any threats against us. They are not beating down our door. They are not dragging us down to the police station or into the town square. They are not, you know, threatening us in any major way. But we have to live in this society. And we see it in the world every day.

You have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see the problems in this world. And it has reached into every hamlet and burg in the nation, and even around the world. We see it in media. We see it on the Internet 24/7. We see it in our neighborhoods. We see it when we go to work and when we go into the world for any reason. Just shop in your local Stater Brothers or whatever it is that you go to. Target; that is a good one. You see these things advertised, you see them pushed, they want you to buy those things. They want you to advocate for those things. They want you to spend your money on these things. I mean, it is everywhere, this anti-God push is everywhere.

I live near a Sam's Club and on the route I drive to Sam's Club (it is probably two miles at most), I see a pride flag hanging right there for everyone to see. I pop into Starbucks, which is not too far away from there and I know I know that about 75% of the employees there are either trans or homosexual or both. Just turn on just about any show on Netflix or Amazon or whatever, just name your streaming service, and we see homosexuality depicted in just about every one. You always have to have a homosexual character for some reason.

What about diversity, equality, and inclusion initiatives that you may have at your job? Now, this legalized discrimination is diminishing somewhat. Many of the major corporations have figured out that their bottom line suffers when they have these DEI initiatives. And now we have a DEI vice president or presidential candidate. That is what they have been calling Kamala Harris, the DEI hire.

But these kind of things are not going away. Like I said, corporations are figuring out they are harmful but just harmful for their bottom line, not necessarily for their societal problems. But if you work in government—city, state, county, federal—you are going to get DEI stuffed down your throat. And if you are in any kind of education you are going to get it there too.

Another area here. North Carolina, where I live, is one of the few states in the South anymore where abortions are still legal. Now, in other places, they are legal but the amount of time that a woman has to get an abortion has shrunk a lot in the southern states. North Carolina, up until last July 1st, allowed for abortions to be done at 20 weeks. Now, because of the Republican legislature, they are down to 12 weeks, but that is still the highest in the South. So, Charlotte and Raleigh and Asheville and Greensboro and some of the other larger cities in North Carolina, are meccas for women who want abortions. In 2023, because of all of that happened when Roe v. Wade was delegitimized, from that point, abortions in North Carolina were up 37% because women streamed over the border to get their abortions. And even after North Carolina changed it from 20 to 12 weeks, they had a slight dip and now they are back to pre-12 week ban levels, which is 4,000 abortions per month in the state of North Carolina alone.

What about euthanasia? There has been a lot of reporting about Canada's euthanasia laws recently, but it just shows you that this idea is spreading around the Western world. So they are either going to try to kill you before you come into the world or try to kill you early so you can leave this world sooner than your natural life expectancy.

Murders are up drastically. Some of these normal things that have been hidden, you know, kind of down below the fold because of all the homosexual marriage and all that stuff that we have had over the last decade or so. But murders are up drastically all over the country. In Charlotte in particular, murders are up 36% this year. 36!! And overall violent crime is up 8%, and up to June 30th 12 juveniles have been charged with homicide this year compared to three all of last year. So they are getting younger, they are carrying around guns and shooting people, they go on shooting sprees. I do not know why, but it is happening.

And I do not have to mention all the blatant hateful, anti-Christ rhetoric in media and the celebrated cult-like behavior of the extreme left. And even Satanism that is allowed to exist in public places, putting up statues of Satan here and there right next to the state's Ten Commandments statue or whatever they have. You have Satan and God represented side by side! These things are allowed to exist in public places. So depending on where they live, Christians must deal with these kinds of things routinely.

We get back to our original question. How do we react? How do we endure? How do we make sure that we are going to endure all the way to the return of Christ, or our own death?

Now, the unbelieving rational world, the intellectual world out there, thinks we have three choices about how we should react to these things: 1) capitulation, 2) cowardice, or 3) cynicism. That is, the rational world urges us to jettison old fashioned biblical precepts and embrace cultural norms because progress. This is the way the world is evolving. Those biblical practices are old, they do not work anymore. You need to come up into the 21st century and just capitulate to the way people think. Now that is their first one.

Secondly, it advises us that if we do not capitulate, we should withdraw. That is, in cowardice. We do not want to face it so we just go our own way. We find a bunker somewhere, we leave society in one way or another, just make way for the majority view and keep your head down in fear. That would be the way of cowardice.

Or finally three, the rational world encourages taking the attitude of the aloof cynic or we might say the hypocrite, and in looking at these things that are happening out in the world, just shrug, criticize or not, it does not matter, and tolerate, letting the dominant culture have its day.

Of course, none of these are biblical. They are not the right reactions at all. But this is how carnal, human men and women with great swelling heads of intellect think that we should act, we should react. Because this is the tidal wave of mankind's thinking and we should conform to it before we get swamped by it.

Well, I am going to add a fourth way and that is the way of courage. Usually we speak indirectly of courage. We do not speak a lot directly about courage. Instead, we use it kind of under the radar when we speak about theological terms like faith and hope and endurance, each of which contain an element of courage in their application. If you want to apply faith in a time like this, you are going to have to be courageous. If you want to have hope in a time like this, you are going to have to show some courage. And if you want to endure, you are definitely going to need courage.

But what about courage itself? The Bible speaks about courage a lot, more than we talk about it, I think, especially in the Old Testament. Now, if you would go to your concordance and look up courage, you are not going to find all that many citations for it. But if you look up the word "heart," you will find a lot because the idea of courage is found in how much heart we have in the Hebrew way of looking at things much more physically and concretely. The word courage, very often absent, but the principle appears in the word heart all through the Old Testament and in to the New.

In English, courage comes to us through French from Latin. The Latin word for heart is cor, cour-age in French. As the world turns against us, then we must strengthen our hearts.

Let us go back to Deuteronomy 31. I will be spending probably most of the rest of this sermon here and in Joshua 1. We will read the first eight verses. This is when Moses appoints Joshua, and then we will go to Joshua 1, verses 1 through 9, where Moses has died and Joshua is taking his first steps as the leader of the children of Israel. Let us just read these two passages back to back.

Deuteronomy 31:1-8 Then Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. And he said to them: "I am one hundred twenty years old today. I can no longer go out and come in. Also the Lord has said to me, 'You shall not cross over this Jordan.' The Lord your God Himself crosses over before you; He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua himself crosses over before you, just as the Lord has said. And the Lord will do to them as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites and their land, when He destroyed them. The Lord will give them over to you, that you may do to them according to every commandment which I have commanded you. Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the one who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you." Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, "Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed."

Joshua 1:1-9 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying: "Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all these people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

Very inspiring passages, I think. These passages, especially Joshua 1, are probably the best known passages in the Bible on courage.

Now that we have heard them, we need to consider two overarching realities about them. 1) they appear in the timeline when Israel is about to enter the Promised Land. That makes what is said in these two passages analogous to our proximity to Christ's return. Going into the Kingdom of God, inheriting the Kingdom is very much like the Israelites going and inheriting the land. We see those parallels a lot in what happened with the children of Israel and we can put them into application in our own lives in our similar situation. And even to the point where the leader is called the Savior, Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus, the same name. So we have the same leader, as it were, going into the Kingdom of God as the children of Israel had going into the Promised Land. Joshua is very much a type of Jesus Christ in this particular situation of inheriting the land.

The second reality that we have to remember as we think about this is that there is a readily apparent link between strength and courage, which God told Joshua and the children of Israel that they needed to have. So there is a link between strength and courage and the expectation of success in what we are doing. That is, the implication in these two passages is that if we have strength and courage, we will be successful in inheriting the land or entering into our inheritance. So the person who is going to go across the Jordan, or the person who is going to go as a spirit being, part of the God Family into the Kingdom of God into the Millennium, has to be strong and very courageous. Otherwise, he will not inherit. So it is a requisite, a requisite attitude to have.

Notice, then, what we went through here in these two passages. Notice the promises God gave because everything hangs on that—because God does not lie. If He gives us a promise, if He tells us He is going to do something, or if He tells us He is going to be there, or if He tells us He will do this or that for us, then we can go to the bank on it. It is sure. So what did He promise so that we can be strong and very courageous?

Well, back in Deuteronomy 31 He tells us that God goes before them, and then He says the savior goes before them. That is Joshua. Joshua will go before the people. He says that God will dispossess and destroy the enemy, even the strongest of them, even those ones that were like Sihon and Og, who were big men, you know, giants of the land. He is going to just mow them down, but He will mow them down. He promises to. So He says, He concludes all that there in Deuteronomy 31 by saying there is no need to be afraid because God is with us and He will never forsake us, so why fear? If we are baptized and have the Holy Spirit, He is not only going before us, He is in us. He knows everything we are going through and He has promised that He is not going to leave. He will be there if you are chosen to suffer for Him, He will be there to your last breath, and He will be there to resurrect you.

So, by telling us these promises, it eliminates all these things that we have anxiety about. We have anxiety about inheriting our place in the land. Do not worry about it. God is going before you and He will secure it for you.

What about being safe? Your Savior is going before you. He will fight your battles for you. Do not worry. There is no need to fear.

What about all those giants in the land? Do not worry. You do not need to think about those people, God will take care of it. Every place where you set your foot in that land is yours and I am going to make sure you get your inheritance.

God gives some wonderful promises there. Those are good motivators to think we do not need to worry. And probably about 95% of us are worry warts and so God, knowing that percentage is probably about right, has given us all these assurances through the promises, there is no need. Do not worry, do not stress, I have got this. Just follow.

So they should fill us with confidence, these promises, with boldness even! We are going to follow right behind our Joshua, cross the river, and inherit. It is not hard. We have got to get our human nature out of the way, but it is not hard. If you believe God, if you have a good relationship with God, if you trust Him, then these are very strong assurances.

Now consider God's assurances and instructions to Joshua in Joshua 1. What are those? What are those assurances? I have mentioned one of them. I have read it also. But the first one that He gives them is, God will give them the land—all of it. So the Savior's job in securing the land will be complete. He is not going to stop short like Joshua did, the actual man, Joshua. They stop short of kicking everybody out of the land. Jesus Christ, the Savior, the new Joshua, He is going to make sure He goes all the way, He takes full possession of the land for us. And it says there in Joshua 1, no man will be able to withstand him. He should have thought about that when he encountered the Gibeonites.

But we have got a Savior who is going before us who has all authority. Look it up. Matthew 28:18, all authority has been given into His hand now that He has been raised from the dead. There is no way that any man can stand before Him. What did He say during His life? "Don't you know I could call down 12 legions of angels?" He did not because He had to go through that suffering and death, but He has the authority to do that.

And when He comes, we find out in Revelation 19 that all those angels in heaven follow Him when He comes and He puts down all rule, everyone who is against Him. No Beast, no False Prophet are going to be able to stand against Him, none of their minions. So we just do not need to worry about that.

What are the instructions to Joshua? This is important for us. Consider yourself as Joshua in this sense because God was giving him instructions about how he could fulfill the task that he was given, so they apply to us as well.

His instructions are these:

1. Do what God has commanded. If God says left, go left. If God says right, go right. If God says, go straight ahead, which is normally what He tells you to do, go straight ahead. And then there are all these other instructions we have in His Word. Do what God has commanded.

2. Do not turn to the right hand or to the left. After you have determined where God wants you to go, go straight there.

3. God's Book, His Word, shall not depart from your mouth. I have kind of interpreted this to mean to speak or to command or to lead according to God's instruction book. Do not use the guru on Netflix or whatever to tell you how to lead or to tell you how you are going to do this or that. Do not watch the Sunday shows, the preachers out there to tell you one thing or another that you should do to be a good leader in the church. No, do not let His Word depart from your mouth. Take your instructions directly from Christ.

4. Meditate on God's way because doing so will help you do it. Do not just think about it abstractedly. Think about it in terms of what you are going to do with that knowledge, how you are going to put it into practice. Think things through. God is teaching people to think like He does.

5. Do not be afraid or dismayed. There is a difference there. Do not be afraid means do not fear. Do not be dismayed means do not be discouraged, do not be downhearted, be positive. In other words, not only do not fear, be positive about your life, be positive about your direction, be positive about the Kingdom of God, go for it like it is a lover, as it were. Do not get discouraged that things are going badly in the meantime, have this ideal that you are going to meet your Husband, your Bridegroom, because that is in actuality what it is. We are the church, the bride of Christ, we are members of that Body, and each day as we go toward the return of Christ, we are getting closer and closer to our marriage to Him for all eternity. That is something to be happy about, something to be positive about. So do not let all these things that are happening in the present get you down about that. That is part of the hope we have and the stronger and more positive your hope, the more you will press forward toward it.

Now, is that not a step-by-step manual for how we should face the cultural headwinds today as the world lurches toward Christ's return? I mean, think about those things. Obey God. Do not turn to the right or left. Go straight. Lead or command or speak God's words. Meditate on God's way. And do not let fear or discouragement bring you down. The essence of it, if we want to do that and just go to a principle, is trust God, trust His Word, study and meditate on it continually, and obey it. This is not a difficult concept. We hear it probably every week at church in one form or another, but it takes courage. It takes spiritual, mental, and emotional strength.

God did not call the lily-livered. He knows you have it in you to be strong and very courageous and that is what you need. It requires us, certainly, to be convicted and committed and unyielding in the way that we practice the truth that He has revealed to us. Very simple principles to understand. I am not telling you anything that is difficult to understand in the noggin, but very hard to do practically because we always feel beset. We feel like we are little, we feel that everybody is one is against us, and we do not have any help—when we have all the help in the universe because we are only looking at ourselves and not to God.

And so these things that I have given you as instructions to Joshua, as well as His instructions to us, they are much easier to do when we have a strong relationship with God because that means we are putting Him first. That means we are thinking about what He is thinking about. That means we want to do what He wants us to do. It means that our lives are enclosed by Christ. As it says in Colossians 3, we are hidden in Christ. That means we are so wrapped up in Christ that we want to do everything He wants us to do.

Now, let us go to Hebrews 3 and we are just going to read several scriptures here to show that in this particular epistle, the author is telling us very similar things to what Moses and Joshua showed us in Deuteronomy 31 and Joshua 1.

Hebrews 3:6 But Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

Be courageous, be strong, be enduring. That is what he is telling these Hebrews, because these Hebrews, remember, he is writing to the Hebrews who are about to face a big tribulation, that is, the Roman army coming in and the fall of Jerusalem, the loss of the Temple. All of these things are going to happen in just a few years and so he is trying to help them understand what they need to survive this.

Hebrews 3:12-15 Beware, brethren, lest you lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said, "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion."

Hebrews 4:16 [He says] Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace [in prayer], that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 10:19-25 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

You can get a lot of strength and courage from your brethren and you can give a lot of strength and courage to your brethren.

Hebrews 10:35-39 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: "For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those who draw back to perdition [or destruction], but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

We are in it to win. We are in it to inherit those promises. It would be terrible, fatal—spiritually fatal—to draw back now. So keep your confidence up, maintain your strength, and be bold in the way you live.

Chapter 12, we are going to read the first 15 verses here. This is getting to his summary of all that he meant to say here. He says,

Hebrews 12:1-15 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him [there is that word joy again] endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him, for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. [I mean, you are going to have some trials. Do not worry about that because God wants you in His Kingdom.] Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He [that is, God] for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.

One more chapter.

Hebrews 13:5-6 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"

So throughout this book of Hebrews, the writer is telling us we need to be strong. We need to be courageous, we need to be confident. We have to have confidence in our hope. We need to surge ahead, not hang back. We need to have faith. We need to trust God. We need to remember that He is not going to leave us, and just move forward. So what he gives us here, then, is not just help to survive this time of sinfulness, but also to thrive, to grow in character, to witness to the world of God's way of life and to glorify God in so doing.

This is how we counter the cultural headwinds of our time. Not by shrinking back in fear, but by strengthening our resolve, by recommitting to live God's way, and courageously not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You remember that there in Romans 1:16, not to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and Paul answers why. He says "it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes." So you weaken the gospel and it weakens your power to resist. But if you keep the gospel in its full strength, it gives you power to go all the way to salvation. Just like God told Joshua, "Do whatever I've commanded you. Don't turn to the right hand or to the left." Just go straight forward in belief of the gospel of God.

Let us go to Matthew 5. I just want to pick this up here as I mentioned this earlier about making a witness. Jesus tells us here in the Sermon on the Mount,

Matthew 5:14-16 "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

Even though the world is getting worse, you know what that does for you? It makes your light shine brighter because it is so much different from the darkness that is encompassing this world.

Let us go to Matthew 24. We need to be careful that even in this day of anti-God thinking and doing, that we continue to do what is right and good and make a witness. We need to be careful though that the world does not see us as hypocrites. And this could happen very easily if your conduct is not the same in every situation. What I mean by this is, do not let them see you being pious on the Sabbath, but worldly during the week. Or do not let them see you being reverent and speaking all gospel-ly with your friends at church, but rowdy with your worldly friends. You have got to be the same at all times. You have got to be the same righteous, holy person all the time. Otherwise you will be a hypocrite and God does not do well with hypocrites. So we have to strive to be consistently Christ-like no matter who is around, no matter what the situation.

Matthew 24:45-51 "Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you, that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, 'My master is delaying his coming,' and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and in an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

So we need to be living out God's way all the way to the end and not compromising one inch with His revealed beliefs and behaviors. And that is where the rubber meets the road in Christianity—in our conduct. It is not enough just to believe between your ears, it has to be practiced. Otherwise you are not going to get anything out of it and neither will anybody else.

Back in Isaiah 35 we read these words. This is a millennial chapter, but it goes back just a moment before the Millennium comes.

Isaiah 34:3-4 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. [Remember reading that in Hebrews the 12th chapter?] Say to those who are fearful-hearted, "Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save you."

We need to hold fast. Does it not say that in the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3? Hold fast, be strong just a little while longer! Hang in there. Be strong and very courageous!

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