Turning Point

Announcer: The Bible says that the world will experience a spiritual famine in the last days. A prophecy you can see is now being fulfilled. What can you do in response? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah reveals some practical ideas from 2nd Peter that Christians can do during this time of spiritual starvation. To introduce the conclusion of his message, "Spiritual Famine, A Spiritual Prophecy," here is David.

Dr. David Jeremiah: And we've learned so far that during this time in the future, our heritage is being lost, our theological background is being weakened, our Bibles are being overlooked, and our appetite for the Word of God is being ruined. What do we do when we go through a time like that? Some of you listening to me right now know this is true of your own life, not just true of the church or true of the future. It's a description of what's happened to you.

Today on this edition of Turning Point, we're going to talk about what to do when you find yourself in that very difficult position. Spiritual famine, according to Amos, is coming in the future, and it's probably already here. Tomorrow on Turning Point, we're going to begin two days of discussion on the city of Jerusalem, one of my favorite topics. I've been there many times and I love to talk about the Holy City. We'll do that beginning tomorrow and on Wednesday.

We are going to finish up this series on Thursday and Friday with a study of the triumph of the gospel, the final prophecy. During this month, we have been teaching on, "Where Do We Go From Here?" How tomorrow's prophecies foreshadow today's problems. You've been so good and so responsive, and we thank you. We'll finish this up in just a couple of days, but there's a book on it, there's a study guide on it, and there's a series of CDs you can get to recover all that we've taught. Just go to davidjeremiah.org and you'll find all you need to know right there. You can revive this study and continue it and review it. It's a great thing to do. Now here's part two of "Spiritual Famine, A Spiritual Prophecy."

The vast majority of people who come to church today, even if they grew up in a Christian home, do not know the books of the Bible. Just the basic understanding of spiritual things that we used to have, that we assumed when you and I were growing up in the church, it was just part of our understanding. It was part of our knowledge. It's not there anymore. It's been replaced by a lot of secular humanism that's come in to drive our kids and our children away.

So as a pastor, I'm deeply concerned about the wayward theological patterns that are trending in churches everywhere. It's not simply the liberal old Protestant mainstream denominations that are diminishing their doctrines. It's even evangelical churches who, in trying to reach a resistant audience, go too far in compromising biblical truth. For centuries, God's Word has been at the center of Christian preaching. Today, questioning scriptural authority is in vogue, even in certain faith communities. Popular speakers advocate processing God's Word through cultural filters rather than the other way around.

So our heritage is being lost, our theology is being weakened, and our Bibles are being overlooked. Mark Twain once defined a literary classic as a book which people praise but never read. Unfortunately, that describes the way many people in modern society approach the Bible. Are you for the Bible? Oh, yes. Do you ever read the Bible? Well, in all honesty, no. It doesn't help that cultures around the world are trying to minimize our Bible reading.

China has just shut down Bible apps and Christian WeChat public accounts, and hard copies of the Bible are no longer available for sale online in China either. In America and the West, the Gideons are running into problems getting their Bibles into many hotel rooms. One of the most encouraging things, if you travel like I have, is you go into a hotel room and in the stand next to your bed, you open the top drawer and there's a Gideon Bible in there. Not so much anymore. I've been in many hotels where that Bible is no longer present.

A recent survey showed the percentage of hotels willing to offer Bibles in their rooms has dropped from 90% to 48%. Hotels are finding younger travelers who are less devout than their parents or grandparents, and they don't want to offend atheists or those of other religions. One atheistic group created stickers for its members to attach to any Gideon Bible they did find in a hotel room. The sticker said, "Warning: Literal belief in this book may endanger your health and your life." They take those stickers with them on their trips and they put them on the Gideon Bibles in the hotels. Or if they get into a Marriott, they put it on the Book of Mormon.

I'd call that spiritual famine. I'd call that people who disregard the Bible, who someday may want a society that would be impacted by the Bible. If we take the Bible out of our culture, we may ultimately get what we want. A moral compass of Scripture will self-destruct from moral decay and decadence, and pretty soon, we will just be immoral, amoral perhaps, without any morality at all. So what's happening in this famine is our heritage is being lost, our theology is being weakened, our Bibles are being overlooked, and our appetite is being ruined.

That leads to my next thought. The reason we're facing a spiritual famine is because our appetite for God's truth is being ruined. A child that gorges on junk food and candy in the afternoon won't have much of an appetite for meat and potatoes at supper. In these last days, it seems as if Satan has unleashed an invisible spiritual virus that robs people of their appetite for God's Word. But it's worse than that because it's not just a loss of appetite. It's a total distaste for the Bible. People grab a handful of Scripture, take a bite, find it distasteful, and spew it out like a child spitting out carrots. As likely as not, they'll dub it hate speech, and often we allow that to push us away and then we don't preach the truth.

Often God will respond to our lack of spiritual appetite with silence. He doesn't force his words into our ears. He may withdraw for a time if we lose our appreciation for the privilege of his voice. But God's silence may be hardly noticeable at first. You may still remember times when God spoke to you, but you gradually realize you haven't heard from him in a long time.

If you realize you are in a drought, immediately seek God and ask him what adjustments you need to make in your life so that you can once again enjoy fellowship with him. It may be you've disobeyed his last instructions to you. Maybe he's waiting on your obedience before giving you fresh direction. If there's unconfessed sin in your life or if you have a damaged relationship, get it right and do it now. By grace, we can stay healthy even during a large-scale spiritual famine. Paul told us to be nourished in the words of faith and of good doctrine. The psalmist described Scripture as sweeter than honey, and the prophet Jeremiah said, "Your words were found and I ate them, and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart."

Everything about the Bible is special. It's God's gift to the human race. It's bread for the soul and honey for the heart. It's nourishment for your nerves and wisdom for your mind. Every syllable represents God's thoughts conveyed through inspired human writers who recorded the infallible message for the world. In this way, the Lord has given us a book containing everything we really need for life and eternity. This book makes us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ. It's portable; you can carry it anywhere. It's simple; it's perfect for children. It's deep; it's engaging and it even engages Earth's greatest scholars.

This is an incredible book, this book we call the Bible. And this is your book as well as it is mine. Jesus said, "People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." I am convinced that you cannot live the Christian life and avoid the Word of God. If we want to know the Word of God, we can know the Word of God, but we have to discipline ourselves to let the Word of God be a part of our lives. You don't get the Word of God by putting your Bible under your pillow at night. Osmosis doesn't work that way. You have to engage in the Bible.

So we've talked about where we are and what it means. Let's just talk for a few moments about where do we go from here. Based on everything we've learned, where do we go from here? What's our call to action? Near the end of the Bible, the apostle Peter wrote two letters to the churches of his day, penning the final one shortly before his gruesome death by upside-down crucifixion. As he wrote those last words, one thing was on his mind, and that was making sure that no one forgot the message of the gospel or the teachings of the Scripture.

So I want to read to you some things that he wrote in his last letters. He said in 2nd Peter 1:12, "I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth." And he's talking about the Bible. In verse 15, he says, "I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease." And he's talking about eight things that he communicated in the early part of the chapter when he says, "Add to your faith knowledge, add to your knowledge," and he goes through this list and he says, "Remember these things." He kept reminding everybody.

In 2nd Peter 3:1-3, he says, "Now I write to you this second epistle, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder, that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days." Remember now, Peter was about to check out. He was leaving this world. He was just about to die. But he wanted his message to remain, to never be forgotten, and to be passed down through the generations until Jesus returns. He longed for the gospel to expand, to explode throughout the earth. He wanted to repel spiritual famine.

Be burdened. Peter spoke as a deeply burdened man. He wanted to make sure his hearers were devouring the word and sharing it with others. He was ready to make every effort as long as he lived. He never lost his burden for this. The apostle Peter gave us an example of what it's like to be burdened for a society facing spiritual famine. He described Lot in one of his writings, who lived in Sodom. 2nd Peter 2:7-8, he said, "He was a righteous man who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless, for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds that he saw and he heard."

And in a similar way, the apostle Paul walked around Athens and was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. We can't do much to alleviate spiritual famine around us until we have a similar concern within us. When we look at what's happening in the world today, what everybody's talking about, we've never had this before. I talk about people needing wisdom because wisdom is defined as doing the right thing without a precedent. And almost everything that we see today is without a precedent. Every day, if you turn on the news, you will hear something that you've never heard before. It's unprecedented, and it's not unprecedented good. It's unprecedented evil. It's people coming up with ways to do things that are against the holiness of God.

We can't by ourselves change the world. I'm a preacher. I have a pretty wide pulpit. But the idea that I could change the world by myself is impossible. God could change anything he wants to change through any of us, and he could change the world through me if he chose to do it. If you've got the attitude that I hear from some people, "Oh well, it's just the way the world is, pastor. I know it's bad, but it's just the way," no, it's not just the way the world is. If we don't care about it, if we're not concerned about it, if we're not burdened about it, we'll never do anything about it ourselves. And it starts with us. It starts in us. If we are not burdened enough to make the Bible central in our own lives, we've got no reason to gripe. We've got no reason to complain. Let's make sure we start where we should start, and then God will give us the ability to influence the people around us and we can make a difference. We need to be burdened.

We need to be students. Peter insists that we become personal students of Scripture. In 1st Peter 2:2-3, he says this, "As newborn babies, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." Peter wanted us and those who would read his epistle to know Scripture. It didn't originate with human beings. Peter told us that. It came to us in a far different way. Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Peter told us how to study the Bible, where to search it the way the prophets of old studied the Scripture. 1st Peter 1:10 says, "Intently and with the greatest care." How many of you remember reading the Bible because you knew you should, and after about a half hour, you've read a whole bunch of Scripture and for the life of you, you can't remember one single thing that you read? All of us have done that.

Bible teacher Warren Wiersbe was converted by listening to a young evangelist by the name of Billy Graham. Pretty soon, Warren Wiersbe said, "I think Bible study is one of the most exciting things I ever do. I've been living with the Bible ever after I got saved that night at a Youth for Christ rally. And when I study the Word, it always tells me something. I feel sorry for people who read it and put the Bible back on the shelf and forget about it." He said, "In all my conference ministry, I've tried to get people excited about the Bible. There's so much there that people ignore and they shouldn't do that. I find that when I trace the cross-references, when I take time to pray and meditate, God says something to me, then I can share that with others. So the joy of Bible study is not just in learning something for myself in the abstract. The joy of Bible study is seeing your life changed because of what the Bible is saying in your life."

Begin today. Learn to be a student of the Bible. There is no excuse for us in this time of this generation not to be a student of the Scripture because you can take out your phone and you can find Bible study apps that will go way beyond anything we have ever known up until this time. If you are serious about studying the Bible, don't say, "I don't know how to begin." There's no reason for us to be biblically ignorant and not to do the thing God calls us to do. Every one of us can take advantage of this incredible electronic age and engage in the Word of God. Begin today. Don't wait for any other time to pass. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." Those are the words of Jesus.

Be shepherds. Peter had a special word of instruction for pastors and Bible teachers, so I'm preaching to myself here for a moment. He said, 1st Peter 5:2, "Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly." In using the term shepherd, he was undoubtedly thinking of his own experience years before when Jesus walked with him along the shoreline of Galilee. The Lord asked him three times, "Do you love me?" Yes, yes, and yes, replied Peter. Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep." If I could do anything to influence today's evangelical churches around the world, it would be a clarion call to return to solid biblical teaching in the pulpit. Substantial sermons from biblical texts.

Unfortunately, what is happening so much to our younger guys who are standing in the pulpit every week is they pull something off of the internet and preach that instead of digging into the Word of God and getting God's truth. You see, what happens when they do that is this: obviously the people in their church get something warmed over that they haven't spent much time in. The real problem is the pastor himself is robbed from the incredible joy of independent Bible study and learning what the Word of God says. Then his life is changed, and through his changed life, he's a much better communicator. You can't really be an effective preacher if all you do is grab some notes the night before you preach that somebody else wrote and get up and recite them and say, "Amen." It will leave you malnourished and it will starve the people that you preach to. There's no reason to do that. We can be preachers of the Word of God and we can teach people the Scripture. We need to do that.

If you're listening, watching, and you're a pastor, please hear me. If there's any reason to survive in the ministry for 40 years, here it is: I've never tried to be a student of any other major thing. I am a student of the Word of God. People ask me, "Why do you preach the Word of God like that?" and I say, "Well, that's all I know how to do." I know how to do that. I preach the Word of God. I study the Word of God. I broadcast the Word of God. I televise the Word of God. I write messages about the Word of God. I write books on the Word of God. I provide content for the internet and the web on the Word of God. My whole life is centered in one thing, and every day I get up, that's basically what I think about. Then every Sunday I have an exam in front of all these people. Did I do my homework and am I prepared? I can't imagine what it would be like to stand in front of an audience of people who came to church to be nourished up in the good Word of God and not have done my homework. You can't do that and be a faithful servant of the Lord.

Finally, to ease the spiritual famine of the world, we need to be evangelistic. Be burdened, be students, be shepherds, and finally be evangelistic. 1st Peter 1:23-25 says, "Born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever. Now this is the word by which the gospel was preached to you." The best method I know of evangelism, the best I've ever read, is Peter's own strategy. He said, "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you." He said you don't have to go buttonhole people, chase them down the block, even knock on their door. But if you're going to be a faithful Christian, be ready if somebody asks you a question.

When I was working on the freight docks, I was going to seminary. I actually had people come up to me and say, "Why are you the way you are?" Well, let me tell you why I am the way I am, because it goes way beyond me. And that's the kind of question we should be ready to answer. Why are you different? How is it that you made it through this pandemic and you aren't blown away by it? You were hurt by it, but you still have a smile on your face and there's a joy in your heart. Why are you the way you are? If somebody asks you that question, do you know the answer? That's the best method of evangelism you'll ever have. Be ready to answer when somebody asks you. And the reason they're going to ask you is because they've seen something in your life that's different than others.

The way to banish spiritual famine in the world is one person at a time. We turn the tide as we share the gospel. This is the world's only hope that we have in these last days. So if we fail to preach the gospel, we allow the problems to run rampant in our churches and in our culture. My job isn't to go out and solve all the problems. I know everybody wants you to give an answer for this or that and all these things that are happening. If I do that, who's going to preach the gospel? So I'm going to preach the gospel. I'm not going to give up my pulpit for a soapbox because a soapbox is a long way from being the priority of God. God's priority is the preaching of his Word.

So for all of us, whether we're students or teachers, whether we're congregants or pastors, we must teach and preach the Word of God. The spiritual famine has started. When you go to the church for the first time, see if anybody's carrying a Bible. I know people put the Bible up on the screen and it comes in their phone, but Christians like to see it in their Bible. If you go to a church and nobody has a Bible, you might want to keep looking because a church that doesn't have the Word of God at the center of it really has nothing to offer you. And you will not grow there and your children will not grow there. Make sure that you're in a church where the Word of God is taught and Christ is lifted up because that's what will make a difference in your life. We don't have to be discouraged. We don't have to be depressed. God gave us this wonderful gift to help us find our way. And if we will use this the way God intended us to use it, we won't get lost. We'll stay on the main road and we'll get to our destination, not just somehow, but with our hands lifted up high in victory.

Well, thank you so much for listening today. We're moving toward the very end of our series and I just want to remind you again that all the resources for this series are available from davidjeremiah.org. You can get a copy of the resource for the month called "Understanding Biblical Prophecy" when you send a gift to Turning Point anytime in the days left in the month of March. When the month of March ends, we'll no longer be talking about this resource. We'll have a brand new one in the month of April. So don't wait any longer. Make sure you order your copy of "Understanding Biblical Prophecy," a 176-page workbook on getting into the Bible and finding prophetic truth. It's yours for the asking when you send your gift today, but be sure to ask for it in your communication and we'll send it to you right away. I'm so thankful that you're a part of what we do. It's my wonderful privilege to be with you each day as we open the Scripture together. Be sure to join us tomorrow as we talk about Jerusalem, God's Holy City. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening.

Announcer: Today's message from Dr. Jeremiah came to you from the Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. How is this ministry drawing you closer to God? Let us know by writing to Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Visit our website at davidjeremiah.org/radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, "Understanding Biblical Prophecy: A 30-Day Bible Study." It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app to instantly access our content. Search in your app store for the keywords Turning Point Ministries. Visit davidjeremiah.org/radio for details. Join us tomorrow as we continue "Where Do We Go From Here?" on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.