Keep On Faithful to God, No Matter Who Governs Capt. Kelly
Durant 7-3-16
Rev 2:10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer:
behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and
ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will
give thee a crown of life.
2. Tomorrow is the 4th of July! How many of you
will celebrate? I know most of us are very thankful for this country! Comparing its constitution and middle class
to other countries, it does have one of the best trifold balance-of-powers
systems ever created and it has worked well for many years, which is a
testimony of God’s blessings! But as
with anything there is a problem when things get out of balance: It is always
up to God’s people to bring people and the misguided nations back to God! Do
you think we are in danger of losing our independence?
Thank God for the Bible! We can span all of history and see
the result of nations rising and falling due to their obedience and worship of
God, or their lack thereof. A large part of the Old Testament covers the
warnings of the prophets concerning Israel and their tendency to degenerate
from the worship of God to the worship of Satan adopting the local cultures
which had abominable practices. Sadly, as Christians we see a rapid
degeneration and alienation from God in just the past few decades. Our
materialistic technological culture is programing people to conform to
destructive agendas but when you sew to the wind, you reap the whirlwind!
I think every 4th of July we should evaluate where
we stand as a nation! We gained independence from oppressors, but are we still
able to maintain that independence based upon how righteous we are as a
people? In the time of Israel’s Kings, all
it took was one bad king to pervert an entire nation and the consequences were
always that God allowed the backslidden people to be subjugated as servants to
another nation to learn their lesson. We must wake up and recall how God’s
promises were based on “If”, “If you obey”, “then”, you will eat the fat of the
land”. Only a continued obedience will cause a continued salvation and reaping
of blessings!
3. Independence is a wonderful thing! I recall when I was
young I was happy to be 18 and move out and be independent. Finally no curfew
hours! But then I discovered independence will cost you: it costs you becoming
the full one responsible for paying the rent, bills, insurance, etc.! When you
want freedom you have to pay the price of fighting to keep it. Maintaining
freedom has a high price and people that are lazy, fearful, and faithless are
in danger of become slaves!
So what happens if your freedom is being taken away? What
happens if you serve under a king or dictator but that king becomes a despot,
unfair, hypocritical, greedy, (even murderous) and indifferent to attend to the
needs of the people, especially the needs of the poor? Almost always revolution
begins! And many people think they want a revolution! Those that demand radical
change before the dictator were destructive reckless haters who just wanted to
see others cut down to size but the outcome of thugs having the power is always
atrocious!
If you watch the news, the Venezuelan people right now are in
chaos and turmoil! When the workers and common people cannot get justice or
food and basic needs, we all know that rioting, looting, and killing come next!
We must always pray for this nation and other nations where the women,
children, and poor live extremely oppressed! They make $15 per month now! In
the 1980s it was close to $2,000! How quickly the God-less fall into misery!
4. Today we are discussing the crown of life, which many
artists over time have depicted as a halo, but how do we gain one? In life all
different people face many different challenges when it comes to being
persecuted or not. We do not know the future except for the prophecies of
Jesus. Most Christians have become aware that a terrible future is coming when
the armies of the anti-Christ rise up to subdue all nations.
Actually according to the book of Daniel the structure of the
world in the end-times will be of 10 major powers, and to dominate them all the
anti-Christ will only need to conquer 3.
Daniel 7:24 The ten horns are ten kings Who shall arise from this
kingdom. And another shall rise after them; He shall be different from the
first ones, And shall subdue three kings.
Most people never ever think about power and the changing of
powers, they are too distracted entertaining their selves! Babylon, a world
power during Daniel’s time, was thought to be invincible, but one night they
saw the hand-writing on the wall! The rulers were slain and the Medes and
Persians became the new world leaders, overnight!
5. I want to tell you a Christian story from Russia when an
anti-christ group of people took over that country. The people were tired of
the oppression of the Czars but they then gave the power over to some
oppressors that were much worse than them. This story is to encourage your
faith that no matter if you are called to die for Jesus, no matter of you lose
your freedom or there is a change of powers, you can maintain firm in your
faith to obtain your own crown of life and eternal bliss with Jesus in heaven!
You can be free at last from this world’s power hungry radical hellish people!
In the time of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917,
there was a great persecution of Christians and multi-millions were murdered
for the cause of imposing atheism and communism! Sadly, we almost never hear
about this historical fact! Christians, even if prohibited, will always get
together to pray, as we do on Sundays because we worship together and love each
other!
Christians everywhere also sing hymns and praises and you can
almost imagine some small Christian church in Russia singing, “Onward Christian
Soldiers”... Christians live happy lives in the peace of God, but always in
history there are those of Satan who gain power, those who hate Jesus and his
love and peace. The Red Army soldiers showed up and banged on the doors and
commanded, “Open Up! Meetings in Communist Russia are absolutely forbidden!”
“All of you are under arrest!” Not knowing their future, the
men, women, and children were ordered to march in the cold on the snow not
knowing where they were being lead. They marched for about 3 hours singing and
praising God as they went. Then they realized they had come to the small lake
just outside their town. And then the Red Soldier commanded, “All of you take
off your clothes, if any of you want to live, just deny your faith and come
back and we will give you back your clothes.”
6. No mercy was shown to anyone and the people were left out
on the ice to freeze to death. One by one they froze and dropped to their death.
Men, women, and children were trembling and praying as they fell over but the
Lord was with them giving them dying grace.
But then suddenly there was one of them that started running and
shouting, “I deny my faith, I deny my faith!” The guards laughed at the
freezing fool! “Give me back my clothes!”, he yelled. Then suddenly one of the
Russian guards rapidly took off his clothes and he said to the man, “Here, take
my coat, and take my hat too. I am going out there to die in your place”.
Shocked everyone looked at him and he shouted to them as he
went, “As I watched each person fall and
I saw as if it were a giant hand from the sky come down to put a crown on the
head of each of the ones who died, And just as the hand was coming down to you,
you ran! So take my clothes, take my gun, I want to get that crown!’
This true story helps us to visualize the crown of life Jesus
Christ has for us when we go to heaven! In the scripture it says: “be thou
faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” We must believe it!
No matter how we lose our lives one day, we want to be found faithful in Jesus!
I pray no revolution happens here, but nowhere is there absolute safety!
7. Today too many people take for granted their Salvation and
freedom. We must remember the requirement, the command from Jesus Himself is,
“We must be faithful unto death”! We don’t know what death we will have, but
let’s examine this story a bit deeper.
Let’s imagine the future, as in all the recent
post-apocalyptic movies, and it is the year 2020 and the Terrorists and Communist
have gotten together to use nuclear bombs blowing up Washington DC, New York,
and L.A. (and maybe even Miami) and then they invade this country and make an
order that no one can meet in the Christian churches (which always happens
under Satanic control!). Imagine with almost every church closed there would
still be a few that fear God over man and they would remain open. Imagine now
that you are one of those persecuted Christians that is getting escorted out of
here right now to be shot and killed!
Everyone always wants to imagine their selves as the strong
one, as the one that would die for his faith. Tell me, did you think that about
yourself? Did you think, oh, I will be the strong one and die for my faith?
Obviously it would be a shame to be the one who would chose to deny his faith
and run for his life. Because what we do here on earth is recorded by God
forever.
8. In the verses from Revelation of today the brothers in the
Smyrna church were going through a persecution, and persecutions resulting in
imprisonments and deaths which were common in the Roman times as they are
common now in Africa, China, Cuba, Venezuela, and in almost every Arab nation
daily. You can investigate and find out that there are dozens of thousands of
modern day martyrs for Christ every year! Also, there are currently 6.5 million
refuge homeless running and roaming from the current persecution worldwide!
Here we have the appearance of being secure but lately everyone
is discovering that our security is not so secure after all. Our authorities
are not the same as what they use to be. We are vulnerable due to internal
corruption! Also, the mainstream news also does not report on the death of
Christians worldwide but there are hundreds and even thousands killed every
day.
What Jesus had to say was this, these people that persecute
you, they are of the synagogue of Satan. He commands, “Fear not!” 10 days of prison or 10 years really is not
the point, the point is we are commanded to fear not and to be faithful unto
death so we will get the crown of life!
You may already be asking yourself inside, faithful until
death, how can I make it? That may be a long time from now. What should I be
doing? I think the best philosophy to live by is that of the rehabilitated
alcoholics. You know they have a saying. They wake up in the morning and they
tell their selves, I will be faithful today to not drink. They do not plan
tomorrow or next week, they are just planning on being faithful today.
And they can tell you with pride,“1,134 days ago I stopped
drinking and I have been faithful”. Could you as a Christian calculate and say,
40 days ago, or 4,057 days ago I accepted Christ and I renounced my sins and I
have been going down the faithful path of love and service ever since?
9. Faithfulness and getting the crown of life requires
obedience even unto death. Imagine that
Russian soldier that was a sinner. He repented at the last minute, and gained
the crown of life even though he had little time with his life left except to
be a testimony as a martyr to his comrades who were horribly wrong to kill the
harmless Christians. And contrastingly the other Russian, the one that had gone
to church all those years, the one who must have thought, I am saved because I
sing to God, I give my money to the church, I sacrifice my Sundays and go to
church, did not have what it took to get the crown of life being a witness.
The Faithfulness that gets you the crown of life is not a
power that comes from tradition and the church, Faithfulness is a way of life
in Christ that is renewed daily by obeying the Word of God and the Holy Spirit
up to the final end.
Fear, tribulations, and death, and anything can be overcome
when we have our lives centered in Christ everyday. We must be like Paul as he
said, “I die daily” 1 Cor. 15:31 and by dying daily we are burning up the bad
that is in us and in the end there will be nothing more to burn up. We will
already be refined as pure gold out of the fire.
10. Always consider the fate of the unfaithful, the ones that
think they are fine with God but they have no fruit or proof in their
lives. Rev 22:11-15 11. He that is
unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy
still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is
holy, let him be holy still. 12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is
with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. 13 I am Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. 14 Blessed are they
that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may
enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and
sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth
and maketh a lie. Notice that part about telling lies, there are so many liars
today it makes you furious, and God’s anger is kindled against them! Liars go
to hell for rejecting righteousness and for not living in the truth which
originates from God. And I fear for the souls of those who aid and abet liars,
those who willing have a blind eye concerning the horrible sins of others, who
become guilty by being accomplices and conformers.
Those of you here today, when you leave this church I pray
will never have to be arrested or be condemned to die, but you remain free to
go back home, but those that don’t care about God’s messages, the indifferent
or the willfully rebellious, will never obtain the fruits of the spirit which
are love, joy, peace and longsuffering, etc. nor gain a crown of life. There is
no peace here, nor in the hereafter, for the wicked. But try to imagine yourself
like the faithful Christian martyrs on the ice or like the Russian Soldier that
got the crown! Death is no defeat, it is what brings us our glory! Most people of
the world are never able to choose in which country they want to live, or
choose if that country is free & independent, godly, or despotic.
But no matter the nation or the time in history God wants people
to be faithful people; people who love and serve no matter even if it costs
them their lives! These are the people that will get a crown of life! You do
not want shame at the end of your life! So start being more faithful today! Do
you die to yourself each day so you will be able to pass the final test?
We are going to all face Jesus one day but only if we have
been faithful will we get the crown of life! That crown for you is eternal life
and glory plus the rewards and authority we will have when you and I reign with
Jesus forever and ever after His return.
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