Escaping Israel (Part B)

If culture dictates what is right and wrong, what is moral, what is immoral, who needs God? Well, we're seeing them do that. We're watching this happen every day of our lives now. Well, they have launched, they have declared war on everything that is righteous. It is intentional.

It is well planned out, and it is becoming more and more effective. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Gospel of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick continues his study called Escaping Israel in Mark chapter 13. They were totally perverted, twisted to the point of view, say, what? Which is now becoming, or attempts, of course, to reverse it all, to make decency vile and vile things decent.

We'll come to that just a little bit in a moment. We're living through this. But Sodom and Gomorrah, to God, it was not sustainable. God said history going forward is better off without that city and the behavior that was in it, in spite of Abraham's pleading with God to spare the city. God says, Abraham, I have to overrule you here, because this kind of wickedness must be arrested, because if it is not arrested, not stopped, arrested.

If it is not, it will spread to the point where humanity will not be able to sustain themselves. The wickedness goes that deep. The sin was so brazen, the people were so intractable, that nothing short of divine judgment could halt the spread, and that is what happened. Today, now, we've talked about Genesis 6, which led to the flood of Noah. We talked about Sodom and Gomorrah, which led to its being wiped off the first face of the earth.

Again, that lifestyle had nothing to give humanity, except short, twisted pleasures. And you say that today, and you risk being persecuted in a very serious way. But the culture today is globally, not every single person, but globally becoming more and more Satan friendly and Christ intolerant.

And we see it happening. And again, it's not sustainable, because with this rejection of Christ comes immorality. And immorality is harmful to humans.

And immorality is defined by God, not by humanists, secular humanists. And so we have the LGBT recruiters, not enough that they live this lifestyle, they're going to get you. And you young adults, you are the most, or you young Christians, you are so susceptible to this move. Satan hates your guts so much. He hates you just as much as he hates me. And he's not going to come and stand in your face and say, I hate you. What he's going to do to take you out is to get you to move away from Christ. That's all he has to do to make his hatred work against you, to damn your soul. And now he has got people in their sexual preferences out trying to recruit people to join them in their stampede towards destruction. It's heartbreaking.

We don't hate them for this. We see beyond the people. We see what Satan is doing, but we also see that the people are serious opponents and very dangerous. The transgender Frankensteins, that's what they are, Frankensteins. The whole thing of Frankenstein was to create something from the dead that ended up being a monster. That ultimately doesn't survive. Unfortunately it transfers from fantasy into reality.

They give, again, nothing to mankind except malfunction. And if you're ignorant and if you're gullible, they're going to get you. If you find that the world is more fun in Christ to the point where you begin to leave Christ, they've got you. And you'll have no one to blame but yourself. As much as you want to blame your pastor, your parents, your church, or whatever else, it will be you. One of the awful things about hell is you, whoever is in hell, will be there by their own choosing and it will be a lonely place in spite of its multitudes.

Sin remains sin no matter how popular any culture wants to make sin. See, this has to do with the end times. It has to do with biblical prophecy.

It has to do with understanding how am I going to face these things? How am I going to reach people with the truth? Well, the prophecy is truth and the truth is convicting and convincing. Well, it's first convincing, then it's convincing.

Well, maybe, all right, sorry about that. Nowadays, we are stuck instead of geebores and giants, giant geebores, giant power brokers in their cartel. We have these tech monsters who supposed themselves to be godlike but really they're devils. Not because of what they have created with technology but what they are creating because of the technology. The culture that produces great characters is being abolished.

Now this culture will create the Antichrist. It is moving all in that direction and it's ramping up faster. How much of human history lived at the speed of a horse that had its light from oil, lanterns? And how much of history was without what we call modern technology?

Most of it. It wasn't until, you know, the last 300 years or so before man began to find out that, you know, you can get more energy from steam and then harnessed electricity and now look what's happening. It's no surprise that God withheld technology from humanity because we're seeing what they do. And what happens when I say this? What happens when I say we are in a culture that cannot produce great characters but can produce the Antichrist?

What happens then? They scoff. They scoff at that. Yeah, right. Because technology offers us some very wonderful benefits.

It does not mean, and there's nothing wrong with technology in itself, of course, it's what you do with it. 2 Peter chapter 3, knowing this first. You see that emphasis? We miss that, do we not, when we read 2 Peter? When he says scoffers will come, we miss that he said first. These are the unbelievers that will recruit you to their side. Knowing this first that scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lust.

Well, just ask yourself. That's a prophetic statement that Peter is making about the end times. Are they walking according to their own lust? Of course.

Whatever passions they may have. See? That is end time prophecy and it is helpful to us but it is damning to those against Christ. 2 Corinthians chapter 2. Paul, who had to, you know, decadent Corinth, just such an awful place, when Paul writes to the Romans that first chapter, he's living in Corinth.

And so all of that activity that he is dragging into the light is happening outside of his window. I like to think, you know, maybe he just came back from the marketplace and he saw the debauchery and now he's writing to the Romans and he's saying, you know, what these people are doing here in Corinth, they're doing in Rome and everywhere else. And so he writes this to the Corinthians later. He says, to the one we are the aroma of death leading to death. You see, that one is the one that scoffs at Christ, that rejects him. You, to them, you reek of death. That be your judgment because you're saying you're going to go to hell if you don't accept Christ.

That hell is death. Whether they believe it or not, that is the fragrance that they're picking up and that is what they are rebelling against, part of it. Paul continues, and to the other, the aroma of life leading to life. Other Christians are blessed by you when you share that, yeah, I'm a Christian too. I love the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is such a bouquet of promise and of life. So Paul was writing to the Corinthians.

He said, listen, this is how it is. There are those that hate Christ. To them it's the message of death. There are those that love Christ. To them it's the message of life. And these are the days we've been living in from the beginning. It was that way with Cain and Abel.

It goes all the way back. Recovery of this collapsing, now listen to this, recovery of this collapsing culture is not the primary calling of the saints. It is not our first calling to try to rescue America. I'm not saying we should not try, make efforts, it's not primary. What is primary? It's the recovery of lost souls. That's what our primary mission is. And it's a large distance between the two.

It's not a closed second. This is seen in what happens during the great tribulation. The two witnesses that are dispatched from God, the 144,000 saints, are not trying to recover the planet. They're trying to save souls. They're preaching the gospel under fire. And we do well to learn these lessons from them and this comes from the study of end time prophecy. Preaching Jesus in a material or a materialistic world, a world rich with material things, is like sowing seed where the root structures are very dense. And that means getting people saved through the truth is going to meet strong resistance.

Luke's gospel, Jesus said in chapter 8, Now the ones, seeds that is, that fell among the thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with the cares, riches, and pleasures of life and bring no fruit to maturity. If you are a believer of Jesus Christ and God blesses you with wealth, it is your responsibility to say, Lord, what would you like me to do with your money? And you either can trust God to do that or not. That does not mean God's going to say, I want you to give it all away and you will have none and I can't use you anymore, but I've got all your cash. It's kind of reverse prosperity teaching. God takes your money because God wants to be rich.

That's not how it works. God is very much, you just can't do things in a society, in a civilization. We still have some civilization. It's going to go away in the Great Tribulation. But we still have some of it and it's very difficult to do much for Christ without cash. That is just a fact. You don't have to like it.

It's just a fact. You say, well, I'm going to travel to California and preach over there and you live on the East Coast. How are you going to get there?

How are you going to eat? Cash helps. But to be able to be balanced to where it does not morph into greed or anything else. Anyway, sin does not stop being sin, as I mentioned. It does not cease to be sin because it is everywhere embraced.

That only makes it pandemic. When sin is embraced everywhere, you just have it spread everywhere. It doesn't mean, okay, it's acceptable because everybody's doing it. What a dingbat approach to life. Everybody's doing it. Well, it's true with some things, for instance, breathing. You know, everybody's doing it.

I want to do it too. But even that has its boundaries. If culture dictates what is right and wrong, what is moral, what is immoral, who needs God? Well, we're seeing them do that. We're watching this happen every day of our lives now. Well, they have launched, they have declared war on everything that is righteous.

And it is intentional. It is well planned out and it is becoming more and more effective. Parents wondering, how am I going to shield my kids from these monsters? And the kids coming, they're not monsters. Yeah, they are.

Get close enough to them and you can, anyway, I don't know, are you teens getting this? Have you gotten it already? Do you need a refresher course? What part of this is difficult to understand? What you have to fight out in your own heart is who's going to win, the fun of the world or the truth of God. Fun will always out-fun Christianity.

It will always do this with great destruction. I mean, even in ancient, you know, the ancient world, the Romans and the Greeks, the adults had the, you know, you had the Stoics and the Epicarians. You have some, I'm just going to live life and love everything in it. And you have the Stoics, you know, nothing is good that is fun.

I mean, just the craziness of it all. You are expected to be smarter than those duped by Satan, especially if you go to a good church. If you go to a good church, there's even a bigger target on you. Why does Satan have to fuss with people that go to a church and never hear the word of God?

He's after the ones that are hearing the word of God. I'm so sick of it, I can't tell you. But God tells me, you don't have a right to be sick of it.

Get back in there. Christ who loves you will fight for you if you want. Now we turn our attention briefly to these domino churches that are falling into heresy like dominoes because the Internet is just hauling the chili for them. All of the heresies are now just instant. You don't have to go to the library and read a book.

You can see a two-minute video on something that is full of baloney. Heresy does not become acceptable to God simply because it has been embraced by churches that use his name. It's like, oh, the church believes in that stupid stuff? Okay, God must believe.

No, it doesn't work, not like that. When churches embrace heresy, it becomes apostasy, and apostasy is the falling away. And it is as though they were worse than not hearing the gospel, but hearing it, having it, then rejecting it.

What hope remains? God's word does not cave in to those in conflict with its demands. If you say, I don't like what God is saying, he's not going to change it. But you can change, and you can join it. And you can then become like all the other believers who are trying to serve the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

You can then say, I get it now, and this is much better. This is much better than kicking against the goads as Paul the apostle did when he persecuted the church. He really thought he was right. He could taste the hatred. The Bible says Paul, or Saul at that time, still breathing threats of violence, wreaked havoc on the church. He hated Christians so much, why? Why did Paul hate them on a whole new level than when he first came in touch with Christians? Because of one man, Stephen.

Stephen got up in Paul's face with the truth that he was not ready to take. And Paul never forgot it. And when he got saved, he used it.

And he would spend his life preaching what Stephen preached, because now it was what Paul believed, too. This culture is fighting to make God's morals obsolete, obsolete, no longer, you know, just defunct, out of style, to Satan's delight. Let's understand, Satan hates the people that hate Christ. Don't think that because people hate Christ that Satan loves them.

He loves using them. He hates all mankind. And so here's this culture that we're in, trying to reverse everything. Isaiah called it 700 years, over 700 years before Christ came. Isaiah chapter 5, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness. They were doing it in his day. Isaiah would come along and say, this is the Lord according, here's the law of Moses, don't do this, don't do that, it's bad for everybody.

And they would switch it around. No, this is actually good for each other. Stealing is good, if it helps. Helps who?

Not the one stolen from, it doesn't help them. Their insistence that judgment is untrue seals their doom. And that's what they think, that I don't believe it, it's not true.

Okay, you're fine then. There's too much evidence, there's too much scriptural prophecy. And knowing it and being able to draw it out. I have noticed when I've used prophecy on some unbelievers who are adamant about their unbelief, they don't want to hear it. They want to shut me down on the prophecy. I could talk about Christ and his cross, I could talk about sin, but when I start talking about the facts of prophecy, no, they don't want to hear that.

Why? Because they can't dispute it. Look, the Bible called the cashless society long before there were credit cards. Long before there were bitcoins.

Long before these things. It said this is what's going to happen. It said the day is going to come when you can't buy or sell without being plugged into the government.

Barter systems will be done. Bible called. And there's this many other such things. John's gospel. For those that are trying to make sin honorable, they're even trying to make it honorable to God. By taking their perversity into churches and flaunting it. You can go to a church and you can have someone that is totally steeped in perversity and everybody knows it and they're calling this wonderful.

John chapter 15, verse 18. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you because of that aroma, that fragrance that's coming off the believer. Simply for not agreeing with a Lucifer-bloated society. That's why you'll be hated.

Because you disagree. Just go to the office place, stand around the cooler and say, now I think that's sick. And watch what happens to you. Demonically. Stuff. We have far-graw humans. You know, they've taken the goose or the duck and they force-feed it until the liver becomes bloated and then they butcher it after they of course kill it and serve the liver. Far-graw. What is that from?

It's from a goose or a duck that we force-fed. That's what Satan and Antichrist are trying to do to us now. So Jesus warns.

He says these are climactic times. When you see that temple built and you see it defiled, you understand that the end is coming. They're going to have 1260 days of persecution from that point forward. And so Luke's Gospel, chapter 21, Jesus said, and you will be hated for My name's sake. He's not talking just to the Jew. The Jews are hated because they're Jews. We know Satan hates them because the Jews are the people chosen by God to produce Messiah and many other promises surrounding that event. But the Christians will be hated. The believers will be hated. Verse 13 now, we come to our text this morning. Let him who is on the housetop not go down into the house nor enter to take anything out of his house. Now their rooftops in ancient Israel at the time Jesus preached served as our porches, our patios, our backyard decks.

That's where people went to hang out. And he is saying if you're out on the patio and you're listening to the radio, well, I don't know if anybody has a radio anymore. You're listening to your smart device and you get the headline. The Antichrist, we won't know his name, they'll know it. We won't be here for that. When they say so and so has defiled the Jewish temple, when you hear that on the radio, don't go back in the house to get something.

No matter what it is. People, you have to catch the urgency here. But you have to instantly realize that Antichrist is a monster, he's not a friend of Israel, and this hatred is unprecedented for the Jews. With this unprecedented hatred and unprecedented resources, it will be extreme, the extermination.

Verse 20, we'll come back to that later. So as the news breaks of this abomination, escape before the checkpoints are in place. Don't hesitate, flee, delay in Pompeii. Pompeii, close to Naples, Mount Vesuvius. Centuries ago there was a very large volcano there that erupted and wiped out the city of Pompeii.

Other places too, boats were coming to their help, many of them got wiped out also. But anyway, archaeologists have found, beneath a skeleton that perished in Pompeii, the remains of a leather pouch with 20 coins of silver in it and a key, which was believed to be his house key. The point is, he took the key, he went back in the house, he got his silver, and he never made it out. So that is just a natural lesson from a natural disaster, but this is a spiritual lesson from an omnipotent God. He says, don't go back.

As soon as you hear the news, you have no time. Global persecution of the Christian and the Jew, of the non-Jewish Christian, will be everywhere. You know, the ethnic Jew cannot, he won't be able to opt out of his ethnicity, but people can opt out of Christianity. The Gentiles can say, okay, I'm not going to follow Christ, and they will of course perish because of that, but the Jews are stuck. They cannot say, okay, I'm not a Jew.

The DNA research is going to be thorough there, and this is why you have the 12,000 from each tribe. They're going to be able to identify, without any doubt, that you're a Jew, and do that now. Verse 16, And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. So if you're at work, and you hear on the radio, he's just done this, don't go back home. This is radical stuff.

This is the time of Jacob's trouble, as Jeremiah prophesied, I'll read that verse later. But how will they know where to go? Okay, flee.

Flee where? Well, some of it will be process of elimination. At this point, smart phones will be very beneficial. They'll be talking with you, those roads are closed, but here's one that's open. And likely, the only roads going to be open will be to Jordan. I don't think Egypt's going to play along.

I don't think they'll make it there. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.