Here am I

In this episode of Unapologetic Faith, we discuss the current state of the world, focusing on the recent martyrdom of Charlie Kirk and the broader implications for believers. We emphasize the importance of standing firm in biblical truth amidst societal challenges, the call to share the gospel, and the necessity of prayer for those who persecute Christians. The conversation highlights the spiritual warfare believers face and encourages listeners to declare their readiness to serve God, regardless of the difficulties they may encounter.

Takeaways:

• The current state of the world reflects a war against biblical truth.
• Believers should expect persecution and respond with love and truth.
• The importance of sharing the hope of Christ with others.
• We are called to preach the word in season and out of season.
• The war against good and evil is ongoing, but the victory is already won in Christ.
• Believers must declare 'Here am I' to be used by God.
• Praying for our persecutors is essential to our faith.
• True joy is found in loving and serving Christ.

Transcript

Vernon Phillips (00:01.024)

All right, welcome back to Unapologetic Faith. So we have taken a very long hiatus. It's probably been a couple of years since we actually posted anything. tonight's gonna be a little bit different, or today rather, but I'm gonna be on here and Pastor Vern with me is Laurie. So this is my wife. Laurie. took the words right out of her mouth. So obviously, you know, we're talking about just the current state of world. mean, we look at it see what's happened recently. It's no surprise you've seen an uptick in just people being more bold in their faith and expressing just how they feel with the current state of things, especially one being last week in the assassination or the actual martyr of Charlie Kirk. And we like to think that there's a lot of buzzword around that it's political, it's political, it's political you for those of us who are believers, who are authentic believers and truly believe in Christ's death, shed blood and resurrected life, we know that it's not so much political as it is a war against biblical truth. And that's what I believe. That's what Laurie believes. That's what so many believe. That's why you're seeing just such, I think just such an uptake and people just willing to share their faith. So, I mean, what are your thoughts on that, Laurie? I mean, do you feel that it's more attack on biblical perspective and biblical truth than anything.

Yeah, because when look at Charlie, I what did he do? Like he like people are like, he was so divisive, divisive, and he was, you he spoke hate, but that actually, he spoke truth, right? He spoke against things that that all of us believers should be speaking out against, right? About the the the unborn child, right? At conception, that is a human being made in God's image. And we respect that human being.

Vernon Phillips (02:06.443)

And we want to preserve that human being, we want to protect that human being. And he spoke out against that. was pro-life. But he also spoke out about the biblical truth that we find in scripture of marriage, what that looks like, right? And the significance of marriage is between one man and one woman. And he also spoke about the family and the importance of the family unit and family values. He spoke out against the fact that there's only two genders assigned by God. You're either male or you're female. There's no choice in that. That's how we are designed, how we are made. So it's absolutely an attack on the faith. It's an attack on Christians. It's an attack on the faith. It was an attack on His faith and what He stood for. We shouldn't be surprised. When we read Scripture, it tells us what's going to take place in the last days. The Gospel is foolish to those who are perishing.

So we shouldn't be surprised when people don't understand or people come against us and hate me and they don't know, they just can't grasp why we would believe what we believe. But as believers, we can't expect lost people to act any other way than lost people. But we should expect believers to act a certain way and we can speak out against what we know to be against what scripture says and against what God has designed.

But we can do it in a way that speaks the truth, but also it's very loving. Right? So we can absolutely have a conversation with somebody and lay out, hey, you're wrong. Your lifestyle is wrong. The way you live is wrong. But we can still love that person. Because what good is it to do for us to point that out, but then to treat that person terribly? That's not Christ-like. So when we jump into scripture,

The first thing I to share is 2 Timothy chapter 3. In beginning of verse 1 it says, But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. Where people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unpleasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them there are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burned with sin and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of truth." So when we think about these things, it says that we shouldn't be we should be surprised when we look at this I feel like this describes today's pretty clearly you know this that this is in the last days is it is going to be people who are lovers of self lovers of money proud arrogant abusive disobedient to their parents ungrateful unholy heartless unpleasable slanderous without self-control brutal not loving good treacherous reckless swollen with conceit conceit lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. mean, just think about that and think about the things that we've seen, the things that have taken place, you know, with the assassination of Charlie Kirk and then before that, the attack on the train and just unprovoked and just, just evil. Plain evil. And that's what it is. It's just plain evil. All of this is just plain evil. Right?

So what are we to do? What are we to do as believers? How are we to live our lives? We want to live our lives as we're commanded. We're commanded to go out and to share the hope that we have, which is Christ. Because before Christ, we were just like these people who are caught in evil. Before Christ, we were destined for destruction, for hell, just like they were. But God, but God being rich in mercies, He made us alive with Christ.

Vernon Phillips (06:24.339)

And we have that free gift and we're to share that with other people. And oftentimes we just go about our days and we don't share that. We just get stuck in the mundane, the routine. We go over and over and over and we don't ever take those opportunities that God puts in our path just to share the hope that we have, which is Christ. And if you listen to anything of Charlie's, mean, he would always plug the gospel in.

He would always point people back to Christ and always say that he would hope that people would come to know Christ as Lord and Savior. Right? They would have that life change. And when we look at his life, if one person comes to know Christ from his death, then I can almost guarantee you wholeheartedly he would say that it's worth it. Right? And that's the same for me and that's the same for Laurie. I don't mean I don't want to speak for Laurie, but.

They say his aim was to make heaven crowded. Yeah, his aim was to make heaven crowded. Is that when we talk about ourselves as believers, that our aim? Is that what we seek to do every day is to make heaven crowded? Most of us, we just think about ourselves most of the time and we all get in that place. But we're to preach the word. We're to be ready in season and out of season.

Later on in 2 Timothy, you see in chapter 4, beginning in verse 1 it says, and I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ, who is the judge of the living and the dead, and by His appearing in His kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will...will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teaching to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into this. As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Vernon Phillips (08:52.329)

I mean, that's what we're called to do. We know that in the last days there's gonna be all of these types of things we're gonna face. We're gonna face persecution, we're gonna face suffering, we're gonna face people that hate us because of what we believe, but the word of God is clear as to what we're supposed to do. And it says that we are to preach the word, to be ready in season and out of season for reproof, for rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

And then again reminds us of what we're looking at. says, the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. They will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off in the midst. That's where we're at. We're at so many people that are seeking to find their truth, right? But their truth is to suit what they want what they selfishly want in their sin. They want to look at the Word of God and want to pick out things that, know, that suits me in this time, it suits me in that time. But the Word of God is living and active, right? And it will cut through our sin, will cut into our heart, and it will convict us of the things that we continue to hold onto day in and day out, that we refuse to lay down before the Lord. But as believers, we are called to be ready to preach the word in season out of season. Because we are going to face that persecution. We're going to face people that do not want to have sound teaching. They do not want to listen to that. You know, I was scrolling through social media earlier today and my brother shared a passage in Acts. And I want to share that because he had a very good point when he laid it out just about what was going on and he was talking about Stephen and the stoning of Stephen. And he said, you know, this is what it's about. He was talking about it's not political, it's not about this side or that side. It's about good versus evil. It's about biblical truth versus what culture is spewing and trying to push. Right? So in Acts chapter seven and verse 54, right? Because Stephen was speaking out against the culture in that day, much like we see happened with Charlie, right? He was speaking out against what culture says is right and what culture preaches to be truth, which we know is not truth because it goes against the word of God. But picking up in verse 24, it says, when they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him.

sounds kind of familiar right? When we speak that truth, when we say things that are biblically correct and accurate, how is that received? It's received with anger, it's received with hate, it's received with people losing their self-control and gritting their teeth and saying just unimaginable things. But then in 55 it says, but he full of the Holy Spirit gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

Vernon Phillips (12:30.524)

He didn't want to hear what he had to say. They cast him out of the city and they stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

What an awesome display, what an awesome testimony that is of somebody who faced that persecution to the point where it cost him his very life. And even at that moment where they were stoning him, were killing him for telling them the truth, for speaking the truth, right? Their ears were shut off and they didn't want to hear, they rushed him, they stoned him. Even in all of that, he asked the Lord to forgive them, not to hold this sin against them.

Vernon Phillips (13:37.221)

Yeah. It is a lot. but it goes back. I mean, just if we jump back up, I mean, one of the last things he says is you stiff neck people uncircumcised and heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did. So do you. Which of the which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one whom you have now betrayed and murdered you who've received the laws as delivered by the angels and did not keep them." Right? So he's speaking the truth and he's saying, look, Jesus was here with you, right? The righteous one came and you didn't receive him. Not only did you not receive him, you murdered him. You killed him. He came to give you life, right? Much like, you know, Charlie was speaking life. He was trying to get people to see and understand. Just like Stephen was speaking that, he was trying to get them to see the life that we have in the gospel.

You don't have to be burdened by your sins anymore. You don't have to be destined for hell. You can confess that you are a sinner and you can acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior. And you can repent. You can repent and you can be made new and the old self can die and you be made a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's where we're at. It's not political. It is a war against good. That's what it is. It's a war against the gospel. It's a war against truth.

Vernon Phillips (15:18.353)

But the thing is, is for those of us who are believers, this war has already been won, right? There's battles that we face each and every day. There's battles that we're going to face throughout our lifetime. know, until either Jesus comes home or until Jesus comes or he calls us home, we're going to be facing these battles. So we might lose a battle here, win some battles here, but the war's already won. Jesus Christ is already victorious. He's already defeated death. And he's sitting at the right hand of the Father.

And the wrath of God is just being held back right now. But how long will it be held back? How long will God endure a wretched sinful world?

Vernon Phillips (16:06.009)

That's the question, right? so it leaves us that what are we to do? Believers, what are we to do? And I read last week and I'll probably pronounce it wrong. But somebody let me borrow this book. It's 52 Hebrew words that every Christian should know. And one of the first ones is hineni or hineni, hineni. I don't know. Hineni, we're gonna go with hineni, okay? Which means here am I, right? Here am I. So we look at where we're at right now. This is what we have to ask ourselves, right?

It says, you ever feel run down or like life is falling apart? Abraham, Moses, and other heroes of the Bible faced tough times. And there's a Hebrew word that sums up the faith they had in those moments. The word is hineni, which literally means here am I. Hineni is the way that people would declare to God that they were present and ready to be used by Him. Even when things are falling apart and your faith is being tested.

Hineni is Abraham choosing to follow God even when he was asked to sacrifice his son. Hineni is a trembling Moses standing in front of a burning bush and being told to face the biggest fears and to do something beyond his comprehension. Hineni is how you tell God that you are ready to do whatever he asks in whatever situation he has placed you in. Hine is more than a simple statement a declaration that you are prepared to follow God and step into the future.

Vernon Phillips (17:51.32)

He has planned for you, regardless of how uncertain that future may be. Do you feel rundown today? Do you feel like things are falling apart in your world? Are you unsure of the future? This is when God asked you to declare hineni that you are here and you're ready to follow him no matter what. Are you prepared to stand before the Lord today and say to him, here am I? Because when we look at what's going on, like that's the question, right? We ask ourselves, well, what are we to do? What are we to do? Here am I, right? This is at this point where we as believers stand up and we say, here am I. God, use me in whatever way you see fit.

May your will and your glory be done through me. Take away my selfish desires, take away my selfish pride, take away what my agenda is, put your agenda on my heart, and you use me here and I. And I think that's where so many people are, and think that's where we need to be. And I know that there's so many questions, well, what does that mean? mean, what if God asks me to do something that I'm not equipped to do? Well, good.

He'll equip you, right? Because the truth is that most of us are not equipped to do what God's called us to do anyway. That's what gives us the ability. Then we rest in Him, right? We seek Him and we find that strength and that encouragement in Him to do what we're called to do.

Vernon Phillips (19:22.232)

But I know that, you know, in church this morning, like there was, you know, we sang a hymn this morning. I think that it just really resonated with a lot of people, but I know it resonated with Laurie a lot. And she's going to share that with you. And some of the, some of the, she said, it's just a lot of those words just really jumped off the screen to her this morning.

Laurie Phillips

It was written by Martin Luther in 1529.

We're still our ancient foe that seek to work us well and our own strength five are striking and on our side the man of God's own choosing.

Christ Jesus is he. Lord, sabbath his name from age to age the same, and he must win the battle. Okay, it's really heavy right here. And though this world with devil spilled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him, his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure.

Vernon Phillips (21:22.123)

Read that last part again. Listen to this especially with recent events.

The body they may kill but his truth abideth still.

Man is that not just profound and just so accurate I mean you see it in the case of Stephen I mean you see it in case of Charlie you see it in the case of anybody who's been who's been martyred for their faith I mean you see it in Christ's death on the cross right.

The body they may kill, but his truth abides still. His kingdom is forever. That's the hope that we have. That's the hope that believers have. If you've acknowledged Christ's death and shed blood and resurrected life, if you've acknowledged that you're a sinner and you've called upon his name, and you've repented of your sinful life, and you are now made a new creation, man, you are now an heir in family of God. You are now part of that kingdom. And that's my desire. For anybody who doesn't know, Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. I know that's Laurie's desire.

Vernon Phillips (23:16.61)

It's for their best interest because we know that true joy is only found in...loving Him, serving Him. And you know, in knowing Christ as Lord and Savior doesn't mean that everything in life's gonna be great. I mean, we saw that last week, right? We saw that last week with Charlie's death. It doesn't mean that you're going to be spared of persecution. It doesn't mean that your life is going to be sunshine and rainbows. I mean, even Christ says, they killed me. What do think they're going to do to you? mean, and then you look at the life of Paul, and if you're not familiar with this, the very person that was standing there, that they were laying their garments at the foot of the man that was there was Saul, who later becomes Paul, right? So Paul, before he became Paul, right, was an intense early church persecutor. I mean, he was out to persecute and kill believers until he met the Lord. And the Lord pursued him, called him, changed his life. And he went from early church persecutor to one of, aside from Christ, probably one of the most influential people in the New Testament. I mean, he wrote half the New Testament. And we just see the change in his life, right? And it was evident and it was clear and he faced a lot of persecution he faced a lot of hardship he was shipwrecked was snake bitten he was in prison he left for dead he was beaten

Vernon Phillips (25:05.245)

Ultimately, he was martyred for his faith.

He lived his faith.

Vernon Phillips (25:15.743)

the body they may kill but his truth abides still and his kingdom, endures forever, endures forever or it lasts forever. Either way we know that Christ's kingdom is going to be forever and ever. So that's my hope is that hey if you don't know Christ, Lord and Savior seek him, fall before him, acknowledge that you are a sinful person, repent from your sin, acknowledge him as Lord and Savior and allow him to work a change in your life. You know what's really encouraging is the conference that we see from Saul to Paul. mean nobody has, nobody's too far gone has said too much for God. Like his blood really covers every sin. Yeah.

It's a perfect example because Saul was killing and persecuting Christians and God could save him from his sins.

Vernon Phillips (26:19.998)

Yeah, and this morning, you when we had the church, our pastor actually, you he brought up a good point and.

And I think there's a lot of people that probably are not at this point, especially believers not even thinking about this where it says, you know, a broadspectrum, I says, your scripture tells us to pray for those who persecute us. Right. And we're to pray for them. We're not the curse then. So he made the point is like, what if we were praying for the young man that killed Charlie Kirk, praying for him to come to the knowledge of Christ as Lord and Savior, right? That through all of this somehow that he would acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior and his life would be dramatically changed. And what a testimony that would be. And I just wonder how many of us actually even thought about that? How many of us automatically went right to, I hope that guy gets a death penalty rather than let's pray for his salvation.

Vernon Phillips (27:23.592)

Bit more than that though, of course we've seen countless people.

Vernon Phillips (27:32.447)

Pray for them too. Right, because that really describes where we're at as a culture, right? That the depravity of our current culture is that people will take to social media and they will publicly celebrate the death of somebody. Somebody who was assassinated, who was murdered, who was martyred, they would publicly take to social media and they would celebrate that.

That should break our hearts that there's people out there that are celebrating that. And we should be praying for them. So I encourage you, the next time you see somebody share something and like, let's make this person famous. This is what they said. And they usually throw their name out there, know, whatever it may be, and go ahead and take a moment and pray for that person. Pray that the Lord would use that opportunity to speak truth into their life.

Because that is us coming before the Lord and saying, am I, use me. That's where we are. We're right here at this time and place where we can go before the Lord and tell him, here am I, use me. And allow him to use you right where you're at and see what he's gonna do.

Vernon Phillips (28:51.453)

and now is the time to be bold? Yep, be bold. So I've got a saying that sometimes I kind of tag on to some of the scripture I post or something I'll say and you know, live for Christ or die a coward. I that's really our choice. If we profess to be believers, we can either live for Christ or we can continue to hide in our complacency, our just our mundane-ness.

So live for Christ or die a coward.

Vernon Phillips (29:27.731)

I'm gonna pray. right? But I do want to say this. So we were getting ready to eat dinner and our five year old wanted to pray and he just not... He normally doesn't pray. He doesn't. Yes, our three year old, always wants to pray. Right? But he requested to pray and he prays and he thanks for the food. And then he unprompted, unprovoked by any of us. Right? He prays he says Jesus he says Jesus I will I will do whatever you ask me to do Jesus just let me know and I will do whatever you ask me to do this is a five-year-old right and our dry yeah we're just sitting there like holy smokes because when was the last time that we asked that what was the last time that we declared to me right here am I use me ask me and I'll do whatever you ask me to do. That's a bold prayer.

But a five-year-old can do it. We can do it.

Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for this time we're able to just jump on here. We just thank you for your truth. We thank you for your scripture. We thank you for you being a great and mighty God. We thank you for the salvation that we receive through Christ and the cross. The Lord, we thank you for being a God of great patience. A God that is holding back His wrath.

Vernon Phillips (31:07.837)

Allowing for one more person to come to know you. And we pray for that. We pray for just a reaping. There would be many people that would just go out and just declare your truth, to preach to your gospel, and to just be a voice for you. We pray right now. We ask that you would use this. And we say, am I. And that's our prayer for all believers everywhere, is that they would declare, am I, Lord use me, whatever that may be, whatever the uncertainty is, still use me. We thank you for the opportunity we have just to dive on here and just share truth and just express our hearts. And we ask that you would just continue to work in the hearts and the minds of those that are just wrestling right now with this idea of, there more to life than just this? And there is, there's so much more to life and it's Christ. And we ask that this would just be an awakening in the Christians in America that He would shake them out of their slumber. How easy we've had it for far too long. We thank you for all your many blessings. ask all this in Jesus name, amen. We appreciate you guys tuning in and hope to see you next time. So go ahead and like and subscribe and we'll be back.