2/26/06 - “THE ISSUE THAT DIVIDES THE WORLD?” Part 1 - 9L-FM 
Victory Ministries International presents:
Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts  
Treasures of awesome truths from God’s Word 
and facts that affect you!

Hello!  This is Richard Vaughn

My brothers and sisters in Jesus, I have said in the past that most of the Christian world will be lost, including most of you who are listening to this broadcast. I’m going to prove this with the Bible, so if you’re dead serious about your relationship to God, stay tuned as we will get into this subject today, “THE ISSUE THAT DIVIDES THE WORLD” part 1. But first let us seek God’s guidance, “Heavenly Father, as we open your word today, we need wisdom, we need knowledge and especially we need understanding so that we may live in the center of your revealed will, in Jesus Name, Amen.”

I am going to keep my pledge, to cry aloud and spare not, to lift up my voice like a trumpet and to show God’s people where they are transgressing God’s law.

Today’s subject is a very important one, as it deals with one of the greatest problems we're facing in our Christian world today. Sadly, many people are content to sit back and listen to preachers, and believe everything they say without checking, including you. How do I know? If you listen with your understanding, I will show you.
You can't tell people how to eat, how to vote, or how to spend their money. But when it comes to our eternal life, many people are just content to sit back and believe anything.  The Bible challenges us, in fact it commands us, in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."  
 	I encourage you to test what you hear on this program, by what the Bible says. Write down the scriptures I give you and after the broadcast, look them up. And if it's based on scripture, then follow Jesus and the Word, and you'll always be safe. 
All around us we see that crime is exploding. Sixty percent of Americans today have been victims of a major crime. One in four households in America had a member who was a crime victim in just the last year.  
This country is falling apart morally!  America has become the most wicked nation, and yet the amazing thing is, it is called the greatest Christian nation in the whole world.
Right here in America we have more churches, more pastors, and more church members than ever before in our history, then the question is why do we have all of the prevailing corruption that we have in our world today?  
Why are our morals so low? Why is it that the greatest, Christianized nation on earth today, is also the most desperately wicked and immoral nation on earth? 
	A shocking Gallup poll showed that church attendance made little difference in people’s ethical views and behavior.
I believe the Bible suggests an answer in 2 Timothy 4:2-4, "Preach the word." (What does it say?) "Preach the word." He doesn't say, "Preach the theories of men."  He doesn't say, "Preach the teachings of your particular church."  He doesn't say, "Get up and read one text, and spend the rest of the hour on philosophy and politics."
  	He says, "Preach the word."   And there's a starvation for the Word today.  He says, "... be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine."  (That's what I'm suppose to do, and that's what I'm doing. ) 
Then verse 3 says, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears." 
That means that they are going to preach what the people want to hear, or what the pastor thinks they want to hear, rather than the truth.  And verse 4 says, "And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto (what?) fables."   
 	I'd like to suggest that's exactly what's taking place in Christian America today.  Verse 3 says "the time will come", I believe we could say the time has come, when many people don't want to hear sound Bible doctrine. They would rather hear pleasing things that tickle the ears, rather than hear the straight truth of the Word of God.    
 	Now, God says, that faithful ministers are to "Preach the word."  That's not always easy, especially in compromised Christianity today.  Many church members love preachers who preach that sin is all right. Are you listening to me? True Christians do not attempt to bring down the Word of God to fit their lives.  The standard of God remains high!  And the Bible does not need changing—people 's hearts need changing.  The dishonest man wants to change the Word of God to fit his life.  The honest man will change his life to fit the Word of God.   
1 Timothy 4:1 says, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;”  
Paul is telling us that the time would come when there would be this departing from the true faith and mingling with Spiritualism.  Spiritualism is believing that the moment you die, you live on in heaven or hell and Spiritualism is trying to communicate with the dead.  The Christian Church is flooded with this very false doctrine. 
Matthew 7:21, now listen to me, Matthew 7:21 is most likely the saddest passage Jesus ever spoke in the Bible. Here Jesus begins to awaken our consciousness to the fact that the vast majority of religious people are going to be lost when He comes. Jesus says, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, (and that's the majority) Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?  and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name have done many wonderful works?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you:  depart from me, ye that work iniquity." 
Jesus is not talking about non-church goers, Jesus is addressing the majority of religious people going to church all the time.  People that preach and teach in Jesus' name, and doing wonderful works. They're active in their community, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, friends, they're good people. But when Jesus comes, He's going to say, "I never knew you." That means they're lost. Why Lord? What's the reason? It says "they did not do the will of the Father in heaven." What does it mean to "do the will of the father," to make sure that we don't end up in this group?" What is doing the will of God?  We need to find that out right now and we need to let the Bible interpret itself! God wants us to know and through David He tells us in Psalm 40:8,"I delight to do thy will, O my God:  yea, thy law is within my heart." The Bible tells us that King David knew that doing God's will was to have God's law written in his heart.  He knew salvation is a free gift, but he had that law written in his heart, and he loved to obey the law and to do the will of the Father that is in heaven.
 	So, doing God's law is His will.  Let's go to the New Testament and see if the New Testament agrees.  We're going to quote Paul now in Romans 2:13    
And here Paul tells us the same thing.  "For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." 
Now I want to ask you, "Is there a difference between a hearer and a doer?"
 	Romans 2:18, Paul tells us, "And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law." So here Paul tells us that knowing His will is being instructed out of His law.   
The problem we have in Matthew 7 is that, multitudes of people are saying and doing all kinds of religious things, but they're not doing God's will and obeying His law.  
There are verses in Hosea chapter 4, that are the most pertinent texts for our day and age in all of the Bible. In fact, reading these verses is like reading the headlines in today's newspapers.  
Verse 1  "Hear the word of the Lord."  I want to pause right here.  That's what I'm suppose to preach, right?  2 Timothy 4:2 said, "Preach the word" so here it is.  "Hear the word of the Lord ye children of Israel:  for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land."  That sounds a lot like our world today, doesn't it?  
Notice verse 2, "By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood." 
 	Now isn't that the exact scenario of what's taking place in America every single day? Why does God have a controversy with the inhabitants of this land?  Why is there so much swearing and lying and killing and stealing?  Let's find out the answer in verse 6, 
"My people ..." notice He doesn't say, "All those heathen people out there, He says, "My people. ..."  He's talking to the Christian church.  "My people are destroyed ..." for what reason?  "... a lack of knowledge."  Isn't that our biggest problem in America today!  Christians are not reading the Bible anymore with any intensity, and there's a lack of the knowledge of God's Word in the land today.   But then He goes on to say, "... because thou has rejected knowledge, 
I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priests to me:  seeing thou has forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."
 	This is the reason for all the prevailing corruption in the land.  The people of God have forgotten God's law. They no longer regard the Ten Commandments as important. That's why verse 2 reads as it does.  It says, "By swearing," that's breaking the third commandment. "Lying," that's breaking the ninth commandment. "Killing," that's breaking the sixth commandment.  "Stealing," that's breaking the eighth commandment. "Committing adultery," that's breaking the seventh commandment. Friends, today, America has in a large sense forgotten God's law. These are the sins in the church. And the Bible says, when we do that, we're no longer doing the will of the Father in heaven, we're "destroyed for lack of knowledge."
    	In Ephesians 2: 8,9 The Bible says that we are saved by grace through faith. By God's grace alone.
We are not saved by good works, but we are ordained unto good works.  What good works are we to do?
Ephesians 6:1 - Paul is quoting one the Ten Commandments and telling us to keep it.  “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.”  
Which one is it?   The fifth one!
Ephesians 4:28  "Let him who stole steal no more."
Which one of the Ten Commandments is Paul quoting now?  The eighth one!!
James 2:11  "For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill.” Which two commandments are those?  The sixth and seventh!
Romans 7:7 "Thou shalt not covet" Which of the ten says, "Thou shalt not covet" The Tenth.
	Do you think that Paul believed in God's ten-commandment law? 
Did you know that God's law is the only part of the entire Bible He did not trust man to write.  Did you know that?   
Men, under the inspiration of God, wrote every other part of the Bible except the ten-commandment law of God.  
Exodus 31:18   "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written (with what?) with the finger of God."  
The law was written with God's own finger on tables of stone.  God did not write the ten-commandment law on sand, so the rainstorm would wash it away.  He didn't write it on parchment where it could deteriorate or fade down through the ages.  God wrote the ten-commandment law with His own finger.  It was written on stone to symbolize that His law would never be done away with.  Stone, to indicate that it would endure down through the centuries for time and eternity.

	The clock says that time is up for this week, so you be listening next week for THE ISSUE THAT DIVIDES THE WORLD part 2.

God bless you friends and study your Bibles daily,

Until next week, Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me”. Even so, Come Lord Jesus.