00:29 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:33 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with another episode of KJV Cafe. We are in the second part of a two-part series titled, When It’s Time to Go, Will You Be Ready? We believe the Lord will return unexpectedly, and I believe imminently.
00:50 I believe the Lord’s coming back any day. He could come back today. I believe that, Amen.
00:58 I’m praying for the Lord’s return. I’m working for the Lord’s return, as in I’m preaching a gospel message so that those that the Lord’s been waiting to save, get saved so that we can all go home and be with Him. Amen.
01:14 Those that believe on Him. So I believe the Lord will return unexpectedly. That’s what the Bible tells us, like a thief in the night.
01:22 You know, if you think about that idea, you know, thief in the night, think about that. Oh, what would that be like? That would be like you not being prepared, right?
01:31 That would be like something unexpected, something for the unbeliever, it would probably feel like they’re being violated, right? You see, there is like not something that we would think would happen, and then it happens. Revelation 16:15, behold, I come as a thief.
01:49 Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. And so blessed are he that watcheth.
02:00 We should be watching for the Lord, and if we’re watching for the Lord, we’re waiting for God, and that means that we’re thinking about understanding that He’s going to come soon.
02:09 And we are understanding that, you know what, our conduct, how we live matters, because how we live today has eternal consequences. Matthew 12:35-37, Jesus speaking here, a good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
02:36 And just here in Matthew 35 and 36, we see that right now, okay, here on earth, in earthly terms, a good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things, an evil man out of the treasure bringeth forth evil things. That’s kind of happening now.
02:54 And then Jesus says, but I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
03:01 Well, the day of judgment, that happens after death. So we’re talking about both what’s happening here in our lives here on earth and what happens after death at the judgment.
03:11 And verse 37 of Matthew 12, for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
03:20 And so we see here something very interesting. I mean, if you take this literally, you may think, okay, however we speak is how we’re either going to make it into heaven or not. And that’s not true.
03:30 We make it to heaven by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. But that being said, what Jesus is saying is that the words that come out of our mouth are indicative of what’s going on in our hearts.
03:41 In the context of the scripture in Matthew 12, if you look at it, if you’re at home and maybe you have time, you get your Bible open, look at Matthew 12:22-37, you’ll see the context is that the Pharisees are accusing Jesus of casting out a demon by the work of the devil.
03:55 And Jesus explains that their words are indicative of their heart, that the fact that the Pharisees who see God, the living God in the flesh, who have seen the miracles that he has done, has heard the wisdom that he’s spoken, and feel threatened by the power that Jesus Christ represents, by the power of an almighty sovereign God, and feel even more threatened by being on the other end of the coin, being condemned by God, being the one that God often spars with the most, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, those Pharisees are worried. They feel threatened and they say, oh, he’s just doing this by the work of the devil.
04:33 Whether they screamed it at him or whether they murmured it, it doesn’t matter. Christ is saying, look, your words have meaning and your words have weight.
04:40 And so we see here that on the judgment day, these individuals that have spoken things against the Lord will be brought to an understanding of what they’ve said, and they’ll have to answer for those words in front of a very fearful and all-knowing mighty God.
04:54 They will not have the control they have today. We need to recognize this and we need to live peculiar and separate lives so that people look to us. How can the lost person who is going to face judgment at the white throne judgment, whereas the saved person who’s going to face judgment at the bema seat for reward,
05:15 how can the lost person who’s going to be facing eternal damnation in hell, how can that individual learn from a Christian that is living like the world? How can they learn from a Christian that will tell them their behavior is okay, whether by words or simply by going along with their behavior?
05:29 How can they learn from a Christian that is modeling worldly behavior? They can’t.
05:39 And so I’ll say that the lost person’s imminent destruction, okay, it comes into our realm in the sense that we need to be living in a way that leads them to Christ, right?
05:50 Because they’re right now thinking everything is fine. And just like the Pharisees said, the Pharisees are like, look, we’re relatively, we’re rich. We’re in power.
06:00 We have knowledge. We have authority. We have fame.
06:04 We just say what we want. We’ll just call this man a devil. And Jesus is reminding them, saying, look, you know, you’re doing this and you may think this is okay, but it’s not.
06:11 Matter of fact, this is the impardonable sin that they blaspheme the Holy Spirit. We can’t commit the impardonable sin today because we don’t see Jesus in the flesh. So we can’t blaspheme Him to his face.
06:22 Amen. We’re in the age of grace where Jesus has died on the cross for our sins and we believe on Him and His miraculous resurrection for the payment of our sin debt. When we believe on Him, we are saved.
06:37 We make him Lord of our life. We are saved. And now we are not under condemnation.
06:41 Amen. The Bible tells us there’s no condemnation to those that are in Christ, to those that love the Lord. And so we’re not under condemnation, but at the same time, we need to kind of rein ourselves in because those that are fallen, those that are facing an imminent destruction, they’re going to realize that at the judgment seat.
06:58 They’re no longer going to be blind to their ways. They’re going to have an understanding of what is to come. Now you have to understand for the lost person living in sin, they’re in this bondage where they are blind.
07:08 Okay. And what that means is they don’t truly understand what’s happening here on earth. If they did, they’d be saved.
07:15 And if they were saved, they’d go to God’s heaven. And if they went to God’s heaven while being a sinner, that wouldn’t be good, right? And so God is compelling them to repent of their sins, to get right with him, to believe in what Christ has done on the cross. And through rank unbelief and through a lack of fear of God, they say, no, thank you.
07:33 They reject God’s free gift of salvation. And then therefore God says, fine, I’ll give you over to a reprobate mind. Think about it.
07:41 If a person really believed in a literal hell, okay, would they go on rejecting God’s free gift of salvation and go on living in some grave sin? They would not. If they realized what awaited them, if they knew it for sure, they wouldn’t keep living like that. So they must be blinded.
08:00 And so how can we stand by in good conscience and not do something about this? Now only God can remove those blinders from them. Only God can help open up their hearts.
08:13 But we need to model godly behavior with our own conduct, and that starts with our own hearts.
08:20 So instead of worrying about others and lost people, while we’re living sinful, hypocritical lives, we need to be humble, seeking God, loving God, and then see how we can make a difference.
08:35 You know, we were in a training for foster parenting, and it was a huge church. In my opinion, it was a huge church.
08:42 I don’t know, 700,000 people went there on a Sunday. That to me is a huge church. And the pastor in there was just sitting in one of the back rows and just being kind and just looked like another participant in this training.
08:55 And all week he was there like that. And I said to my wife, I said, what humility, you know, what humility?
09:05 And it was just this wonderful humility, because most people would have wanted to come in and say, I’m the pastor, and this is my church, and look at me. And he was the opposite.
09:12 He was just a sweet man. And I’d been at that church, I think, 20 years and started a youth pastor or something and worked his way up to senior pastor. And it’s just beautiful to see the humility.
09:22 And it’s that kind of humility, I believe, that will win souls to Christ. And we know that God does the soul winning, that we simply plant the seeds, but that we’ll plant a good and fruitful seed.
09:33 Because if we’re obnoxious, what can we do, right? You know, we have to tell people in a loving way what is happening, right? As Jesus told the Pharisees very clearly, we need to tell the lost that if they don’t accept Christ as Savior, they’re headed for a real hell.
09:52 And that’s not a popular message. But we need to pray to God that he’ll open their hearts to understanding. Acts 16:14, in a certain woman named Lydia, seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us.
10:09 You might remember us talking about purple here on this channel, on this show. Not long ago, we spoke about Phoenicia, about Tyre, and about that purple dye. And so here we have Lydia from that area there.
10:21 She was a seller of purple, and she worshiped God, and she heard them. Acts 16, 14, here’s the latter part, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things that were spoken of Paul.
10:35 So God opened Lydia’s heart so she could understand the apostle Paul.
10:41 And we need to ask God to open the hearts of the lost, those that don’t understand that every idle word will be judged, those that don’t understand that there’s an imminent destruction coming to those that have rejected God’s free gift of salvation,
10:55 those that don’t understand that it’s time to stop playing church, and it’s time to stop saying one thing and doing another. We need to look at Christ as our model. Christian means to be Christ-like.
11:04 What did Christ do? He modeled this behavior, did he not? He was humble beyond humble, Amen.
11:11 Out of his heart came truth. He saw the town and the city, and he wept because he cared for them, and he didn’t want them to face a destruction. And he told them in love, think about it.
11:22 If someone called you and your marvelous works a devil while you were simply trying to help and show forth the power of God, you may want to rebut them and argue with them and call them names, but Jesus didn’t do that.
11:39 He simply said, look, what you’re doing is going to line up with a judgment that you’re not going to like, that every idle word that you speak, okay, what does it mean to be idle?
11:49 It’s like those little words are just shooting a breeze. Be careful when you shoot the breeze.
11:53 So what can you do? You can commit to number one, seeking the Lord, getting in His word, understanding what’s happening.
11:58 It’s hard to witness to someone if you don’t understand the gospel and you don’t understand what’s going to happen in the future. You don’t have to understand everything, but understanding the Lord’s return is imminent.
12:08 That’s very important. So number one, understanding. And then number two, modeling the behavior in your life and through having a good heart about you, because the scripture here says that out of the heart proceeds the good treasure from the good man.
12:22 And so we have to have our hearts right with God. And if we have unconfessed sin, if we have lives that we, you know, bitterness in our hearts, if we haven’t forgiven our brothers or sisters, we need to get all that right before God, okay?
12:36 And he can make it right. And you may in your head think this is going to take a long time.
12:41 It may not take but a minute, amen, to go to God humbly and ask him to forgive you. The Bible says he’s faithful and just to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
12:48 You know, you got a problem with a brother or sister, you know what, they’re out of town or something, call them, text them, get it under the blood, amen.
12:54 Tell them, hey, I forgive you, okay? You don’t have to be best friends with them. You don’t have to spend a bunch of time around them. That’s for another message.
13:02 But the point is, forgive them and earnestly mean it and ask God to show you if you’ve forgiven them, right? Ask by the work of the Holy Spirit, Lord, have I really forgiven them?
13:12 Do I hold some kind of bitterness? And I believe the Lord is faithful. He’ll reveal it to you. And then once you’ve done that, now your heart’s right with God.
13:19 Now from that, evangelism is going to blossom from that. You’re going to be more authentic. You’re going to have the Holy Spirit upon you.
13:26 You’re going to have more power in your preaching or your teaching or your singing or your community service or whatever ministry God’s put you in.
13:37 Or if God hasn’t put you in a ministry, maybe he’s put you in a mission field at the workplace, at the college, at the high school, wherever he’s put you, you’re going to have more power upon you because you’ve gotten right with God. You’ve understood his plan.
13:48 And now you’re able to tell others about it in a loving way, not an obnoxious way, but a loving way. And then as you do that, the Lord will work. And some of these seeds that are sown, they’ll fall on that hard ground and they won’t grow.
14:01 But some of them will fall on fertile ground and they’ll grow and they’ll spring forth and they’ll be fruit brought to the Lord because of what you’ve done. Amen. Oh, how exciting that is.
14:10 Amen. To win a soul to the Lord. The Bible says those that are wise win souls.
14:19 Amen. So you’ll be a wise person and there’s so much else to it. But for lack of time, I got to stop here.
14:23 Tune in next time as we get to the third part in this three-part series on what God is doing through the judgment and how we are to live this life. Thank you for listening.
14:27 Take care. God bless and Amen. Ctrl+bCtrl+iCtrl+j
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