YP Sing Address—M. Payette
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I'd like to read a few verses and then perhaps make a few comments. If you'd like to follow with me, that's fine. If not, I'll just read them. The first one is in match of 24.
And the 38 verse.
Matthew 24 and 38 for as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark.
And you Not until the flood came.
And took them all away.
So shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
Another verse in Isaiah 59.
The 9th Apers.
So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the West, and His glory from the rising of the sun.
When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard.
Against him.
Another verse in Revelation chapter 12.
Revelation 12.
Verse 15.
And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman.
That he might cause her to be carried away.
Of the flood.
Well.
No, these verses that speak of overrunning waters, you might say, and that first portion we read of in Matthew 24 referred to the flood that took place in Noah's days and took away all the wicked off the face of the earth. And God replenished the earth with Noah and his descendants. And it's a picture of what's going to happen with the Lord Jesus comes to establish his Kingdom, and he's gonna take away all the wicked from the earth and establish his reign of righteousness today.
To come after he's come to take the believers out of the world.
Now we read these verses in Isaiah and that one in Revelation that speaks of Satan coming in.
Like a flood to carry away the believers.
You know young people.
When you come to being a teenager, an older teenager, that's a transition period in our life.
When you're young, your parents decide everything for you. When you're really small, you couldn't walk without holding their hand, and you couldn't do anything without them watching you and being an oversight over you. But as you get older, you have more liberty and more freedom. There are more things in your life that you decide for yourselves, and I'm sure you take into account what your parents have been teaching you and admonishing you about and training you to have good.
Make good decisions in your life, the true choice of friends and activities and places you go and you shouldn't go.
And that kind of thing. And as you get older, there's more and more areas in your life that you are responsible for. You start driving a car. And when you started driving, your father was perhaps your mother was standing beside you and screaming no, but.
Slow down. Brake. Turn here. Whoa, whoa. But then there's a time when you drove by yourself, nobody watching. Well, you could speed. You know why so many young people are killed in car accidents? Because they overstepped the liberty that is theirs.
For the experience they have. And I trust you're gonna take these words seriously, that you're growing adults. And all our life we learn from the Lord and we learn from our parents, from our brethren, from those around us. And to be wise is to learn from other people's experience. If you want to experience it, everything yourself. Very painful.
Have opened doors for gospel in the therapy houses. And I can tell you that the women or the men in these therapy houses did not start on hard drugs. They started smoking pot in secret with their friends, bad friends influencing them. And it's not because you're a Christian. You're a Christian household that you're gonna not gonna be tempted by these things or offer these things. Now what we read in these verses in the case of the flood that Satan brings in what he would like to do is to swallow you up, swallow me up.
Destroy whatever is a testimony to the Lord Jesus on the face of this earth.
00:05:04
You have a great privilege of being brought up in a Christian family or having Christian friends, having the opportunity of attending Bible conferences, singing hymns together to the Son of God, to his glory. It's a wonderful privilege. Perhaps you don't value it, but you could value it. And something that you can decide about, you can make a choice about, well, you know.
I was in Benet one year and we had a little conference and there was this young man that he'd, we'd corresponded with and sent tapes to and, uh, he was supposed to be there. We had a several days of conferences and the, the day we're expecting him, you didn't come and, uh, you showed up on the second or third day there. His name was Edmond. I remember him very well. When, who Edmond? That was his name. And I was glad to see him and so was he. But, uh, uh, I wondered why he couldn't come or he hasn't come. And he told me that the day before the conference he had gone swimming.
With some young people in Kothanu, which is one of the largest city in in Benin and that name Kotunu means.
Sight of the water that kills.
Perhaps in their tradition, when people went towards the waters of the sea, they never came back. And that's related perhaps to when there was slavery, when people came into the villages and took people away towards the sea and they never came back. But it's also a fact that that location is very dangerous because there are undercurrents and if you're not careful you can be drawn away at at sea and never be strong enough to swim your way back. And that day he was at the beach with some of his friends.
One of the young men, whether he was there to do it or not, or just wanted to prove himself, he went a bit too far in the water and he was never able to come back.
And I think of that, you know, because of the floods here, that the enemy of our soul, that's what he'd like you to do. He'd like you to wade in the things of this world a little bit, perhaps to your ankles or to your knees. And perhaps you can swim a bit there and you can come out, you can touch this and that and then give it up after. But you know, that's a very dangerous thing.
And this young man, he lost his life because he didn't take heed to what the word meant. Sight of the water that kills. This is the water of the word of God. It's not gonna kill you. It brings life. But the enemy of your soul is going to propose to you young people many, many things to destroy you and your testimony. He's gonna propose to you many, many things that you can say. They're inoffensive. I can have a little bit of death and a little bit of that.
Well, these men and young people are in therapy that I see every week. That's how they started. They started with a little bit of this.
And a little bit of that and they were enslaved to it in a very short time. Now I wanna ask you a question. How many of you have access to Facebook?
Put your hand up please.
My I'll ask you a question, not answer.
How many hours a week?
Are you on Facebook?
And how many hours a week is your face in the book?
You answer that.
And I tell you, if you're spending more time on Facebook and the Internet then you're spending with your face in the book, that's a losing proposition.
You should spend more time in the book and spending time surfing on the Internet. That's like the sea. It's a sea of information. All sorts of things in there, things that aren't bad, things that are very useful and we should use them as they are useful, but we need to be good managers of our liberty. I use Internet. I'm going somewhere. I look up Google Maps and here, there, there I go.
We use e-mail to communicate.
It's a wonderful tool.
But don't get that to be a feather on your wrist or on your ankles that you can't get away from it.
Technology is a wonderful thing, the product of the world.
Who's the ruler of the world tonight?
Satan himself, he's disguised. He's not going to come to you with horns and a little red coat.
Is disguised under many things that look inoffensive and things you're not gonna get in trouble with. Well, I'll tell you once I was on the street corner with some believers many, many years ago.
00:10:08
And we did sweet preaching after the Sunday night gospel. And, uh, it was the weekend of Halloween.
I'll remember that all my life.
It was my turn to speak and I was preaching. I don't remember what I said. I was a verse from the scriptures and as I was speaking just happened in a moment. This fellow dressed as Satan, he had a red costume, 2 little horns. That's what Satan is represented like. I mean he's not like that. This guy that is an Angel of light and he had a little tail with a little arrow on the end there and he just walked briskly. I don't think he paid attention to what I was saying.
And he walked by and he said, Are you sure about that?
That's all you said. You just walked by like this, Didn't even look at me. He just said you sure about that? And he just went just like the devil himself. You sure about that?
Those things you hear from your dad, your mom in the meeting.
When you're little.
You know kids believe in Santa Claus. When I was a kid, my parents told me about Santa Claus.
I don't wanna support anybody's pleasure but 10:00.
Santa Claus isn't true.
And I remember I was five or six years old. We lived downtown Montreal. We didn't have a chimney.
So I told my dad I'm not that stupid. I mean, I look stupid. But anyway, how's Santa gonna come? Well, my dad would say, we'll open the the living room window by the street and you'll come in there.
Fine, so before I went to bed we put out a piece of cake and a glass of milk. Open the window.
I didn't sleep much and in the morning I got up, Window was closed, cake was gone, milk was gone and the presents were there.
How did come wasn't true? It wasn't true. They meant well. So we grow up and we say no, that's not right.
Are you sure about that? I'm sure Santa Claus is not true, but there are things that I am sure about and fully persuaded. And I trust as you're growing, you are sure of certain things and fully persuaded.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
It's right here in our hands. You know the Lord Jesus, He met Satan's temptations. What did he say? It is written. It is written. It is written.
As we grow and become responsible for our lives, we might have to make these things.
And we hear about our own. We do not believe them because our parents believe them. We're sure about them because we have received them from the Lord. Let's reverse in, Timothy.
Second Timothy, chapter 3.
Verse 14.
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned.
And being assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them.
You see, it has to be a shift in our life as to the person from which we learn these things.
We learn these things from our parents. If you have Christian parents, perhaps you don't. Perhaps you have Christian friends.
Older persons you know that are Christians and learning things from them.
But you have to receive these things in time from the Lord Himself, and they will be your own conviction, and I trust they won't have to be different if what you were brought up in and told and thought was the truth of the Word of God.
You know, in this world tonight, there's a billion Muslims.
And they're Muslims because their folks are Muslim and the people around them are Muslim, and that's all they've heard about and learned. I was thinking of the little kids in Sunday school this morning. There they are, hearing about the Lord Jesus, really hearing about him. Muslim children don't have that privilege. They are drilled, drilled and brainwashed. And I don't think the Lord's way with you or me is to brainwash us. But he exposes us to the truth, and he expects you young people.
00:15:01
As you grow and assume responsibility for your own life and your own decisions.
That you take the word of God.
And you can answer this one who wants to shed doubts in your soul and mind, the one who wants to bring a flood to carry you away. You can say I'm sure about this. I'm sure about him, I'm sure about his sacrifice, I'm sure about my salvation, I'm sure about where I'm going, and I'm sure about the things in my life. These are pleasing to the Lord, and I'm sure these are not pleasing to the Lord. Not get involved with them. You won't have to get rid of them.
If you don't start something, you don't have to stop it. That's the problem. When it's slavery, you start something.
And you can't stop it if you never started. You don't have to stop it. So young people, I challenge you not to, uh, put in doubt those things that you've learned, but make them your own as you can receive them from the Lord. It's important, you know, I know sometimes parents, we overdo it. We overprotect our children and we don't want them to think any other way than the way we think. I don't think that's God's way. God's way is to train our children and our young people.
And to have the resources set before them and then to let them in liberty, they can use the car they have to run their own lives. They're gonna hold the steering wheel to the decisions in their life. And we trust that as parents and older brothers, we can help them give them the resources and the encouragement that when they come to the time of decision, they'll be wise. So this one who wants to destroy and take away every testimony of the Lord Jesus, those verses in Isaiah don't apply to us. Revelation 12 doesn't apply to us. That's how the enemy is going to come into try and take away God's people, Israel, and the Lord is going to come in and deliver them.
But he has the same tactics towards you and towards me today. He has a whole world of entertainment and things to fill your mind, flood your mind and flood your life with all sorts of things. Have these things are not evil in themselves. You can spend your life occupied with things that are not evil in themselves, but they are not anything to do with Christ and the new life that He's giving you. So I trust you young people, they're going to be wise, wiser than this little man going around in this little red costume and saying, you're sure about that?
We can answer with confidence, I'm sure about that. It's right here in my Bible, not my dad's Bible, my older brothers Bible, my own Bible that I read and I feed on. It's the Word of God. And it was written not for priests or Cardinals or theologians or ministers. It was written that you could have it in your hand, in your own language at your own rate, with your own understanding, that you could hear the Lord Jesus saying to you quietly when you sit and read his Word, that you would hear his voice saying, I love you.
I care for you, I want you to be with me, and if you'll walk with me, I'll keep you every day of your life. Well, thank you for listening, young people. Let's have a word of prayer.