Wake up Australia

[0:00] The theme of Wake Up Australia! Wake Up Australia!

[0:13] It's a kind of slogan that was popular at one time.! We need to wake up! And Australia needs to wake up! Romans 13, let's stand up if we can. Romans 13 from verse 11 to 14.

[0:26] Paul's writing there and he says,

[1:26] Lord, we ask that you would be glorified as it is declared. Lord, let it be your word that is given tonight, that you would be glorified, that we can be attentive to that which you would have us to hear, that you would be praised, and that you would be lifted up and draw all men unto yourself, we pray.

[1:46] Lord Jesus, Amen. Wake Up Australia! That's the theme of this message. We're living in a serious hour today, a serious hour for our nation, for our world.

[1:58] And many are asleep. They're asleep. It's as if they're in a canoe, having a nice snooze as it kind of meanders down the river, but just ahead there's a waterfall and the rapids, and the danger of the destruction that lies ahead.

[2:17] And many are asleep, as that picture could picture it. The overwhelming majority of Christians and churches in many quarters, I think, are fast asleep.

[2:33] They're having a real, as the expression goes, a soundo. They're soundo. They're asleep. Sound asleep. Sound asleep. Fast asleep. And friends, today, we need an awakening.

[2:44] The Church of God, Australian, needs an awakening. And an awakening is another term used for revival. Jonathan Edwards, the old-time revivalist of the many years back, many hundreds of years ago, said, Time after time, when religion seemed to be almost gone, and it was come to the last extremity, then God granted a revival.

[3:09] It was when it came to the last extremity. When religion, when Christianity, when faith seemed to be almost gone, then God granted a revival. And of our world today, we could describe it in the words of Romans 3, verse 18.

[3:25] There is no fear of God before their eyes. That's the nation of Australia today, isn't it? And the Church world, in many quarters, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

[3:36] I'll put it to you today. We need to wake up, to wake up from lukewarmness. To wake up from lukewarmness. I read this quote lately. Many Christians have immersed themselves in pagan music, immoral videos, and worldly amusements.

[3:54] Many of our youth are indistinguishable from their non-Christian friends. Mind-rotting, brain-numbing, soul-destroying trash fills the ears, eyes, and minds of our youth.

[4:08] And it's sad to say that that's happening on the church front. Here's another quote from another source. You and everyone else have a dress code. You'll have one either by design, your own choice of clothes and style, or by default, because you have let others dictate how you should dress.

[4:29] Now, we're not talking about a dress code in the sense of you're measuring people against each other and seeing whether someone's got the latest fashion or the best kind of look. But it's about whether it pleases God, whether how we dress pleases God.

[4:43] And the quote goes on, The way we dress as Christians should not scream sex or pride or wealth, but rather testify to purity, humility, and moderation.

[4:55] These are the kind of things that matter. They're the things that matter, whether our dress is glorified to God. And we can consider whether it reflects our lukewarmness as to such things and as to that which we adopt, as it be the music, the lifestyle that can affect Christians because we're living in the world, but we should not be of the world.

[5:18] Another area of being awakened is in the area of false doctrine. We need to wake up to false doctrine. And now we all can be discerning and sometimes not so discerning, but we need to gauge whether it is so.

[5:34] Whether it is so. The only way to gauge whether something is so, whether it's true or not, is by the word. I know a friend of mine was saying in some quarters, the slogan is, Great gain is godliness.

[5:47] Great gain is godliness. But the Bible actually says that godliness with contentment is great gain. It's not that your prosperity reflects your faith.

[6:01] It's not necessarily so. But what matters is the godliness with contentment. That is great gain. That is great gain. The prosperity gospel is false doctrine.

[6:12] It's false doctrine. And sadly, it's deceiving many today. And it's broadcast far and wide today. Many of the TV preachers sadly are preaching such things. And it's not godliness with contentment that they're getting, which is the real thing.

[6:28] Godliness with contentment is great gain. And we need to be word-based, to be Bible-based, that our faithfulness is to the word of God and to the transformed life that his word urges us to.

[6:44] As we read, for example, in Psalm 1, we read of the separated life. The separation is the way to blessing and fruitfulness. Blessed is the man. Blessed is that man.

[6:55] Read Psalm 1 and read it and reflect upon it. Take that home for your homework today. That is the blessed man. That is the blessed one. The one who is feeding and meditating and walking on the word, walking in the word, not in the counsel of the ungodly.

[7:13] And we need to wake up in these days because false doctrine is all around us. And we're in danger today. All of us are in danger of sleepiness, of sluggardliness, of slumbering, of slothfulness.

[7:26] And Christianity is being overwhelmed by carelessness towards spiritual realities. We need to wake up to national decay, the national decay.

[7:37] Our nations decline and peril. Our nations disgrace. As we see what's going on, on the national front, that's why we've got this nation-building conference coming up.

[7:49] Because there's themes of vital interest to Christians today. When you've got governments that are promoting euthanasia, you know, kill off the old. When they get to their part, they're used by date, as far as the world would reckon it, we just wipe them out.

[8:05] Or whether it be abortion, don't even give them a chance to live. It's a disgrace. It's our nation's disgrace. And we need to wake up to the national decay, the decay of a nation, the decay of Australia.

[8:18] Sadly, we're seeing the decay of a nation as we're becoming less and less godly. It's a fact, too, about alcohol. Australia has one of the highest rates of alcohol abuse in the world.

[8:33] Alcohol abuse among Australian teenagers is rising at an alarming rate. Rates of drinking at harmful levels among 12 to 17-year-olds have doubled in the past two decades.

[8:45] One in 20 12 to 15-year-olds engages in regular binge drinking. One in four, get this, one in four 16 to 17-year-olds.

[8:57] And almost one in two 18 to 19-year-olds. This is binge drinking. One in two 18 to 19-year-olds. These are the statistics that we're told about alcoholism.

[9:11] Alcohol, drinking. And friends, you'd have to question, how can a Christian go down to a bottle shop and justify buying liquor? How can you justify that?

[9:23] How can you justify buying that which the devil is using to destroy families, to demolish homes, to corrupt our nation? How can you justify it?

[9:33] Christians, though, you've got to ask that question. National decay. On the marriage front, there is about one divorce for every 2.7 marriages in Australia.

[9:43] One divorce for every 2.7 marriages in our nation. That's a national disgrace. That's a national decay. And we need to wake up to it. Friends, we've lost our biblical family values in our nation, if ever we have them.

[9:58] But marriage is between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others. That's what is Genesis' definition of marriage.

[10:09] And yet, some would try to redefine marriage today, to call it something that it is definitely not. There's nothing like it. Our nation needs a wake-up call today, brothers and sisters, because as a nation, we're witnessing a decline, a degeneration, and it's escalating day by day.

[10:27] Degeneracy and promiscuity, in other words, loose living, are being promoted today as normal, as natural, as healthy. I've seen some videos on the net of how the homosexual agenda is being thrust upon the world of public schools today, especially in the US, but we're just, we're right behind the US, as we usually are with most things.

[10:52] We follow Uncle Sam down that same dangerous pathway. As activists are pushing homosexuality to be taught as acceptable to primary and secondary students today, public school systems are seeing this influx of this pro-homosexual indoctrination and propaganda, and we wonder, why would you send your children into that?

[11:16] I think, as a parent, I've sent my children to a public school. I think things have certainly changed since those days, since those times, and even at Christian school, you wonder about them these days as well.

[11:30] Friends, you've got a question as parents, as godly men, as women. Today we've got a question. What are we sending our kids into? Certainly if you sit, and I'm not going to condemn any parents here tonight, if you are sending your children to a public school, but how we need to pray for them, how we need to nurture them, how we need to uphold them before the Lord, because there's a brainwashing, there's a conditioning, there's a vile impact that is endemic in these systems today that is utterly dangerous and godless.

[12:05] And the media too. It's anti-Christian. Through and through, as we read the newspapers, as you watch the media, of all kinds, Christians are mocked and laughed at. Just made a fool of, as you would see, even popular cartoons with the kids these days.

[12:20] The Christians are lambasted and lampooned and made to look the laughing stock. And this is a disgrace. It's a national disgrace. It's a moral meltdown that we're seeing all around us today, friends.

[12:35] And as everything is being redefined, the truth is being denied. And we need to wake up to the national decay. We need to wake up to our negligence. As a church, as Christians, we need to wake up to the negligence that we have had.

[12:51] As there's a war on for our children and young people. We see it as, I've witnessed over time, as our church has been very active in times past and still is in reaching out to young people through our youth group programs and our Sunday school activities.

[13:06] You're seeing, it's almost like there's a deafness there, a blindness, a dumbness. That's a spirit almost hovering over these children as that you've got to try hard to penetrate all the barriers that it seems, I don't know, I'm speaking for myself, but it seems like there's just a blindness and a dumbness and a deafness to the gospel.

[13:28] As if they're blinded and bound. And I think it's more than just an assumption, I think it's a real spiritual thing. Amen. That is, over our young people, as we see, even the ones who come to the youth group, you wonder, you see what is driving them, where they're headed and you know it's a dangerous path that they're treading.

[13:49] And there's a war on today for the young people of our world, of our nation, of this community. And 2 Timothy 2.19 it says, Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

[14:09] The Bible's very clear and plain. It's very straight shooting. It doesn't mince its words. The Word of God says, Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

[14:22] That's in your face, isn't it? That couldn't be any clearer. That if you name the name of Christ, depart from iniquity. There's a negligence that is abounding today on the church front.

[14:35] How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? One day mercy will be cut off forever. One day God will close the door, as he did, of the ark.

[14:46] And there'll be no more mercy. There'll be no more salvation. Friends, there's a watering down today of the Christian message, of the gospel. Now we're seeing where there's half-truths that are being proclaimed as the gospel truth.

[15:01] Come to church and have the coffee and cookies and a fairly easy-going, kind of watered-down, non-offensive message. You know, the preacher won't talk about things like repentance and the blood of Christ's shepherd for your sin and the wrath of God that you're in danger of if you're not saved.

[15:22] No, it's just coffee and cookies today and maybe a little sinner's prayer to just wind off the session, you know, as if it's kind of a, just to make you feel good, we'll just throw in a bit of some kind of prayer that will make you feel good.

[15:38] But there's no repentance there. There's no truly soul-saving faith there. There's no saving blood there. There's no cross and that Christ crucified there.

[15:49] Friends, there's a negligence on the church front and we all need to be alerted to that. Here's a quote from another preacher. This is the real problem of our negligence.

[16:02] We fail in our duty to study God's word. Not so much because it's difficult to understand. Not so much because it is dull and boring but because it is work.

[16:13] Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy. It's so true, friends. Christians tonight, be encouraged to stir yourself from your laziness, from your apathy, from your lethargy and I'm talking to myself here from our corporate deadness towards the Lord, our God.

[16:34] To stir ourselves, to awaken from negligence. Read this quote here from Richard Wurmbrand. He's a reputable Christian who suffered for Christ as he stood for Christ in his nation and as the authorities of that nation punished him and persecuted him.

[16:54] He says this, I have seen Christians in communist prisons with 50 pounds of chains on their feet, tortured with red-hot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, wit, suffering from the cold and praying with fervour for the communists.

[17:18] This is humanly inexplicable. It is the love of Christ which was poured out in our hearts. I was reading some other quotes of late terms recounting some of the Roman Christians, the early church Christians and how they were repeatedly persecuted and suffering by these inquisitors and these punishing men who would come and inflict some torture, inflict some punishment and then ask them to recant, ask them to deny Christ, ask them to offer some sacrifice to idols so that they could be spared the agonies of the sufferings that they were going through.

[18:03] Despite this repeat of things and as they came back to them they just continued to confess Christ. They continued to confess Christ and to be strong in the faith.

[18:13] Could we do that? Could you do that? I know there was a prayer this morning of someone saying that they're willing to be beheaded for Christ. It could come to that.

[18:24] Friends, it could come to that. If you're in other countries it would come to that. This is the reality and in some nations it's a gruesome, graphic, vile, gross reality that some people are being beheaded and are very world today and there's a deadness on the church front.

[18:42] There's a deadness in churches in Australia and we have seen this change incrementally happening. There's an incremental change. As Christians who've got deader and deader and deader and they don't even realise it that now they're as dead as a dodo.

[18:56] They haven't got the life of Christ in them. There's a negligence on the church front and why? Because incremental changes happen so incrementally.

[19:07] It's like the frog in the kettle. You know, just incrementally that temperature's been turned up and friends, it's like we haven't even noticed what's been going on and the handwriting is on the wall.

[19:18] Judgment is at the doors. God's judgment and we need to repent of our negligence as a church. We, including me, we need to repent. We need to wake up to the negligence that abounds and friends, we need to wake up to a new obedience to God.

[19:33] Oswald Chambers said, beware of reasoning about God's word, obey it. It's time to stop reasoning about God's word and start obeying God's word.

[19:44] Get right with God. He's a holy God, a holy God. Yet you see, what are the best sellers in the Christian bookshops today? What are those that are on the top of the pops, the top ten of the Christian bookshops of the world today?

[20:01] The best sellers. Things like how to be a success, how to make it, how to be the best, how to get the best out of your life, how to, you know, some kind of prosperity message, some kind of easy-believers message, and yet, what of the message about the holy God with whom we have to deal?

[20:21] Yet, we've got in its place a self-satisfied, smart kind of Christianity, Christianity, a Christianity that's besotted with entertainment, with marketing, with carnal method.

[20:33] We've lost the spiritual element. Will we continue to be indifferent to our spiritual condition, or will we awake? Many do not realise, here's a quote from Catherine Booth, many do not recognise the fact, as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin, and that he is his great device to keep them so.

[20:57] He does not care what we do. If he can do that, we may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us if we don't wake anybody up.

[21:12] But if we awake the sleeping sinner, he will gnash on us with his tea. This is our work to wake people up. To wake people up. There's truth in that.

[21:23] We need to wake people up. Friends, do we want to be awakened? An awakening? Or will we be as those that just reach over and hit the snooze button?

[21:34] Just hit the snooze button. When the alarm comes, when the alarm goes off, do we just hit the snooze button and roll over for a bit more sleep? When God stirs us to wake us, to shake us, to make us his, to stir us, do we listen?

[21:51] Or do we turn over and go back to sleep? Friends, we need that conviction, that willingness to change, that willingness to be challenged. As 1 Corinthians 15, 34 says in part, awake to righteousness and sin not.

[22:09] Awake to righteousness and sin not. The church, by and large, is like a sleeping giant that needs to be awakened and alerted.

[22:20] We need to be wakened. Wakened to a sense of eternity. To a sense of eternity. Friends, this is eternal stuff that we're dealing with. This is not just some social club for nice kind of people, even though there's some nice kind of people here tonight.

[22:37] It's much more than that. It's much more than having a discourse that you might say occasional amen to or sing a happy song and then just have a cup of coffee and it just all gets forgotten.

[22:51] We need to have a sense of eternity. To be awakened to the sense of eternity. O eternal souls. To hear the heartbeat of God and to realise that we are, every one of us, are just one heartbeat away from eternity ourselves.

[23:08] Ravenhill said, the world is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity. It is waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity. Brothers and sisters, let us stop playing the game of religion.

[23:21] Let us stop this nonsense and get real with God. Let us be bold in sharing this, our faith. We have no right to keep it to ourselves. Let us die to self, carry our cross and follow him all of our days till the day we die or the day when Jesus comes back.

[23:41] We have no time to spend in our own little problems. There is a world out there that needs us. Let Christ emanate from you always that they may see you and when they look at you they may see Jesus living through you.

[24:02] Oh God, awake us to your calling. Awake us to your glory. Do so, Lord. We need it. We need to be awakened to the sense of eternity.

[24:13] That's why some people take it seriously and do witness. And thank God for people witnessing. You might like to join their number.

[24:24] Those who are willing to go down the streets of the city of Adelaide and lift up their voice like a trumpet. Maybe you can lift up your voice to your neighbour.

[24:36] Lift up your voice to those that you can make contact with for Christ and get that sense of eternity again. I know as a young Christian I knew of a family that were not saved.

[24:55] They dibble-dabbled with church. There's many like that. They'd play the church game. They'd play the religious game as if they'd play the religious card.

[25:05] They'd show up now and again for church. And I came to hear that this man was not saved. And I was concerned for his soul. And I made a deliberate effort to go and speak to him about his soul and urging him that he was in danger of hellfire.

[25:24] He didn't listen. He didn't listen. But I was glad that I told him. I was glad that I did. And sometimes you might get that stirring within for a soul that you know.

[25:34] A soul that you are in contact with. And you might realise the great danger, the great peril that they are in. And God will stir your heart to open your mouth. Friends, we need to wake up to the sense of eternity.

[25:47] We need to wake up to a new zeal for God. A new zeal. A rekindling of that zeal. That holy desperation. That sense of who God is and what he is saying to you.

[26:00] We read it here. We read it here. You know, without being unfair to some, I would question when some say, God said this to me.

[26:16] God told me this. God told me that. Just wondering, where did they get that from? Friends today, you've got to be very careful when we say, God told me this and God told me that.

[26:27] That's not to say he can't speak to you. Of course, he does speak to us. But when we say, God has told me to do this or do that, friends, we've got to be very careful about stating such things.

[26:39] We need to be careful about trifling with the holy. We can't dare trifle with it. We dare not. We dare not. We must not. Jonathan Edwards again said, The assembly were in tears while the word was preached.

[26:55] Some weeping sorrows and distress. Others with joy and love. Others with concern for the souls of their neighbours. Friends, that's a holy seriousness.

[27:08] A holy seriousness. And that's not to say there's a holy joy too. But there's a holy seriousness that should capture our hearts and that we can be honest with God. We need an awakening.

[27:19] As the scripture says, Awake to righteousness and sin not. We need to wake up to holiness. Tozer said, Christians don't tell lies.

[27:33] They just go to church and sing them. All to Jesus I surrender. Really? No, I can ask that with myself.

[27:45] The words that we sing, friends, really and truly, we've got to be careful, don't we? I know I've been in churches where they sing all kinds of songs and they say all kinds of things in their songs and you just wonder, wow, you've got to be careful what you say, don't you?

[28:01] Is it the truth? Is it the truth, brother? Is it the truth, sister, that you're saying, that you're singing? Awake to righteousness and sin not. William Wilberforce, a man of God, said, there is no shortcut to holiness, it must be the business of our whole lives.

[28:19] There is no shortcut to holiness, it must be the business of our whole lives. Awake to righteousness and sin not. Tozer said, we know nothing like the divine holiness, it stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable, holy is the way, God is.

[28:42] So be holy, he does not conform to a standard, he is that standard. Now we don't set standards here, but God is the standard, isn't he?

[28:56] He is the standard, he is the absolute and we've got to measure up to him, we've got to measure up to him, you don't have a checklist that you've got to measure up to what the pastor says or what anyone else says, but you've got to measure up to he that is holy, he says, be ye holy even as I am holy, that is a standard, isn't it?

[29:19] Awake to righteousness and sin not. Someone said, oh how horrible our sins look when they are committed by someone else.

[29:30] So easy, isn't it? It's so true, isn't it? How horrible our sins look when they are committed by someone else. You see someone and you think, oh look at what they're doing, look at what she's saying, he's doing, or what they look like, or whatever it might be.

[29:49] How horrible our sins look like. And we've got to think about the self, don't we? We've got to look at ourselves. Friends, to close, a couple more quotes.

[30:02] Leonard Ravenhill asked this telling question. Consider this Christian, here's the quote. How can you pull down strongholds of Satan if you don't even have the strength to turn off your TV?

[30:21] That's a good question, isn't it? How can you pull down strongholds of Satan when you don't even have the strength to turn off your TV? Some people excuse carnality, worldliness amongst Christians.

[30:38] Here's a quote. Calling someone a worldly Christian is like calling someone a godly pagan. That's amazing, isn't it? Would you call someone a godly pagan?

[30:50] But we think, oh, they're a worldly Christian, they're a carnal Christian. They've got things like we all have to work out. Of course that's true to a degree. But we don't excuse sin by pussyfooting around.

[31:06] David Brainerd, a missionary of much standard and much quality, a man of God, he prayed, and he practised what he prayed. David Brainerd said this, Oh, how precious is time.

[31:22] And how guilty it makes me feel when I think I have trifled away and misimproved it or neglected to fill up each part of it with duty to the utmost of my ability and capacity.

[31:38] I have trifled away time. Friends, what of your time? What of your time? What of your life? What of your moments? Will you make them count?

[31:49] Friends, we can all be stirred. I'm speaking to myself here tonight. I'm not here to point fingers at you, but of myself. It's time to wake up.

[32:01] It's high time to awake out of sleep, awake to righteousness and sin not. Awake from lukewarmness, awake from false doctrine, awake from national decay, awake from negligence, awake to obedience to God, awake to the sense of eternity, awake to zeal, awake to holiness.

[32:27] And friends, be encouraged tonight. This is not to condemn, this is to exhort. To exhort. Let us pray. Thank you.