Race to Maturity

People have said that my father's generation was the greatest generation. People say that yours is the worst. Theologically, that's incorrect. We are all sons and daughters of Adam. We were all born with the same corruption.

But what I will say is this, in my scant knowledge of world history, I would have to say that there has never been on the face of the earth a generation more bombarded with deception. As a matter of fact, when we look back at the Tower of Babel, it was a judgment. But you have to understand that even in the judgment of Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, there is an element of divine mercy. How was mercy shown at Babel? God divided the nations.

They had different voices, different languages, so that they could not intercommunicate. Which meant that they were separated. So, let's look at it this way with regard to a human body. If my hand has cancer, that's a horrific thing, but we could cut off my hand and then I'm saved. The rest of my body is saved.

And in some ways, that's what happened in the Tower of Babel. The nations were so divided that if one fell into corruption to the point of Romans one reprobation, well, they were separated from the rest of the nations. But now we see something of a recreation of the Tower of Babel. So that some reprobate filth that is spawned in Hollywood at eight o'clock in the morning will be around the world by 12 o'clock noon. Also, you're bombarded with information, information, information, information.

And yet most people are not giving the skills to practice discernment. The systems of logic and such that built the Western civilization as we know it are all but destroyed, even the simplest things, such as the law of contradiction, of non-contradiction. And so what you see now is a perfect case scenario for evil. We are not a thinking people. We are not a quiet people.

We are not a people who are well read in Scripture or even the classics. And so what we've done is what even secular philosophers prophesied 50 years ago has now happened. It is a new dark ages. I was asked a while back, you know, about sending children to public school, and I said, No, no, no, stop. You have to understand something.

When I went to school as a little boy, remember my teachers, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance and we prayed in my school. So even though there was an abundant supply of evil, even in my era, today, to send someone to public school is simply to send someone to a pagan temple. Just a pagan temple. And so there's never been a generation, I think, like your generation, because the evil is so global, so pronounced. I've said this many times in prayer to God interceding that there was a time when in many nations in the West, your son's name was honored.

And then came a point where your son's name was blasphemed. Now, it's not even worthy of honorable mention. Not even on the lips of his enemies. But here's the thing, in the midst of a first century darkness, you have the opportunity to live like first century Christians. But then, how will you live?

How will you live? I want us, We're going to go around before we get to our main passage. I want us to first of all go with me for a minute to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 11. Verse 13. Verse 11.

Now, this text has to do with virtue, not getting lost in the trivial, but being mature. And the greatest sign of maturity, of course, is love. But it has application, much broader application. He said, when I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things.

So here we see something. Just like when it says in the Bible, God created them man and woman. We have a foundational principle. There are men and There are women. Another text that we could pull from, 1 Corinthians 15, act like men.

That means men act a certain way, women act a certain way. They respond differently to things, And it doesn't make one more right than the other. They're just different. Created that way in the image of God. Here we see something very, very important, is that there's a difference between a child and an adult.

Now a child is a beautiful thing. I'm 61 years old and I have a daughter who just turned seven. And everyone says to me, she's, that's a beautiful granddaughter you have. And I say, well, she is my daughter and she is grand, so I suppose that, yes, that's good. It's my granddaughter.

It's a beautiful thing for me to walk in the park, or even across the parking lot, holding my daughter's hand because she's seven years old. But It's ridiculous, even a bit disgusting, if I'm walking in the same park, walking across the same parking lot, with my 21-year-old son who is 6 foot 5. There is a difference. I relate to them differently. Now, you young people need to understand something.

Again, I want to iterate that you are not more corrupt or more lost than any generation, but you have been bombarded with lie after lie after lie. It's got to the point where actually, well, let me share something with you that happened to me in the university many, many years ago. This guy was discipling me, and I looked up to him, and we had the same psych class. He had it the hour before me. I had the hour, of course, after him.

And the teacher was anti-Christ. I mean, literally, he would stand up in front of 500 students and just mock God. I mean, it was unbelievable. Well, one day as I was going into class, my friend was coming out, he was smiling. I said, what are you smiling about?

He says, I love this class. I absolutely love this class. And I said, why? It helps me know the will of God. And I was a young believer, so I'm like, what do you mean?

He goes, I listen to everything that professor says. I write it all down. I do the opposite and I have the Scriptures. That's the culture that we live in. It's not turned right side up, but upside down.

And It's not our job to accept that, to be passive or to moan or to circle the wagons. I suppose little children would do that, but we're not little children. You are called to be men. And women. And you are to pass through the stages of childhood, you are in each one of those stages.

Is delightful, but you can't stay there, But your culture is telling you to stay there. It's absolutely astounding when I look at your culture at how childishness and foolishness and absurdity is exalted. Let me give you an example. A friend of mine one day, an older man, a very kind, very godly man, saw a group of girls in his church, and they were all talking together as a group of about 10 girls, very godly, very serious about their walk. And he just kind of, you know, kind of in a grandfather way jokingly said, well, young ladies, there's a lot of young men here, you know, who love the Lord.

Are you praying? And they said, no. He said, why? And with one voice they said, well, you know, They read their Bibles, they go to Bible studies and they're moral. But we would never entrust our lives to these young men.

I mean, they hang out together when they get a little extra money, they buy Nikes or a video game. They're little boys. And so you see, you can be a Bible reader and you can be moral, but you have not taken upon yourself the mantle of manhood and you are to do that. With an urgency. You are to do that as quickly as possible.

When I look at Western civilization and I see young men who went off to war in World War II, 18 years old, Some of them lied about their age, 16, 15. I've met men in the Agua Duna tribe in Peru who when I would talk to them, you know, see a young guy, 16 years old, and find out he was married. He built his own hut and had his own garden and was a good hunter. Now, what you need to see is that everything about your culture is wrong. And it's over the last probably five or six decades, it is just pecked and pecked and pecked and pecked until now the dam has entirely, well, it's broken.

One time in Peru up in the mountains, I was in this one village. And these villages have heifes, Bosses, chiefs. And if they tell you to do something, you have to do it. Doesn't matter who you are. So I was staying there, I was preaching the gospel, and they came in one day and said, you're going to do road work tomorrow.

All day. Gave me a pickaxe. So, get up in the morning. And one of the things that's most amazing, you see men out there and they've got these big pickaxes and they're just slamming away with sledgehammers and pickaxes at these big boulders. You see these women.

And they've got these bars that are about two meters, about this big around, made out of solid iron. And they just stand on top of the boulder like this, lift it up and go like this. Boom. Boom. Boom.

You think, I mean, an hour and a half, nothing's happening. And then all of a sudden the huge boulder just cracks in half. Just relentlessly, relentlessly, and that's what's going on in your culture and it has impacted you far more than you know. Now, I know that some of you were raised far better than I could ever imagine. I know some of you come from faithful, faithful parents.

I want to acknowledge all that, but you need to understand, it has impacted you far more than you will ever know. And one of the things is not necessarily immoral, but amoral. It's an old saying that we have. Difficult times make strong people. Strong people make good times.

Good times make weak people. Do you see? It's time to grow up. It is time to grow up. It is time to grow as quickly as possible.

Not in a ludicrous manner. Not, as Paul said, beating the air. Not running around in circles. But with an urgency and an earnestness, it's time to lay aside childish things. It doesn't mean that we cannot be joyful, it does not mean we cannot play, it does not mean we should, you know, pass over certain stages in our development, it doesn't mean we shouldn't have fellowship and delight in one another, but it does mean we need to get serious.

You are living in a world that is on the verge of destruction, you are living in a culture that is reprobate. Most of you have read Romans one, is that correct? You've read Romans one. You see the sin of sexual perversion and then it goes on from there and you see violence and animosity and and no faithfulness and hatred for one another and hatred for God. A lot of people look at Romans 1 and they go, man, when you see those things, the judgment of God is coming.

That's not true. That's not what that passage teaches. Not at all. That passage teaches that when you see those things. The judgment of God has already fallen.

He's already turned the culture over. Well, why? What greater sin could there be than sexual perversion and all these, you know, taking the very foundations of creation and twisting them and destroying them? What could be a sin greater than that? Oh, if you ask that question, you don't understand much about God.

What could be a greater sin than all those horrific sins that are listed in Romans 1? Well, it's simple. Although They knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks. You see, the biggest sin that can ever be committed is not responding appropriately to God. The one who made you, who sustains you, which to me is absolutely, it's even, it's bigger than creation.

He not only made you, every beat of your heart comes from him, every breath comes from him. Do you not see that? On top of that, it's his own character. Even if he had done nothing for you, he in himself is worthy Of all worship and honor and gratitude. And so now we're living in this culture in which God is not even mentioned.

It's definitely not feared. Where those who believe in God are treated as though they were some sort of prehistoric imbecile. Young people, please understand, apart from some extraordinary act of mercy, a storm is coming. Unlike anything, any of you, unlike anything I have ever seen. Do you wanna talk about counting the cost?

Let's go to Jeremiah for a moment. Chapter 12, verse 5. Now Jeremiah is complaining, I understand this well, I shamefully, even in my old years, I do the same. The attempt to live a righteous life is extremely difficult when you're behind enemy lines in a world that is under the power of the evil one. But look what he tells Jeremiah.

If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses if you fall down in a land of peace? How will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? What is he saying? He's saying, Jeremiah, this is only chapter 12. If you think you've suffered.

Buckle up. You haven't even begun to suffer. If these little afflictions at this moment are getting you off keel, causing you to grumble, weep and moan. How will you stand when the real battle starts? Now I praise God for most of you.

Many of you were raised in godly families, with fathers and mothers who fear the Lord and who loved you. And yet you have to acknowledge your Romans 7 battle with sin sometimes has been tremendous. Your ingratitude, your moping, your moaning, The idolatry, right? Of unmet expectations. What's it going to be like when you can neither buy or sell?

What's it going to be like when you are slandered and accused and abused? What's it going to be like when you have to make a choice between whether you fit in or whether you follow Christ? Or let's go even further, whether you live or follow Christ. Or even worse, because there's something worse than death. It's a life of suffering.

That your life will be nothing but suffering. Will you bail? If you're struggling now, if you're on the line now, if sometimes you're in and sometimes you're out now in these calm waters, what is it going to be like when all of a sudden, for lack of a better phrase, all hell breaks loose. These are the worst of times. These are the best of times.

Again, as a first century paganism approaches, as a first century persecution approaches, the opportunity to live like first century Christians approach. And know this, many of your brethren are already suffering. It's part of what heart cry does. We're constantly working in countries trying to get Christians out of certain places, out of jail, out of that border, across another, into safety, in a safe house, hide them, everything. We have brethren all over the globe.

And so it's don't think it's unusual that I'm telling you, you will suffer. It's unusual that you haven't. Heard a story years ago. Someone asked a Chinese brethren about when did he think the Great Tribulation would start? The Chinese brother answered, We've been going through the great tribulation for the last hundred years.

What do you mean when is it going to start? My point is not to make a point about eschatology, but just to make a point that it is not unusual in the kingdom of heaven when we suffer for the sake of Christ, it's unusual when we do not. Now what must you do? Prepare. Prepare for what?

Prepare to survive? Yes. Survive. But not just to survive. To go forward.

This is not a time for small hearts and tight spirits, shabby little egotistical, I want my best life now kind of Christianity. This is a time to do great things. Heroes are not made in times of peace. There are no acts of valor in calm waters. I don't recall who it was, but a military man on the field, a commander, his man came up to him and said, I believe it was captain.

The enemy is to the north, the enemy is to the south, the enemy is to the east, the enemy is to the west. We are surrounded. And the captain said, wonderful, there's no way they'll get away now. Let me show you a passage that someone ought to write a book about. Because it's been lost, because it seems...

Well, let me just let me read it. Let me read you. And I would guarantee that if I read this and didn't tell you it was in the Bible, some of you would think that I got it from Spartan literature. Look how Paul describes a Christian. Now just listen.

To those who by perseverance and doing good. Seek for glory and honor and immortality. Does that not sound like something pulled out of a Spartan book of war? Of this effeminate, passive, pitiful, monkish Christianity. The kind that does this and cowers.

It's not what we see here. What do we see? Seeking for glory. You know, if this wasn't in the Bible, immediately some of you said, no, we're not supposed to seek for glory, we're supposed to seek for the glory of God. Well, actually, Jesus talks about it being good to seek glory from God, not just seeking the glory of God, but seeking glory from God.

Just look for a moment, just look over at John 5.44. He says, talking to the leaders of the day, How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God. Jesus put his seal on it. And so Paul is not wrong, is he? There should be a sense.

And not just in you men, but in you women. That you desire There's something in you that wants to fight until your name is called. And you drop your sword and you pass through those gates, bloody and beaten, looking for a smile. Well done. Well done.

Judge me. I don't care. I want that. I may long for that more than anything else I long for. I remember, my father was a big man, he was a strong man, he was a scary man.

But I wanted to please him. And I remember, I'd be, you know, in a basketball game, when I scored, I mean, it was automatic. When I scored, it was look up and see if he's looking. That's all I wanted, see if he's looking. I haven't changed.

I haven't changed. And there's nothing wrong with that. And it's one of the things, people say, what drives you? I mean, we could understand you talking this way and living the way you do. You know when you were 26 years old and in the jungles of Peru, but why now?

You're 61 years old. It's the same thing. Every night, throw down my sword and look up. Did you see that? Are you looking?

To seek for glory and honor and immortality. Imagine. In Peru, there's a saying or my friends used to use it, I don't know if it's a national saying or not, but the saying was this, I had a friend, Paco Laus, he would say, Tu vives porque el ares gratis. The only reason you're alive is because air is free. You don't do anything with your life, that's what it means.

Think about this. There are men of extraordinary strength, I love to watch Olympic lifting, it's absolutely astounding, extraordinary strength, and one day they will be so weak, someone will have to lead them to the bathroom. There are women of extraordinary beauty, but it flowers so quickly and then it fades. There are men and women of noble lineage. What have they done?

They've given their entire lives to build kingdoms and nations. That a semblance of nobility. Look at the people who even built this nation. And yet all their effort, some of them gave their own life. All their genius, all their brilliance, all their work, all their labor, everything.

And now look, it didn't last. One regime comes and replaces another, everything turns to dust. There's no meaning. There's no kingdom in this world that you can build that will not crumble. There is no thing that you can chase that will not elude you.

There is no prize that will not rust. There is no beauty that will not fade. There is no weakness that will not die. So why live? Well, if we were in the world, we wouldn't have an answer.

But we have an answer. There is out there an eternal glory, an eternal honor. There's immortality. There is serving a king who is incorruptible. There is living for a kingdom, fighting for a kingdom, dying for a kingdom that will never, never end.

And I'll be honest with you, I want to hang my shield in the hall that is there in heaven. I learned this before I ever became a believer. As I said, I greatly, I feared my father and I admired my father. And when I was 17, my father and I were building a fence for our horses. And we were running wire, which meant we had a roll of wire and a big iron bar in between us.

The roll of wire was hung there and we would stretch out the wire. We were talking about things. I was almost his height. He was twice as broad as me. And all of a sudden, I heard him scream.

I was walking and I heard him scream. I dropped the wire, I caught him, we fell to the ground. He was dead. I worked on him for, I don't know, 10 minutes with what I had learned about CPR and everything, and then had to run across the field, jump across the fence, flag down a car. He's dead.

At that moment, I realized it didn't matter how rich you are, you will die. It doesn't matter how strong you are, you will die. It doesn't matter if you fall in love. She will die. You will die.

Doesn't matter if you build an empire and you're the richest man in the world, you will die. It's all futility, it's all vanity, it's stupid, And if there is a God, it's cruel. And after Five years, four and a half years of drunkenness, sin, and debauchery, anger, Disgust, stupidity. Someone told me about Jesus. Gave me a Bible.

I opened it up one day. It said, Man's days are like grass, As the flower of the field, so he flourishes, but the wind passes over him. He is no more, and the place acknowledges him no more. I got so angry, I laid that on the bed or threw it on the bed. And in a horrific response, I said, thank you for telling me something I didn't know.

My dad was the world to me. He was important. But in his funeral, people were talking about the weather, our sports. When the wind passed over him, he was no more, and the place acknowledged him no more. I was so angry.

Then I went back, I picked the book up. But the love of the Lord is everlasting on those who fear Him. Everlasting. Everlasting. There it is.

There it is. I die. I rise again. I grow weak. I'm raised incorruptible.

I look down with the woman that I've lived with for 40, 50, 60 years. Her beauty gone, her body withered. She breathes her last. I've just sent her on ahead. I'll see her again.

You see, the gospel of Jesus Christ, as one of my friends wrote in their dissertation, the gospel of Jesus Christ is this. With his resurrection, he rips the lid off the tomb and fills the darkness with light. This is what he is, this is what he does. You say, brother Paul, this is talking about growing to maturity. Why?

Because of the hope that is before you. You need to grow to maturity for His honor. You need to grow to maturity. Why? A battle is coming that is beyond what you are right now.

You need to grow to maturity. Why? To serve Him. You need to grow to maturity. Why?

Because it has meaning. An athlete that trains, it's amazing in some countries, they find an exceptionally, for example, in China, they find an exceptionally strong boy at the age of five. They begin to train him in Olympic lifting. They see he's gifted. They're some of the best Olympic lifters in the world now.

But it means the moment they spot him, Everything in his life changes. He no longer eats what everyone else eats. He doesn't sleep like anyone else sleeps. He doesn't go out and play after school. His whole entire life is devoted to one thing.

And when he's 19 or 20, he competes in the Olympic Games and he wins a gold medal. That's not really gold. And then he dies. But look at his life. I've written a book, The Preeminent Christ, and in that I put that if we will just look at certain secular people in certain secular situations, it ought to be a rebuke to us.

A man who will literally lose everything to amass wealth. And yet we can't lose anything to gain wealth in heaven. An athlete who will train for a gold medal that's not gold, and yet we will not train ourselves, discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness, so that when we stand before him on that great day, we get glory, honor, and immortality. Do you see? Oh, young people, don't lose your life.

Don't lose your life. There's nothing you possess in this world that you can hold on to. Nothing, but you can send it all ahead of you. And he is so faithful. I have walked with him for over 40 years now.

Not one of all his good words that he has spoken has fallen to the ground undone. I have contributed nothing to my salvation but my sin and nothing to my ministry but my weakness. And yet he has been faithful. Do I have any regrets? I regret nothing that I have given him.

I regret only that which I have kept for myself. Why are you alive? For what are you going to live? Retirement? Ease of life?

You were made for much more than that. You were made in the Imachode, you were made in the image of God. Of God. You are his son and his daughter. You are to grow into that, into the head, into conformity to his one true son.

Sometimes people misunderstand, They look at me and they say, you know, he's so serious, he's so this and so that, so dark, so always pushing. No, I actually love parties. And I would love to sit by the water for days and just hear the waves. And I love art and music. But one of our founding fathers said this, I must study war so that my son can study architecture, so that my grandchildren can study art.

We are at war. We are at war. We are behind enemy lines. We are in hostile territory. These are the worst of times.

These are the best of times. It's not with a soft pillow that heroes are made. If I had time, in my 40 years, I could go through a list of people that you have never even heard their names. And if I told you testimonies of their great and mighty works, you would not even believe me. Of weak men who enter dark jungles, of women who defied armies.

No, I'm not talking about 300 years ago, 200 years ago. I'm not talking about first century. I'm talking about now. What will you do? What will you do?

How then will you live? Will you live for him? And will you live for his people? You know, God gives us families, but there are all these spiritual lessons in families. I would fight and die for my daughters and my sons.

I would fight and die to defend the honor of my mother and my father. I would think myself a coward To do anything else. And you see, here's what you need to understand, I have mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters in China. In North Korea. In Afghanistan, in the Middle East.

I have family that don't even know their family yet because they have not heard the gospel of their salvation. I am older and and sick. Who's going to replace me? Who's going to replace all those others that I have stood beside or watched? Who's going to enter into the battle and suffer incredible pain, but no joy?

And the power of his presence beyond anything you could imagine. What will you do? We live between two days. The day Christ hung on Calvary, and the day all men will stand before Christ, including us, we live between two days. How will those two days, those two magnificent, terrible days impact your life?

What will you do? Now let me say this, this doesn't mean that everyone is to run off into the jungle or into some persecuted land. Missions. I borrow this from William Carey and I've turned it around a bit. He said, I will go down into the mine that is India, but who will hold the rope for me to go down?

You see, the whole Christian life is either you go down into the well to rescue or you hold the rope for those who go down. That's it. Some are called to be missionaries, some are called to be preachers, some are called to be mothers. I could list a long list of mothers whose sons and daughters changed the world. Some are meant to be fathers, welders, carpenters, doctors, lawyers.

I'm not saying that everyone is supposed to do the same thing, But what I am saying is everyone is to do it with the same motivation, the same passion, the same goal, and with the understanding that everything they do now, because the lid of the grave has been ripped off and the tomb has been filled with light. Everything you do, even the most menial task, changing the diapers of a future missionary. In love and faithfulness, every bit of it has meaning and every bit of it has reward. Passion, because of him who died. Discernment, what does he want you to do?

Hope. Do it with all your might, because every moment of it matters. I hear Christian lecturers sometimes talk about the secular and sacred. Well, It's absurd if you're Christian, there is nothing secular. Even the pots and pans of your house have meaning.

You need to find out what are you supposed to do. But in order to have the motivation to do it in such a fallen and dark world, you're going to have to know him, his beauty, his glory, his hope, his promises. And they will carry you. To be faithful servants of the most high God. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word, and I pray, dear God, that you would use it in the life of these dear people. In Jesus' name, amen. One thing else that I want to say is that if you're here today and you don't know Christ, you don't know Christ. I was raised, my mother who was Christian, took me to school, took me to Sunday school, I prayed a prayer. It's meaningless.

Are you a Christian? Jesus said you will know them by their fruit. Have you lived a life of devotion to Christ? Now, you may say, Well, I thought it was all, you know, grace and faith and had nothing to do with work. Salvation is all of grace and it is by trusting in Christ.

But if you have believed in Christ, you have also been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and that Holy Spirit who began a good work and you will finish it and bear fruit. If I died right now, I would go to heaven. Not because we started orphanages or planted churches or helped the persecuted church. If I died right now, I would go to heaven for one reason. Jesus Christ shed his blood on Calvary.

Jesus Christ suffered the wrath of God I deserved. If I died right now, I would go to heaven because Jesus Christ died for this wretched sinner. I contributed nothing to my salvation but my sin. And I've contributed nothing to my Christian walk except my weakness. He's everything.

He's everything. And if you see your sin and your need, trust in Christ. Trust in Christ. Curse your own self-righteousness. Look at everything you think is good about you and send it on its way to hell.

The person who is saved, they're saved without a shred of self-righteousness on their back. They know that if they're going to heaven, they're going because Jesus did it all. It's not 99 percent Jesus and one percent us because we would fail the one percent. It's 100 percent Jesus and we trust in him. He did it all.

There's only one hero in this story. It's our elder brother. The God, Son, who became a man, who lived the perfect life we could not live because we would not live it, because we hated God and we hated God because we loved our own sin. He came, obeyed God perfectly and then went to that tree. And on that tree, he carried the sins of his people and all the wrath of God, all the hell that should fall on me throughout all eternity fell on him until he cried out, It is finished, paid in full, everything that Paul Washer should have paid in hell, I've paid on this tree.

And throw yourself on him. Throw yourself on him. Sometimes I'll tell people, run to Christ. And if they say I can't run I say walk to Christ if I can't walk crawl to Christ I can't crawl fall you can fall can't you fall on Christ let go of that cliff hanging on to your own righteousness. Let it go.

It's garbage. It's refuge. And fall on Christ because He is faithful to catch you. God bless. Thank you.