Matt Hagee - The Cure For The Crisis
Christ gives us a very clear instruction here in John 8. He says, "You shall know the truth". And when you discuss truth in our modern world, it's important that you define it because we live in a time where people are doing everything that they can to redefine every truth that they can. Redefine a man, redefine a woman, redefine a family, redefine anything that shows you right from wrong. So, when you're looking for a definition of truth, the Word of God also provides this definition. John 17:17, "Thy word is truth". Say that with me, "Thy word is truth". It's not that we don't know the truth, it's that we don't tolerate the truth we know, and it costs us dearly.
So, let's talk about some of the truths that we don't tolerate. Truth number one, without Christ and his Holy Spirit, we're sinners. There's only two kinds of sinners in this church today, those who will admit it and those who won't, but you say something like that and some people go, "Are you saying I'm a sinner"? No, I'm not that bold, but that's what the Bible says. Go read John's letter to the church. He said, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves". If you say you are not a sinner without Christ in your life, you have walked into self-deception. And self-deception is the worst kind of deception because self-deception is when you have convinced yourself that you're right and the rest of the world is wrong.
And here we have the Word of God telling us that, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins". But then some people in their arrogance and ignorance say, "Oh, not me. I'm not a sinner". Yes, you are. And in that fact, because you are a sinner, you are in need of a Savior. People say, "Well, what sin did I commit"? Go read the Word of God in Isaiah. He said, "We like sheep have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way". Have you ever decided to do anything in your strength and not God's? Or do it your way and not his? That was sin enough to send Christ to the cross where he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him.
James said it this way, "To him who knows to do right and does it not, to him, it is sin". With the Bible's definition of sin, we need to understand that it's imperative that we have a Savior. Not see how much sin we can get away with and still feel comfortable in church, but see how much we need Jesus so that we don't fall into sin. David asked the Holy Spirit, "Search me and know me and see if there be any wickedness in me". Most of the time, we hear the still small voice of the Holy Spirit calling us to repentance, to be closer to Christ, and we say, "Oh, that's judgment, and that's condemnation". No, that's God saying, "Come back to where you belong".
Here's another truth that most people don't want to tolerate. "Thou shall have no other Gods before me". Exodus 20:3. God made it very clear, "Thou shall have no Gods before me". This is what he said to the children of Israel when he brought them out of slavery and bondage in Egypt. He didn't say to them, "Hey guys, you've been 430 years being abused by false Gods. Why don't we take a break from any kind of relationship before you pick another God? I mean, you need some time to recover". No, he dismantled all of the false Gods of Egypt, one plague after another. And then, when he brought them out of Egypt, he said, "Hey, I'm God. There are no other Gods. There's just me. I am your God, and you shall have no other Gods before me".
In this one sentence, he separates himself from every other deity that you could ever be deceived by. Christ explained it and echoed it in the New Testament when he said in Matthew 6:33, "Seek first the Kingdom of God and all of his righteousness, and these things will be added to you". We're distracted by the things that we want God to do. And Jesus is saying, "If you will make sure that the Lord your God is God, you won't be distracted because all of those things, he'll bring to you". In this world, we'd like to have as many Gods as we could possibly pick from, but there is only one God. He is Jehovah God. He is the God of Abraham, he is the God of Isaac, and he is the God of Jacob. He has dismantled every false God at a place called Calvary, where the Bible says that, "He triumphed over them and he made a public spectacle of every power and principality".
You and I had a slave master just like Israel had in Pharaoh. Ours was that serpent of old, the devil. And just as God, through Moses, brought deliverance to the children of Israel, God, through his son, Jesus Christ, brought deliverance to you and i. He died our death. And in his resurrection, he gave us eternal life. Just like Israel saw what God could do, I can tell you today, I have seen what my God can do. I have seen him lift the yoke of depression off of the shoulders of those who were oppressed. I have seen him break the chains of sickness off of those who were walking around in infirmity. I have seen cancer cured. I have seen surgeries canceled.
I have listened to doctors give a death sentence and the power of God turn it into a life sentence. I have seen families that were ruined, restored by grace divine. I have seen addicts who were struggling with something they couldn't shake set free, because whom the son sets free is free indeed. I've listened to enemies who were walking in accusation silenced by God. I've looked at weapons that were well-formed, not prospered and broken by the protective hand of God. I've seen doors open that no man could open, and I've seen a way made straight that no man could make. I've seen mountains move that only my God could move and felt his gentle touch in an hour of chaos. I've heard his still small voice when the world around me is falling apart.
I've felt his loving embrace when there was no one else to hold me. And I can tell you, heart, soul, mind, and body, my redeemer lives. There is no God like my God. And yet, in this nation, we serve many Gods. We fit the description of 2 Kings 17, where it says, "They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own Gods". That means that when it was time to go to the tabernacle and give the sacrifice at the altar, the children of Israel did it. It looked good, but it wasn't good because when they went back to their own homes, on their mantle, there with Jehovah, they had a bunch of false Gods. And God said, "You will have no other Gods".
Now, we may not idol worship like that, but we still serve other Gods. We come to church on Sunday for an hour and a half and then live the other six days of the week as if God doesn't exist. We worship sports stars. We worship movie stars. We worship rock stars. The other day, over 110,000 people gathered in kyle field to watch the one they call the king of country. And everybody knows who he is. He's George strait. I know some people who were there, I wasn't there. If it had been on Friday night... Nevermind. And I found it ironic that that many people gathered for that many hours. And one thing that I heard throughout the descriptions of the evening was, "Oh, the concert was great, but the encore".
And I went, "What"? "Well, yeah, he sang all of his great songs and then it was over, and everybody was cheering. And then, he came back, and he sang some more songs". And I just had it in my head, like there's a hundred thousand people that are watching the encore of this concert. And they're like, "George strait we love you. Oh, how we love you, you are the cowboy our hearts adore". You mean the scheduled event was over and he came back for more and they stayed? Could you imagine what would happen at church if we got to the end of service and pastor said, "Here's the blessing. You're dismissed". And I said, "Oh, no, no, no, but wait, there's more. Don't lie to me. That's easy to shout about, but it's a lot harder to live out". God said, "Thou shall have no other Gods before me".
Now, why is this so important? Because if we're gonna get things back in order, you have to recognize that when you have God in his proper place, everything is in order. When you put him where he belongs, he takes everything beneath that and he corrects it. You don't have to fix it in your strength, God will fix it in his strength. When you make him your provider, he'll fix that financial burden you're carrying. When you make him your God, he brings his healing power into your life. When you make him the priority, he fixes all of the things in your family that you don't think anyone else can fix. Child of God, what I'm here to tell you is there is no God like Jehovah God. He's the God who sees one thing and he calls it another. If you are sick, he says, "You're healed".
If you're bound, he says "You're free". If you're lonely, he becomes a friend closer than a brother. If you're broken, he'll mend you. If you're hopeless, he'll fill you. If you're weak, he'll strengthen you. If you need him, he will be more than you could ask, think, or imagine. If you're looking for an answer, he said, "Call upon me and I'll answer you and show you great and mighty things that you know not". When you need to describe him, you can't. You just say things like, "He is beyond all that you could ask, all that you could think, and everything you could imagine". He's everywhere all the time, all powerful, king above kings and Lord above Lords. There is none likened unto him.
The quality of your God determines the quality of your life. And I can recommend none other than Jehovah God. Here's another truth that we don't like to tolerate. Jesus is coming, and he's soon to appear. It's something that we often say, but we don't behave like we believe it. Because if we behaved like we believed it, we would act very differently than we do. Listen to what Jesus said to John the revelator 2,000 years ago, as he told him to write these letters to the churches, both as words of warning and words of comfort. In each letter, he repeated it time and time again, "I'm coming quickly". He spoke a word of warning to the loveless church in Ephesus. He said, "I'm coming, and my reward is coming with me". He said this to the compromised church in Philadelphia, "I'm coming, and my reward is coming with me".
And in the final chapter, he said it three times just so you'd hear it over and over again. He said, "To all who read these words, I am coming quickly". Now, if that was 2,000 years ago, how much closer do you think we are today? He said, "When I come, my reward is coming with me". Now, do not be deceived church, when he returns, he is not going to come as a cuddly little baby that you can wrap and put in a manger. He's going to be the king above kings and the Lord above Lords with crown, upon crown. As he returns, there's going to be a two-edged sword in his mouth and a rod of iron in his hand. They will call him faithful and true, and he will sit on the throne of his father, David, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Give the Lord a hand clap of praise.
But here's the final truth that we don't tolerate, and I want you to listen as I say this in closing. If Jesus is coming soon, then today is the day of salvation. We don't like that truth. We often fill in the void of that truth with this lie, "I have more time". No, you don't. Every week of the world there are cars following hearses into graveyards thinking they had more time. And based on what the Bible says, Jesus told his disciples, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man". And you can look at this socially, you can look at this economically, you can look at this culturally. And what you'll find is that the behaviors that they were demonstrating in Noah's time are the same things we're doing in ours.
For example, in Noah's day, the Bible says that men lived to please themselves. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. So, their motto in Noah's day was, if it feels good, do it. You think we live like that today? Absolutely. The Bible tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. And yet, we don't know of a sermon to any congregation that he ever shared. But as a preacher of righteousness, he lived his life in such a way that his behavior was his sermon. When God told him to build an ark, he started to cut down the trees to find the gopher wood.
And I can imagine that as he's cutting down those trees, some of his neighbors came to him and said, "Hey, Noah, what are you cutting down all them trees for"? Noah says, "Well, I'm building an ark". "What's a ark"? "Well, an ark is a vessel of salvation". "Well, why do we need salvation"? "Well, because there's a flood". "What's a flood"? "Well, a flood is whenever the water comes up out of the ground and it comes out of the sky, and you know everybody who's in it is gonna drown". "What's drowning"? I mean, this time they'd never seen anything like it. He said, "Well, drowning is when you die because your lungs fill up with water". "Wow, Noah, that sounds bad". "Well, you don't have to go through that. If you get on the ark. You wanna get on the ark"? "Ah, Noah, I think I've got more time. You're just cutting down the trees".
A few years go by, they come back, and Noah's got the first floor built. "Noah, that's a big boat". "Yeah, but this is just level one. There's two levels left to build". "Really? Why"? "Because we need lots of room for all the people that need to get on this ark". "Well, Noah, why are you building that ark"? "Because whenever the flood starts, everybody who's outside the ark's gonna drown. You don't wanna drown, do you"? "Well, Noah, I don't want to drown. I heard what you said about drowning. I don't know if drowning is gonna happen or not, but I mean, if it does, maybe you just save me a spot, open the door and I slide in". Noah, says, "You want to get on this ark"? "No, I don't need to get on the ark, Noah. I've got more time".
A few more years go by, they come back and there's floor two and floor three. And up at the top, Noah's working on a window. And they said, "Hey Noah, what are you doing"? He said, "I'm putting in a window". "Why are you putting in a window"? "Well, because this is how God told me to build it". "Noah, you still got room on that ark"? "I still got room on this ark. You want on this ark"? "No, Noah, you ain't even got a door on that boat. I don't think I need to get on that ark. I've got more time". A few days later, Noah hangs the door on its hinges and animals start to come just like God said they would. And they start to get on the ark. That same neighbor comes back to Noah. He says, "Noah, what are all these animals doing"? He says, "Well, God brought them so that they wouldn't go through judgment".
But the good news is, is you don't just have to watch them get on the ark, you can get on too. You want to get on this ark? "Nah, Noah. I know that I didn't think you'd get this boat built, but you got it built. And I know that this thing with the animals is kind of weird, but I mean, maybe God's in it. I don't know. But Noah, I don't know what floods and rains and fountains of the deep are, but I just think you're a little extreme in your faith. And I think I have more time".
You see, you hear messages like this and the Holy Spirit's whispering in your ear, "Today's the day. Today's the day. Today's the day". But that deceiver, that serpent of old, the one who wants to keep you in bondage, he whispers in your other ear, "You've got more time. Don't let him ruin everything. You've got more time". Well, here's how it ended in the days of Noah. The Bible says that God told Noah, "Get on the ark, you and your family". And then, once Noah got on the ark with his family, the Bible says God shut the door.
And the second that God shut that door, the fountains of the deep opened up and the flood waters started to rise. And the rains of wrath fell out of the sky. And as they fell, the people who had watched Noah build that ark for hundreds of years, went running as fast as they could, begging and screaming and pleading, "Noah, Noah, open the door. Noah, Noah, this is the flood. Open the door, Noah. Noah, let me in'"! But God had shut that door. Noah couldn't have let them in if he wanted to because they were out of time. What I'm here to tell you today is that today is the day of salvation. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. But it's only when you accept this truth that God has the ability to do for you everything that his word has promised. I'm not trying to persuade you or push you, I'm just here to tell you, this is what Jesus has done for me, and he'll do it for you if you let him.
Will you stand in the presence of God's house? Every one of you with your head bowed and your eyes closed.
Father, search us and know us today. And if there's anything in us that's displeasing to you, with humble hearts, we confess it. We forsake it because you are faithful and just to forgive it.
With every head bowed and every eye closed, you're in this place today and you say, "Pastor, there's something in my life that's out of order. And if Jesus Christ were to come back today, I'm not sure that I would be able to stand before him saved and set free. I don't think I would receive the reward of the righteous. I believe I would receive the reward of the wicked. And I don't want that to be me today. I wanna receive Christ and be set free". If that describes you, and you're willing to say, "This is my day of salvation," I want you to raise your hand right where you are. Just hold it high in this house because I assure you, God knows it and heaven sees it. And the Bible says that whenever one repents, every angel in heaven rejoices. Would you raise your hands? Everyone in this room praying with me:
Heavenly Father, today we come before your throne in the name of Jesus, your son and our Savior. And today, we confess that without you we are sinners, lost and unrighteous. But today, because of you, old things have passed away and we are new. We have been washed in your blood, set free by your grace, and redeemed in your mercy. Thank you, Jesus for this wonderful gift, not only of salvation and everlasting life, but victory over the world, over the flesh, and over the devil. Thank you, God, for the gift of your son, and thank you, Holy Spirit, for giving me the strength to live from this day forward for God my Savior. In Jesus' name we pray and say amen.