How do we live faithfully for the Lord and prevent drifting away?
In this episode, Brody discusses the life of Demas, why people tend to drift away, and how we can stay faithful. Demas was once a co-laborer with Paul on the mission field, but abandoned Paul when he was needed most.
Scripture tells us Demas thought the world offered him something greater than what the Lord provided. People are often influenced by the latest movement or ideology, but these movements don’t last.
However, the Gospel is unchanging. It is eternal and outlasts cultural movements. Let’s hold fast to Jesus and pursue him faithfully.
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
How do we live faithfully for the Lord and prevent drifting away?
In this episode, Brody discusses the life of Demas, why people tend to drift away, and how we can stay faithful. Demas was once a co-laborer with Paul on the mission field, but abandoned Paul when he was needed most.
Scripture tells us Demas thought the world offered him something greater than what the Lord provided. People are often influenced by the latest movement or ideology, but these movements don’t last.
However, the Gospel is unchanging. It is eternal and outlasts cultural movements. Let’s hold fast to Jesus and pursue him faithfully.
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Hey everybody, welcome to no Sanity Required. I want to talk today about gosh man. This feels like a broken record right now, I know, but I feel like this is a topic or an issue that we keep coming back to because it's so important, and I'll tell you why it's so fresh on my mind right now. We're coming out of our weekend of staff orientation and I want to talk about call it deconstruction, call it apostasy, call it turning away, whatever. I want to reverse the emphasis and place the emphasis on let's talk about finishing strong. Let's talk about staying the course. Let's talk about keeping your hand on the plow. Let's talk about not looking back and remaining fit for the kingdom of God. Let's talk about fixing your eyes on Jesus. Let's talk about one foot in front of the other Christianity. Let's talk about the fight, the grind. How do we do it and do it well. How do we do it? And not fall away, turn away, drift away, walk away, develop an apostate heart or mind?
Speaker 1:I don't think it happens overnight when people reject and abandon a faith that they once professed. Many of you that are listening to this podcast today profess faith in Jesus Christ and, sadly and with a broken heart, I would say that you're going to turn away. You're going to reject the faith and walk away at some point. I don't want to say many, but I know there's somebody listening to this that's going to. I also believe I could plead with you, based on the principles we're going to look at today, to implement these things and to heed the warnings and to fortify the defenses and to build an offensive machine of the Christian faith where you're moving forward on the advance constantly.
Speaker 1:How do we safeguard ourself against apostasy? And we're going to look at it through the lens of a guy named Demas. Demas was a New Testament figure who was a teammate of the Apostle Paul. And we're also going to do it in light of the fact that we've just come through our staff orientation weekend and there's a couple hundred folks that are going to serve at Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters this upcoming summer and we're going to do everything in our power to equip them and strengthen them for the journey, not just for the summer, but for the journey of life, 10, 20, 30 years from now, that they stay faithful, and I want that to be an encouragement to you.
Speaker 1:And I also want to talk to you a little bit about our summer staff program, different programs that we offer. I want to talk about the upcoming Respond event, in case you are interested in participating in that, some things that we've got coming up, and I want to talk to you, introduce you to a program at Snowbird called the Element Team. So a lot in today's episode. That's a lengthy intro, but let's get into it. Welcome again to no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
Speaker 1:A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe. Well, we've just come through this past weekend, our 2024 Summer Staff Orientation Weekend, and what that is. We do this because years ago we realized we had a pretty high attrition rate. We would say we had 100 folks committed to come work on our summer team and this was earlier days, so this was back when that summer team was probably 50 people. So say, we had 50 people coming and we would have five people quit during the first week of staff training, or the, the, the days leading up to staff training and the and the first week of staff training. And it was because it was overwhelming to them and the first week of staff training. And it was because it was overwhelming to them. And so maybe 15 years ago for sure, 12 years ago, I think, probably 15 years ago we started doing a staff orientation weekend which is an early to mid-April weekend Try to do it early in April, early April weekend where staff comes in, they're here on a Friday night all day Saturday and then they're done, they leave Sunday morning, they go back to school or home or whatever, and I'd say 90, we have a 90 to 95% participation and they're awesome. They're awesome young men and women, um, and it gives us a chance to meet them in person because they're coming from all over the country. We got kids coming this summer from overseas, we got kids from the mission field. We've got kids from as far south as the bottom end of Florida, as far west as oh, I'm going to misquote it, I don't know how far west we go this year. Last year, I think the farthest West was Texas, which is not that far West, um, and it was East Texas, but sometimes, you know, we're all the way to the West coast, um, as far North as Canada, which is very North. Um got folks from all over, but anyway, they come in and this team that we've assembled will be. Their ages will range 17 to 25.
Speaker 1:Our element team, which we're going to talk about here in just a little bit and we're going to highlight in a future episode, our element team is our leadership mentorship, next generation team, which is and the T, I think, actually stands for training, leadership mentorship, next gen training Um, I think gosh y'all, I should know this. I'm the one that, uh, it's been a long morning, by the way, um, and a long week and weekend over the last about eight or nine days, so, um, but the element team is our. It used to be called servant team. It's high school program. These kids are most of them are juniors and seniors in high school and they come and spend the summer with us in a intensive discipleship leadership training program. It is, it is the number one um pipeline for folks to come into our leadership Institute, which is our year round college program, our, our leadership Institute, which is our year round college program, our FT three program, which is a three-year commitment to work and to have a, a, a paid internship here, um, and honestly, um, a high, a high percentage pipeline into full-time staff positions here. So element programs, awesome, um, awesome. There'll be 40 of those kids, 20 guys, 20 gals, and then two times that many folks will be, about double that many more will be on our summer staff. So all that to say, with our institute, our element team, our summer staff, college age kids like I mean we got I don't have a number in front of me, but there's 150 summer folks on all hands on deck kind of every day, and then another 50 that are in and out of the day-to-day. So it's a big operation and I'm thankful that the Lord has given us a desire to train these young men and young women in a very intentional way, and this goes back to you know. We started doing this orientation weekend to get them in here so they could meet each other face-to-face. We all come together. Like I said, 90% of the folks will be here. It's a strategic weekend with a lot of personal interaction among and between staff members and then they go back, finish their semester in about it's about six weeks five, six weeks and they come back for a two-week staff training.
Speaker 1:The camp that I worked at before we started SWO. I'd worked in or at an association with two different camps and I'd actually volunteered at another one for a week. So I had three different camp experiences, ranging from a couple of weeks up to because the one I worked at for a week. I did that twice, so ranging from a couple weeks up to, worked at one for a couple years and one for three years, and what I learned when we were there that became an early snowbird priority was that the staff weren't being trained real effectively. Uh, I felt like what would happen is that staff would be hired, selected, whatever, uh, then they would be brought in about three days before camp started, maybe a week, maybe a week, but that week would be spent in some training, but mainly like we would do a lot of work projects. So, like I remember having kids come in five days before camp started and we would do half of that time will be spent in actual like preparation for students and the other half will be spent like picking up sticks, picking up trash, weed eating, mowing, re, remulching stuff like that. Well, we don't do that here. We've got a team that does that year round. We're working on that stuff.
Speaker 1:If you've been to swo in the last four years, you're one of the people that's probably made a comment to us about just how beautiful the place looks, what a phenomenal facility it is, how awesome. It's just awesome. Our team keeps this place looking so good and we just came through the cherry blossoms all just peaked and it was phenomenal. Of course, now, old man, winter has breathed back on us and we're freezing again, but we've had some spring weather. It's a beautiful time of year. This place is beautiful. It's an incredible facility.
Speaker 1:We don't need our 150 summer team to come in and weed, eat and pick up sticks. We need them to come in. So we're going to do an orientation weekend and two full weeks of intensive leadership training, theological training, hands-on ministry training, building community. So if you're working and serving in any capacity at SWO and many of our listeners are alum you know that we put a lot into that. We were in a two-hour meeting this morning walking through the schedule for week one of our staff training in May. Week one of two weeks and every day is a maximized use of time where we're training. Again, we work on leadership development, we work on theological training and development discipleship, and then we teach them public communication skills, how to interact, how to be professional. All of that there's a lot that goes into our training and then an intensive discipleship program that continues through the summer.
Speaker 1:We invest in our summer staff. We invest in our summer staff in such a way that we believe they are, um, if we're, if we're investing in their spiritual development and they're being discipled, well then the overflow of that and the readiness that comes with that is going to equip them and prepare them to do an effective job of job of ministering to students. So what that looks like is we don't spend uh, we don't spend the majority of our time training them on how to be a counselor. We teach them how to love the word of God, study it, surrender to it, how to live in community and accountability with other believers. How to, how to, out of the overflow of what God's doing in your life, do ministry there. How to have your identity found in Christ, not in the fact that you're a summer staff member or a river guide or whatever, but to know who you are in Christ and then train and equip, train and equip, train and equip. And that continues all summer through our weekly worship time together, our leadership development each week, our community groups, our fire teams. These are all different facets of how. So if a guy comes in here, a gal comes in here and spends 12 weeks with us, they'll go through a two, two and a half day orientation, a two week training, a weekly time of worship and fellowship that's exclusive to our staff, daily fire team meetings with their small group of four people and then weekly community group meetings, which is two to four fire teams meeting together. There's a lot of personal development that's available and a lot of emphasis put on that for our staff. This is the team that we're then going to minister to students with when the students show up to students with. When the students show up, our full-time team sees our young staff, our 17, 18 to 25-year-old staff. We see them as our number one priority in terms of discipleship, and then out of that they do the bulk of the ministry to the students that come.
Speaker 1:All of that being said, and yet I could make a list right now and call names out loud of people who have been through that, served here with high honor and regard and integrity, have been speakers, leaders, missionaries that are no longer walking with Jesus. How does that happen? How tell me, how does that happen? I don't know that I can make it make sense, but I am going to show you scripturally why it happens. So thanks for tuning in and listening. Um, I want to. I want to. I want to get into this heavy, heavy conversation, um, talking about, uh, how to stay faithful, and I want to use it, uh, use the life of this man, demas. We'll go beyond the flannel graph. We'll look at the life of Demas, we'll learn some lessons and hopefully it'll give you strength for your own journey.
Speaker 1:Strength of grip to hold the plow I'm excited. I've been working on my grip strength because I had a pulled tendon in my right hand, a torn tendon, a flexor tendon in one of my fingers, and and and like frustrated because it it affects my grip. So, being very intentional to try to build that the grip stronger in that hand. And in doing that it's turned into some studies I've done on on people that are like into things like arm wrestling or gymnastics, where these people that have freakishly strong grips, how do you, how do you create a stronger there's? There's this thing called rice bucket training and I can tell you it's intense. I'm loving that and I and I do a lot of hang training where I just hang from a bar for several minutes not all at one time, maybe a minute at a time, for four or five reps and different things like that. And building up that strength. How do we build up the grip strength of the believer so that they might, when the scripture says, hold fast or keep your hand to the plow or take hold of the eternal life, to what you've been called? What does spiritual grip strength look like? I want to consider that today.
Speaker 1:So I want to start by introducing you to this guy named Demas. Now, in introducing you to this guy, demas, I got to tell you. This is just me. A lot of people say they like this NSR podcast because it feels very conversational. So I'm just going to tell you, every time I hear the word, the name demas, or read it, I think of the word dumas from. Not many of our listeners are going to know this, but there was a. There was a band in the 90s called the kentucky headhunters. This was the early 90s, I think maybe mid 90s. So when I hear the name demas I think of Dumas Walker, and it's funny because I'm sure Maddie does not know who Dumas Walker is. She edits these podcasts and we always have fun conversation afterwards and it's like I age myself a lot of times.
Speaker 1:But the Kentucky Headhunters were wild men. I mean, these guys came out when, you know, in the late 80s, country music was kind of getting reignited. I mean you had Randy Travis. George Strait was hitting the top of the charts, garth Brooks came out like 89. And then, going into the 90ss, you had this real country western. I mean it was a. It was a strong genre that had a very defined sound. That's when brooks and dunn came on the scene. If you're a country music fan which don't get me started on modern country music. It's just, I don't even want to talk about it because I, because I don't want to go there.
Speaker 1:But it was like the heyday in my mind of country music and all of a sudden these guys come out, the Kentucky headhunters. And those dudes were like, they had the feel of like a 70 Southern rock band. They had the look of like Leonard Skinner, the almond brothers, and they were crazy and they sung this song. And they were crazy and they sung this song. It was called, uh, I think it was called let's all go down to doomless walkers. I think is how it went. That's what it was called man, that's when music was what it was supposed to be. These guys look like they work at Snowbird Slaw burger fries and a bottle of ski down at Dumas Walker's let's go. I can go there right now. That's about as good as going to the burger basket in Andrews, north Carolina.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if you remember that, but, um, call it stupid, funny, crazy, whatever it is about my brain, but the way my brain works, every time I see the word, the name Demas, I think Dumas and then I think of Dumas Walker. Now I also tell you this uh, my granddad used to call me Dumas, and I'll let you figure out what that meant. Uh, when I did something stupid as a, as a teenager, when I would do something stupid, he'd call me Dumas, and uh, that's. That's another thing too. But anyway, this guy Demas is, is mentioned at the best I can tell Demas has mentioned three times in scripture. Mentioned at the best I can tell Demas has mentioned three times in scripture.
Speaker 1:And when you talk about somebody who the modern word right now that we use as deconstruction, you know, we, every few weeks we do an episode, we, we we cover this topic, we talk about it, we talk about progressive Christianity, we talk about deconstruction, talk about prominent people, primarily out of the contemporary Christian music world, but there's also some pastors, teachers, writers, authors that have kind of gone the path of what's called progressive Christianity. The Bible just called it apostasy, and we're going to get into some of the other words the scripture used fall away, walk away, turn away. But apostasy was the main idea and I I want to use this guy, demas, as an example because, um, I'm I'm talking and looking something up right here, so bear with me because I know some of you can do that, um, and some of you can't. I cannot Um, but I was looking up the the um American heritage dictionary, um of the English language.
Speaker 1:This is the definition of, of, of apostate, and apostate is one who has abandoned one's religious faith. And then it goes on and says or abandon a political party once principles are a cause, and one who has forsaken the faith principles of which he before adhered, has forsaken or perverted one religion for another, or who has renounced his clerical profession. Now, that's the secular definition of apostate or apostasy. But that fits with what the Scripture teaches. And we just, you know, we package things differently in our language sometimes, and sometimes I think, we dumb things down or we try to make it sound less, you know, not sound as bad as it really is. But with this, I think you know, when we refer to progressive, progressive Christianity or deconstruction, I don't have a problem using those words because it gives us some modern cultural context.
Speaker 1:We know what we're talking about, but in the biblical sense it was. It's apostasy, it's abandoning of the religious principles and faith that you have committed your life to and adhered to. So for us, the profession of our faith is that Jesus is Lord. If you want to pare everything down, to simplify, what is the shortest statement you can make to declare the Christian faith and your belief in Jesus? It would be to say Jesus is Lord. What is the profession of your faith? Jesus is Lord. What is the declaration of your faith? Jesus is Lord. What is the profession of your faith? Jesus is Lord. What is the declaration of your faith? Jesus is Lord. What is the proclamation of your faith? Jesus is Lord? As if to call people to that proclamation.
Speaker 1:And so, when we proclaim Christ as Lord, we're recognizing several things about him. We're recognizing that he is God in the flesh. We're recognizing that he was born of a virgin, that he was sinless. We're recognizing that he is the judge, the soon and coming king. We're recognizing that he was born of a virgin, that he lived a sinless life, that he was truly God and truly man, that he was conceived in that virgin's womb of the Holy Spirit a supernatural conception but that she was purely human, she was just human flesh. And that God brought this Jesus as the second Adam, who would be the representative of all who would believe in him. Adam, the first Adam in the garden, is our representative. He represents the human race, and so, in his representation of the human race. When he failed and he sinned, he brought us into a condemned state. So we're born into sin. Jesus is the second Adam, and that he's our second representative. And if we will receive his representation, we receive his righteousness by confessing him as Lord, and in that that is an act of repentance and confession and faith. And Jesus saves us. And so the simplest way to define or describe or explain what a Christian is, it's someone whose confession is that Jesus is Lord, he's Lord, he's Lord, he's God, he's Yahweh, he's the Savior, he's the one who came to condemn sin in the flesh by becoming sin for us. He condemned sin in the flesh and put it to death and triumphed over it. So Demas had made that profession. This guy Demas had made that profession.
Speaker 1:The first two times we see him, there might be a little variation on how he's mentioned and he's mentioned in Paul's letters to uh um, philemon and the Colossians. Now his letter to Philemon um is if. If you're familiar with the scripture, it was a letter that he wrote to a specific person. But if you look in commentaries, colossians and Philemon are always together, so they're almost always going to be in a shared commentary, and one of the reasons is Philemon is such a short, I'm trying to turn to it here.
Speaker 1:Such a short book, it's one page, it's 25 verses. So it's like Jude, um Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother. So this is from Paul and Timothy to Philemon, our dear friend and coworker. So he's writing this letter to this guy, um, called Philemon. Now, um Philemon, at the end of this letter and he's writing the letter, it's an appeal to uh, from one friend to another, both co-laborers for the gospel. It's appeal about a guy who was a runaway slave. It's a. It's a fascinating story.
Speaker 1:But at the end of this brief letter, um, paul says to Philemon um, mark, aristarchus, demas, here's our guy, here's our boy, demas and Luke, my coworkers, we greet you, we send you greetings, um, and then Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ, sends you greetings, and then Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ, sends you greetings. The grace of the Lord, jesus Christ, be with you. So Demas is named among Paul's co-workers. So this team, this ministry team, this missionary team, paul is a part of you got Mark, who is a stalwart of the Christian faith in the early church, a guy named Aristarchus, a guy named Demas and then Luke, who was Paul's stenographer, he was his biographer, he was his personal physician and he traveled with Paul and he's known for writing the books of Luke, the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, which comprise the bulk of like the largest percentage of the New Testament of any one writer. And so this is the company that Demas is in. So in my context it's like Demas would be like someone who had worked at Snowbird on summer. Staff had then become a small group, a community group leader, a fire team leader. They'd stayed in our institute, our internship, they'd gone to the missionary field. We have a young lady that lived with us and served on the mission field for a couple years. After she lived with us for a year, she labored and served and worked at Snowbird and did so faithfully for several years and she is no longer walking with Jesus. Demas is a guy that was on the team. He was there, he was getting it done and he was called a coworker.
Speaker 1:Then in Colossians, chapter four, and these two letters are written real close together, so you got kind of the same team, same dynamic. Both of them were written in the same year. Most, most folks believe um Colossians, chapter four, verse 14, it says Luke, the dearly loved physician, and Demas send you greetings. So Paul, writing this letter to the Colossians, he's mentioned Aristarchus, his fellow prisoner. He's mentioned Mark. He says I mean, listen to this in his final greetings, tychicus, our dearly beloved brother, faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me. I've sent him to you for this purpose. So this guy, tychicus, was bringing the message of Paul to the Colossians, the church at Colossae. I've sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know how we are and so that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming with Onesimus, a faithful and dearly loved brother, who is one of you. That Onesimus story is fascinating.
Speaker 1:That's tied into that other letter to Philemon. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, send you his greetings, as does Mark, barnabas' cousin, welcome him. So does Jesus called Justice. These alone of the circumcised are co-workers of the kingdom of God. So these were Jewish brothers, converts.
Speaker 1:Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. He's also wrestling for you in his prayers so that you can stand mature and fully assured in everything God wills for our testimony. So he's saying all these things. Now I might be reading into this a little bit, but I want to tell you where my imagination goes. Here he's talking about all these people in such endearing terms. He goes here, he's talking about all these people in such endearing terms. He gets down and he says I testify about him that he works hard for you, for those in Laodicea and for those in Hierapolis.
Speaker 1:Luke the dearly loved physician. He's using these words of endearment with all these guys. And then he says and Demas send you his greetings. So it's almost like in Philemon. He calls him a coworker and names him alongside these other guys. Then he gets to Colossians, and I don't know which one came first, so I might be off here, but in the Colossian letter he's like man, this guy is in prison with me. This dude has been faithful and welcomed this guy because he has a word from the Lord. And boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And all of a sudden he gets to Demas and he just says his name. And so it's almost like this guy's here, but there seems to be something different. Even in the way he's.
Speaker 1:He's, you know, introduced or perceived, I don't know, but at any rate he's on the team and he's called a coworker. And then Paul's last letter, the last thing that he writes in his life and ministry is 2 Timothy. And at the end of 2 Timothy, listen to what he says. It's crazy. So, for context, he's in prison, he's in a jail and he's writing this letter to Timothy and he's asking for some things to be brought with him. And he says only Luke is with me, bring Mark with him. And he says only Luke is with me, bring Mark with you. So he's asking him, he's asking Timothy to come see him and bring Mark, for he's useful in the ministry. I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus when you come, bring the cloak I left in Troas with Carpus. So at the end of Paul's life he's putting his house in order. He's asking for a coat, because it's really cold in this jail, this prison that he's in this Roman prison, as well as the scrolls, especially the parchments. He's like bring me my copies of the scriptures and commentaries.
Speaker 1:Alexander the coppersmith did great harm to me. The Lord will repay him according to his works. Watch out for him yourself, because he strongly opposed our words. So he's like this guy, alexander, he did me harm, watch out. So he gives us a warning. And this is where this is where I don't have a problem naming names. You know like in the last few episodes I've named some names of people. I don't have a problem with that because Paul did it. Now I want to be careful that you don't just throw names around flippantly. But there are times in situations where someone might need to be identified as hey, here's a warning against this person, especially if they're a false teacher. And so he's given all of these instructions on hey, here's how you can minister to me here in the end. But before all of that, what he had said to Timothy in second Timothy four nine, he says make every effort to come to me soon. He's like Timothy, I need you to come to me because Demas has deserted me since he loved this present world and has gone to Thessalonica. And has gone to Thessalonica Now.
Speaker 1:This is intense because what that means it's like he's saying he quit because he's in love with this world. Another way would be like, if you really study the way that's worded in the original Greek language, it was like not only was he saying he loves this world. But it's like, um, you know, a lot of y'all know that I love to read um, the new living translation. Um, in there it says uh, demas loves the things of this life. He loves the things of this life. I don't know his situation exactly, but he loved what the world offered and what this life could afford him, more than that which had eternal significance. Because, because he loved this world, he has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
Speaker 1:The wording in the Greek means he literally that he abandoned Paul in his greatest time of need. So it's not just he got disinterested and he just kind of drifted away, it's he abandoned me when I needed him the most and it was an intentional abandonment. The Apostle Paul, he's in prison, he's going to face the death sentence, and then Demas is like I'm out, I'm out. He left in the moment of persecution. And I think that's um, that's important to understand about this guy and how we relate this to people who fall into this same trap, which is what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1:And I want to give you some thoughts from Demas's story on why people, first and foremost, will abandon the faith, and I'm going to do this. We're going to have to come back with a second part. I'm going to do a second part of this, but for today I just want to give you one main reason why Demas turned away, and that you might be warned not to let that same thing lure you away. And it's because it says he deserted me since he loved this present world. He loved this present world, he loved the things of this world. It reminds me of so Demas' reason for turning away was a love for what the world had to offer, was a love for what the world had to offer. The reason listen to me, nsr the reason people turn away from the faith is first and foremost because there's something more alluring in what the world offers than in what Jesus offers in an eternal perspective. There's something in the here and the now. It could be an ideology that would elevate you in this day and age. It could be an experience or relationship, I don't know, but it's something the world is offering Now.
Speaker 1:The scripture speaks to this. This first John, um. First John, chapter two, versus uh. Give me a second. First John two, verses 15. Um, and he actually go through 17,.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, first John two. 15 says do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. So it's important to understand Um, okay, if, if you love the world, then you lack the love of the Father. That's pretty scary to think about, like self-test Do I love the world? Do not love the world or the things in the world? If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride in one's possessions is not from the Father, but it's from the world. And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever. What Demas had fallen victim to and I don't want to use the word victim, but what he had been deceived by in his own flesh, in his own minds, mindset, his own mind's eye, is that the world offered him something greater than what the Lord offered him. It says he was in love with the present world, and I think that this is worth noting.
Speaker 1:People are often influenced by the latest movement, the latest ideology, but the thing is, those movements and ideologies, they, they, eventually they, they die off, they die out, or or they might shift and go in a different direction. Um, there's even, you know, there's evidence of this just in in in our lifetimes. There was a movement called the emergent church in the nineties and two thousands um that died off but then it's reared back up. It just looks different. This whole progressive Christianity, this movement of progressive Christianity it's rooted in the emergent church movement of the 90s and early 2000s. Think of recent LGBTQ trends. They keep moving the goalposts on that.
Speaker 1:If you look at the progressive fight for women's rights in the seventies, the rise of feminism, and now there's tension between that movement and the transgender movement. But it would seem like they were from working in like, like, like uh. Culturally, you know, speaking they seem to be progressive, liberal movements, but now they're at odds with each other because the trans movement says as a man I should be able to take the rights of a woman. It's just, it gets twisted. There's no principled, immovable standard. You can never keep up with the world's ideologies and movements. That's all I'm getting at. You can't keep up with the world's. So why fall in love with the world in terms of its ideologies when those ideologies are going to change? Enlightenment, modernism, post-modernism, post-post-modernism? It just constantly changes the teachings of Friedrich Nietzsche, the teachings of Nietzsche and Marx. Karl Marx defined philosophical thought in Europe in the late 1800s through the 1900s. At the center of the teachings of Nietzsche and you might have heard Nietzsche's guy that said God is dead. And then Marx was basically the father of modern socialist and communist movements. Lenin and Stalin were students of Marx. I think, to simplify it, that might be an oversimplification, but we're on solid enough footing. The ideology was there. But at the center of these teachings is the idea that God is dead and that science and philosophy and technology have moved beyond the need to believe in God. That's why in the Soviet Union so many Christians were butchered and murdered and put in prison camps all through the Cold War. In the Soviet Union so many Christians were butchered and murdered and put in prison camps all through the Cold War. In the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. Christians were persecuted greatly in communist Soviet Union. Which is why it's crazy when young kids now are saying oh, communism's good. Yeah, you don't know, you've never been around it, you don't realize it. But it's brutal because you remove God and now there has to be some moral law giver and moral law standard and so the those men and movement um died off. You know that movement, the men died, marx died, nietzsche died and then soviet union eventually died off drastically.
Speaker 1:What I'm saying is ideologies of the world always move and change and shift and they're not everlasting. But the gospel is still the power of God that changes people and cultures. It's the hope of mankind. Jesus will never fail. The gospel will never fail because Jesus will never change. The gospel is unchanging, the gospel and the faith that we proclaim and hold on to and hold fast to is immovable. That's why Paul could write to the Corinthians and say in 1 Corinthians 15, 58, and say therefore, my dear brothers, be immovable and steadfast and always abound in the work of the Lord. We can be immovable and steadfast because the gospel we hold to is immovable and steadfast. Because the gospel we hold to is immovable and steadfast because the God of that gospel is such.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, the desire is to teach. The desire that I would have in teaching young people is that the gospel is the measure that we live by, not the, and that the gospel is what judges worldly trends and fads and ideologies, not the other way around. At the heart of deconstruction or apostasy, people begin to judge the gospel by the world's trends and standards, and the reality is the gospel is judging the world's trends and standards. So, whatever it was that Demas loved about the world and it could have been sensual pleasure, it could have been, you know but he loved what this world offered. And so let's not forget that at the heart and the core of what drives people away into apostasy, into a falling away, a drifting away, what it is is a love for the world way, a drifting away. What it is is a love for the world, the world's ideologies, what the world offers the flesh, what the world promises me. But the world is passing away, man, it's passing away, but what I do with God is eternal. It lasts forever, and so let's don't forget that. Don't forget that Demas is teaching us something here. Demas's progression was he was there, he was a coworker, he was a part of a team that was making a difference. If it could happen to him, it can happen to you and me.
Speaker 1:And the answer is don't grab hold of the world's philosophies. Don't pursue what the world offers. Hold fast to Jesus. Don't pursue what the world offers. Hold fast to Jesus. Hold on to Jesus. Hold fast to the gospel. It is unchanging, immovable, unshakable, undeniable, undefeatable. The gospel of Jesus Christ will prevail, will always prevail. Don't turn back, don't look back, don't take your hand off the plow. Lock it down with a death grip and hold fast to the faith that we contend for. Don't let go of Jesus and know that Jesus ain't letting go of you. He's not going to turn you loose.
Speaker 1:Sit tight and we'll finish this conversation tomorrow. We're going to take next week off. I'll be on vacation with my family next week, going to take the week off, but we're going to drop an extra episode this week. So either tomorrow or Wednesday probably tomorrow we'll get a second episode, the follow-up episode to this one, and we'll drop that and we'll continue this conversation. I want it to help you, encourage you and strengthen you not to give up. Pray for our staff, these young men and young women who've committed their lives to this ministry and to the Lord for this, in this specific context, for the next few months, that God would change lives at SWO. Also, in tomorrow's follow up episode, I'm going to give you some updates on some exciting things going on here at SWO. Um, so, instead of we'll see you next week, we'll see you back here tomorrow, lord willing. Thanks again for tuning in. It means a lot. Your support means so much to us and we couldn't do this without you. Pray, this is a blessing to you.
Speaker 2:God bless. Thanks for listening to. No Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at sw outfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources and we'll see you next week on no sanity required.