“OBSERVATIONS DURING MY MINISTRY”

By Rosco Brong in November, 1979

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.  For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.  But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.  Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.  But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.  But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;I’And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.  All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” font-weight:normal' (II Timothy 3:1-17).

I’ll admit that all my observations are from my point of view and you can’t very well dispute what I say I’ve seen from my point of view. Now you might accuse me of having a warped view.   This is a shotgun sermon.  It is bound to hit something or somewhere.  I suppose if I were to select a text from this reading it would be verse 13:  “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.”  That is part of my observation.

I was ordained over 45 years ago in April 1934.  During a great deal of that time I have pastored Baptist churches and also served in Bible college education which has given me some knowledge, not only of my own life and problems directly, but a window on a lot of other peoples experiences and problems.  In case I don’t have time to detail many of these observations, I will give you four things that I have observed in these 45 years based upon Scripture.  I don’t believe that I know anything new or have seen anything new.  In fact Solomon said: “There is no new thing under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9).  There are always new faces on things.  Some say “the more things change the more they stay the same.”  I have Scripture for the possibility of things getting worse.  There is no change in the fact that there are evil men and seducers. No change in the fact that there is sin in the world.  There is the truth of Scripture and certainly if my observation didn’t agree with scripture then I would need to be examined.  That wouldn’t cast any doubt on the Scripture.  The facts of life, we’ll find, do accord with what God has told us of life and truth in His Word.  We have a lot of foolishness now days about the Bible not being relevant to life.  The trouble with people that talk that way is they don’t know life and they don’t know the Bible, and they can’t see any relevance between them.  If we will really read and understand the Bible and if we will really open our eyes to life and the world as it is, the Bible is more relevant to life than tomorrow’s newspaper.  Yesterday’s newspaper is already out of date. 

I have observed four things, nothing new, except for I have observed that these things the Bible declares and that are true have become more and more evident and pronounced in these 45 years.  One of my prayers is just as Apostle Paul prayed in II Corinthians 5 that he might live until Jesus comes and be spared the ordeal of death.   He prayed that he would not have to die and that he might be changed by the return of the Lord.  If that was all right for Paul to pray in the first century, then it surely is all right for us to pray in the twentieth century.   I will not be surprised if this prayer is answered, although God’s people have been praying this for years.  I pray “if it pleases God I will not have to die; that the Lord will return.”  “Now it is appointed unto men once to die” (Heb. 9:27).  Now there are a couple of exceptions and there will be an exception of a whole generation of believers when the Lord comes back.  I pray that I may be one of those.  Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

1.  I have observed that people are depraved.  People are sinners. 

2.  I have observed that Satan is still running loose. 

3.  I have observed that God is good.

4. I have observed not only from the written prophecy of God’s word but the signs of the times and the events in history and society that Christ is coming. 

1.  People are depraved.  Paul gets into this somewhat in detail in Romans 13 and Psalms 14:2-3:  “The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.  They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy:  there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”    I’ve heard preachers talk all my life about people being hungry for the gospel.  I’ve never found it.  I find occasionally an individual soul that God has touched and made to hunger and thirst after righteousness. I’ve never found a town or community that is hungry and seeking after God.  God couldn’t see any so these preachers claim to find what God couldn’t find.  This was written hundreds of years before Jesus came in human form.  God looked down and saw they are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doeth good no not one.  I’ve observed that. 

In Psalm 39:5 it says that “man at his best state is altogether vanity.”  That accords with my observation. I have observed that this is true in the world of sinners among whom we live.  The world of lost sinners.  The world is all around us and we do need to observe and to know that the world of lost sinners is a world of depraved human nature.  1 John 5: 19 says: “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.”  I have observed that it is more prominently, outstandingly true every year that I live.

I know there are better times and worse times, humanly speaking, in world history. I can remember when the wicked people in the community were recognized as such and more or less, if they stayed sober long enough to think about it, were ashamed to having being classed that way.  There has been a change in that in my lifetime.   I can remember when I was a boy we never locked our house.  How many people can live that way now?  We live in a world of sinners and they are almost, instead of being ashamed, proud of it.  Isaiah 3:9 says:  “The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.  Woe unto their soul!  For they have rewarded evil unto themselves.”

This might furnish a little balance to the idea that we have sometimes, and I know that some of Jesus’ harshest words were spoken to scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites.  Sometimes we think that it is better to be honestly wicked than hypocritically religious.  There may be something to that in a way, but someone else has said that hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.  Isaiah said that these people have rewarded evil to themselves because they have declared their sins as Sodom.  They are not ashamed of it.  The Sodomites of America are demonstrating, parading and publishing their materials and making their organizations and bringing their political pressures to bear to get what they call “gay rights”.  Even the prostitutes do this as a  prostitute was elected to state legislature in one of the western states.  A world of sinners has become worse and more flagrant and more bold and demonstrative in the parade of their own wickedness in the face of God.  Not only, however, is this true but sin has progressed among the people that call themselves Christians.

There was a time that it meant something to be called a Christian.  I know that Jesus said even in New Testament days:  “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) and “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my father which is in Heaven” (Matt 7:21).  It seems that we have more and more difficulty seeing any difference between the respectable people of society and the nominal Christians of the community.  What is the difference?  How often I have been told as a pastor, “Well, I’m as good as your Christians”. People are depraved and that reaches even to churches; true churches and our members.  Paul wrote to the church at Corinth. Some of our brethren may have trouble recognizing the church of Corinth as a New Testament church, but the Scriptures still call it the church of God at Corinth, that there were divisions there, differences and heresies.  It seems that when I was younger somebody would talk about a church being a Baptist church I had a pretty good idea of what kind of a church it was.  That is not true anymore. How many different kind of Baptists are there?  How many different groups of fellowshippers, associations or whatever do we have.  There is great differences in churches in different communities with different leadership.  The depravity of human nature is showing in the lives of God’s people. “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Gal 5:17), but it seems like more and more the flesh is prevailing among the Lord’s people.  This is an observation that accords with scriptures, because Jesus himself said: “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12).  I see that more and more. 

I have seen this fact of human depravity increasingly among those that are supposed to be preachers of His Word.  When I was ordained one good old brother presented the Bible and held it up and said, “Now this is the Word of God and one way that I know that this is the Word of God is that it has stood so much preaching, and it is still recognized as God’s Word.”  Paul told the elders at the church at Ephesus when he met them at Miletus that there would be false prophets and then he said even of your own selves will men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples unto themselves.  Jesus said there would be people come to him in the last day and make their boasts of their wonderful works and preaching in His name and working miracles in His name and He will say unto them: “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:21-23).  It has seemed to me that more and more among the professed people of God generally, and even among the scriptural churches of the Lord Jesus and in the ministry of those churches, in the pulpit more and more there is the depravity of human nature the sinfulness of the human flesh prevailing over the leading of the spirit of God in the ministry of His Word. 

It is always easy to talk about the sinfulness that we see in other people.  I have observed human depravity in the mirror.  James reminds us that some things we can do something about and of course you look in the mirror and your face is dirty you can do something about that if you need to shave you can shave you see your hair is mostly gone there is not much you can do about that.  The reason that we look in the mirror is to see if there is something wrong there and see if we can correct I and put on a better face.  James tells us: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22), but I am afraid too often that the preachers forget to look to the mirror of God’s word.  We use the mirror to see others people sins and fail to see ourselves there.  

I remember 30 years ago a friend in the ministry wronged me grievously, and I rebuked him for it and he denied it.  I found a Scripture in II Timothy 4:14:  “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil:  the Lord reward him according to his works.”  Alexander demonstrated himself to be an enemy of the Word of God.  I had completely forgot about this man and hadn’t thought about him in years until I was preparing this message. I remember that when Jesus was on the cross He said: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).  When Stephen was being stoned to death he said: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”(Acts 7:60).  I have had to ask myself why is it so easy for me to pray to God concerning someone else, “Lord, reward him according to his works,” and why it is so hard for me to pray, “Lord, lay not this sin to his charge.”  I don’t want to be rewarded according to my bad works.   As the children of God none of us want that, we might be chastened but really as far as eternal judgment is concerned our bad works are under the blood.  We are not rewarded for them, but we do hope to be rewarded for our good works.  But can we honestly and sincerely pray that same way for our brethren.  “Lord, he’s done wrong, forgive him, teach him better.  If he is lost, save him.”  It is so much easier to say, “Reward him according to his works, but don’t reward me that way.” 

2.  Satan is still loose.  We read in Revelations 20 that Satan will be bound for a thousand years, and I heard years ago that was already done, and that we are in the thousand years now, and that was a figurative period and already done.  One wise old preacher told me if the devil is tied up now I would hate to be around when he is turned loose.  Peter told me in the scripture a long time ago that “your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8).  He is still at it.  Somebody said that just has to do with deceiving the nations.  The United States of America, its government, and the government is what the people elect it to be, and the government of the United States has set on the course of national suicide for most of my lifetime. If that is not the deception of Satan, then what is?   The devil is still running loose.

3.   I have observed that God is good.  I thank God that He makes His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, on the just and on the unjust.  He gives His rain and His sunshine.  Even the wicked enjoy His blessings.  Paul tell us in Romans: “Or despiseth thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4).  I thank God that He is good and that I enjoy His goodness, not because I deserve it or you deserve it, but simply because God is good.   He is good when I am bad.  He is faithful when I am unfaithful.  I can’t begrudge His goodness to someone else because I want Him to be good to me and I’m glad He is. 

4.  I’ve observed from the signs of the times as well as prophecy that Christ is coming.  That brings joy in the midst of trials, discouragements, sorrow and disappointment.  “. . .weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Ps. 30:5).  There is a morning coming, a great day coming.  Christ is coming back and He has a place prepared for me and for you if your faith is in Him.  He is coming back to take us to that place.  I believe that day is soon.  I don’t know about all the details, and I don’t go out on a limb on these details because I can’t change it and it is going to be the way that God has it planned, whether I think so or not.  I do know that He is coming back and I’m looking for Him.