Dr. Michael Youssef: From the depths
of my heart, I want everyone who's watching me right now,
wherever you are in the world, to know that we have
two enemies, one from within, one from without, and,
yet they are uniting together, despite of the fact
they hate each other, but they're uniting together
against those who love the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, don't get angry, because that is not
the Christian Gospel, but be proactive,
and that's what I want you to do throughout
this series of messages.
That's what I want you to do when you read my book,
"The Hidden Enemy," is to be proactive,
lovingly proactive, speaking the truth in love.
First of all, you need to be armed,
and that's why this series and the book are gonna arm you
with the truth so you will be able to be
a defender of the truth.
God bless.
male announcer: The clock is ticking for Christians in
America and the Western world, and time is running out.
Dr. Youssef reveals this unholy alliance between aggressive
secularists and radical Islamists, unveiling their
sinister plan to literally wipe Christians from the earth,
as they attack with full force.
"The Hidden Enemy: Aggressive Secularism, Radical Islam,
and the Fight for our Future."
You need this book right now.
"The Hidden Enemy" is available now.
Call of visit us online at LTW.org.
[music]
Dr. Youssef: One of the great challenges
for believers in the 21st century
is how do we live in the city of man,
wherever we are, with all of its problems,
with all of its difficulties, with all of its challenges,
and all of its distractions, but keep our eyes
on the city of God to which we belong?
That's really a challenge.
That is really a temptation because I find it much easier
to love this life with little attention to where I'm going
to be spending my forever.
There are very few of us who could say with the writer
to the Hebrews in chapter 13, verse 14,
"For here we do not have an enduring city,
but we are looking for the city that is to come."
Now, I want us to say this together with real enthusiasm,
okay?
"For here..."
all of us, young or old-- it doesn't matter--all of us
who live in this city of man, we don't think often
of our eternal future.
When we see everything around us is in opposition
to the Christian faith, when everything around us
is contrary to the Word of God, when everything around us
and so many people who are in authority, people in power,
are ridiculing and opposing God's moral absolutes,
how shall we, who know the Lord Jesus, live now?
The last four messages, we traced the historic division
from the beginning of creation between the city of God
and the city of man.
We saw how, when Adam and Eve sinned against God,
when they refused to obey God and want to go it alone,
God placed an enmity between the descendant
of the woman, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ himself
and those who love him, and the descendants
of the serpent, those who reject the God's
one and only plan of salvation for eternal life.
And in the last message, I explain how sin and evil
never stand still.
Those of us who belong to the city of God, and,
yet for now living in this place,
being placed in this city, in the city of man,
whatever city you live in, you are placed in the city
of man, but you are placed as an ambassador.
The saddest thing is when you see ambassadors defecting
their home country.
You see, we are placed in the city of man to call out
others to come and join us.
We are placed in the city of man to witness, to represent
our home country, heaven.
We are placed as an ambassador.
We are placed in the city of man to be a soul to keep this
from rotting completely.
We are placed in the city of man so that we may urge
and plead with people, "Please escape
the coming judgment.
Please flee from the coming wrath of God.
Please choose eternal life rather than eternal judgment.
Please, please come and receive the gift of forgiveness
and eternal life from Jesus," and we do all of that
with our eyes on the prize.
We don't take our eyes off the prize.
We keep focused on the city of God,
the divine city that is to come, the heavenly Jerusalem
that is to come, the eternal habitation,
which we call heaven.
Now, today I wanna give you five reasons as to why believers
tend to take their eyes off the prize,
and they place them totally, completely on this life.
Five reasons, I wanna share them with you.
First of all, reason number one is false perception
of the heavenly Jerusalem.
Second reason is the overwhelming pressures
of this life, which we all face.
Third reason is the allure of the seen versus the unseen,
and fourthly, it is the apostasy or the worldliness of the church
of Jesus Christ here on earth, and finally, the false teaching
regarding salvation and heaven.
First of all is the false perception of the city of God,
the heavenly Jerusalem.
Listen to me.
If I believe half of that stuff, those perception, if half,
I wouldn't wanna go there either.
I mean, think about this, sitting in clouds and playing
harp and singing choruses 24/7, wearing halos and looking
very cherubic?
The streets of gold and the pearly gates
and 24/7 boring church services, that is not heaven.
There are all sorts of distortion about the
city of God, the New Jerusalem, and the truth is this.
Listen, please, listen to me.
The truth is this: The heavenly city of God
is awesome.
It is absolutely magnificent.
The heavenly city of God is indescribable to the human mind,
and there is a reason why the Bible only gives us only
glimpses of eternity in heaven, and the reason for that
is because, if we really know what
it's like, we will be jumping off high skyscrapers
to get there.
Think of the best that you see here on earth,
and multiply it a billion times, and then you get to the truth.
Think of the most beautiful scenery
that you've ever seen anywhere in the world,
multiply it a billion times, and then you get close
to the truth.
Philippians 1:23, Paul was trying
to describe heaven, was trying to explain heaven.
He finally says, "It's far, far, far, far better."
And so false perception keeps us from focusing on heaven.
Secondly, the overwhelming pressures in life.
Young or old, we all seem to feel the pressure,
and that eclipses our vision of our eternal future.
Even the godliest among us has to admit that the problems
of life steal our focus from heaven.
The godliest among us.
The pressures of business and career and difficulties and
family and financial challenges.
When you consider the emotional wear and tear of life,
when you consider the hurt and rejection and pain,
when you consider the loss of loved ones,
when you consider the various responsibilities that we carry
with us in this life, all of these are combined,
to them, a vision of heaven.
Don't misunderstand me.
I believe God wants us to work hard.
He does not want us to goof off.
God wants us to be good stewards.
I'm not saying you got to put white robes and head
for the mountain, no, but by the same token
that we do all of that with our focus and our attention
toward the city of God that is yet to come.
Our focus is to introduce people to the Savior.
We allow these pressures in life, these problems of life
to help us to let the light of Christ shine through us.
What difference otherwise between us and those
who don't know Jesus, who are not going to heaven,
who don't know they're going to heaven?
These are all-- should be the focus
of our heavenly reward.
Beloved, the world is desperate to know God.
There is deep longing inside of them.
In fact, they're living in quiet desperation.
They wanna know God.
They wanna know the true God.
The reason we must forgive their insults and ridicule,
the reason we must love them despite of the fact
they set themselves as enemies toward us, the reason we pray
for them in spite of that enmity and hatred is because we long
for them to come and know Jesus, amen?
So a false perception of the city of God,
distorts the truth about the city of God, then, secondly,
the overwhelming pressures of the city of man,
often eclipses our vision of the eternal city of God.
Thirdly, the allure of what is seen trips us.
It really does.
I don't know about you.
I know it trips me all the time.
I mean, by nature, listen, all of us, by nature--
your pastor is included-- what we see with our eyes
gets our immediate attention, right?
Am I preaching the truth?
If you're not, talk to me.
By nature, what is visible tugs on our heartstrings, right?
We say, "Out of sight, out of mind,"
and this is absolutely true.
In this postmodern culture, people can literally believe
what can only be described as "make-believe,"
and they're living in their non-reality world,
and, yet there are many others who think that
God's promise of heaven is a foolish fantasy.
They say, "Well, it's just something for the poor
and the needy to hold onto so they can cope with life."
Even the least materialistic believer among us can get
sucked in by these make-belief, so they make
their business plans, they make their life plans,
they make their retirement plans,
they make all sorts of plans as if they're gonna live
forever.
So many people who confess Christ as Savior and Lord, and,
yet they give the crumbs that are falling off their tables,
and they think they're great philanthropists.
Give me a break.
I mean, there's some people here who come to church late,
leave early, and they think they're great, spiritual people.
Beloved, the Scripture is clear.
Only what you give to the Lord in this life will be waiting
for you on the other side.
False perception of the city of God works against us.
Overwhelming pressures of life eclipse our vision
of the city of God.
The allure of what is seen blinds us to the reality of
the city of God, and fourthly, the churches' worldliness
the churches' modeled teaching, modeled thinking regarding
the city of God impacts us.
Walk to the average church and pick someone at random and ask,
"What are your spiritual goals?" You'll be shocked
with the answers.
Walk to the average church and pick someone at random and say,
"How are you accomplishing God's purpose in your life?"
You'll be shocked with the answers.
The early church lived and worked to glorify God
and the name of God in this life because
they were looking forward to the next.
They planned for heaven and for eternity.
Their priority was holiness.
Ours is happiness.
Their priorities were sacrificing for God.
Ours is self-satisfaction.
Their measure of success was measured by eternity
and eternal perspective.
Ours, measured by how much we can accumulate.
Let me ask you this: Why would anyone want to think
of heaven, the city of God, when their best life is here,
when their best life is now?
It's not a secret that, today, we try to live a life
without risk, without loss, and without pain.
We really do.
I mean, after all, every desire can be gratified,
and every pain can be alleviated,
and every limitation can be transcended,
and every happiness can be achieved.
Why ever think about heaven and plan for heaven?
And so false perception of heaven can deter us.
Life's pressures can eclipse our vision of heaven.
The allure of the visible blinds us.
The churches's worldliness muddle our vision.
Five, false teaching, which is rampant,
about eternity and heaven and salvation,
there are so many so-called mega evangelical churches
who never preach on heaven or hell or eternity--
never, not one time.
I thank God for all the faithful ones here in this city
who preach the truth and let the chips fall where they may,
but there are very few of us left.
The mainline denominations, gone, long time ago,
about the subject.
Now the so-called evangelical churches have joined the chorus,
and you hear them say, "God will not send anyone
to hell."
Well, this is actually true and false at the same time.
God is not gonna send anyone to hell that have not chosen
to go to hell.
If they refused God's plan of salvation,
if they refuse Jesus's salvation,
if they refuse his hand of forgiveness,
if they refuse the cross of Christ, they're gonna walk
into hell with their own feet.
They're sending themselves to hell.
They will go there because they refuse the one and only
true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I'll never forget in the early days of this church when we were
part of a mainline church, and I felt a burden in my heart
to reach out to some of these pastors
in the mainline denominations.
I really did, and I began to set series of lunches.
I would invite them to come, one-on-one,
and I would just talk to them, draw them out,
begin to talk to them about, you know,
"Why is it only one way to God?" "Why Jesus is the only way
to heaven?" and I would talk with them,
and I'll never forget, one time, a man got so angry,
and he looked at me and said, "How arrogant of you to say
that there's only one way to God, that Jesus is
the only way to God?" And I said, "Your false teaching
not only misleads people, but misleads them
all the way to hell.
Your false teaching confuses even some
of the professing Christians."
I pleaded with him, "This is not my idea.
This is not what I would've probably wished.
I have nothing to do with this truth of God.
I only accept it.
It is Jesus who made the claim.
It is Jesus who made the statement.
It is Jesus who said, 'I am the way, the truth,
and the life to no avail.'" To no avail.
Now, this teaching, for some of you who might not know,
is known as universalism.
That's a big word, but what it means,
so many in the churches practice or believe universalism:
"Everybody is gonna make it.
It doesn't matter if they're Hindu, Buddhist.
Everybody's gonna make it in the end,"
because this is how they see it.
The Bible said God is love and therefore love is God,
and all we need to do is love.
Beloved, this is, to me, at least,
as I've been studying the Scripture for 50 years,
and as I'm looking at our world today in the last 3 to 5 years,
as I'm examining the condition of the church of where we are
and where we're going, I believe with all my heart
we're coming toward the end.
Not fear.
"Lift up your head," the Bible said,
"for your day of redemption draws nigh."
Amen, amen, give God praise.
Give God praise.
Very few now can really say with--Hebrews 13:14,
"We have not here an abiding city,
but we seek after the city that is to come."
Please hear me right.
I'm getting close to the end.
I love life as much as you do.
I love serving the Lord in this life.
I love serving the kingdom of God in this life.
I love serving you, as my congregation,
in this life.
I love serving my family in this life,
but every waking moment now, I am looking forward
to the coming of Jesus, to that new city, and every day
it's growing in intensity.
A man by the name of Henry C. Morrison,
from the Midwest, Henry served the Lord in Africa
for 40 years, faithfully.
He worked long and hard.
He endured cold nights and hot days and served Jesus
with all of his heart.
At the end of his 40-year service,
he was returning home to retire in the Midwest.
On the boat that brought him from Europe into the New York
harbor, there was President Teddy Roosevelt
on the same boat, the same ship, and so when
they docked at the New York harbor, there were thousands
of people at the harbor, waiting for Teddy Roosevelt,
and they were waving flags, and there were music and fanfare
and celebration, welcoming President Roosevelt home.
Not one, not one person was waiting for Henry
and welcome him home, not one.
Being made of flesh and blood like all of us, Henry Morrison
felt dejected, disappointed, disparaged,
and he became depressed, and so he went from
the harbor to the train station, bought a ticket to get home
to the Midwest, and as he sat in that train,
he heard the voice of the Lord audibly, whispering in his hear,
"Henry, you are not home yet."
He was not talking about the Midwest.
He's talking about heaven.
Some of you may have faithfully served the Lord and received not
a word of thanks, and you're despondent,
discouraged.
Some of you may have sacrificed dearly.
Not one acknowledged your sacrifice.
You may have been teaching, serving, and giving,
and not one said a thing to you.
Remember, you're not home yet.
You're not home yet.
Wait till you get home, and you'll hear from the lips
of Jesus, "Well done, good and faithful servant,"
and I wanna say, "Amen and amen and amen."
[music]
Dr. Youssef: A person one time said,
"I know you think of me as a sinner."
I said, "No, you couldn't be a bigger sinner than me,"
and he looked at me and said, "Really?
You see yourself as a sinner?" I said, "Absolutely,
except I acknowledge that I'm a sinner.
You don't.
And I acknowledge that I need help for my sin,
and you don't.
It's not because what I think of you,
but what does God think of you?
And he sees you as a person that he loved and died
for and want you to come and accept his gift of forgiveness."
See, that is the message that we need to hammer away and hammer
away because the hidden enemy is really, in the end,
not secular, aggressive secularism,
and it's not militant Islam.
The hidden enemy is the one you look at in the mirror
every morning, for doing nothing and being apathetic.
That is not the Christian faith--that we are to make
a difference wherever we go, and that is really
the bottom line, but I'm saying,
"There is an answer, and his name is Jesus,
and don't be embarrassed of him and his Gospel because that's
the power of God to salvation."
Dr. Youssef: I have written many books,
none more important for our day and the challenge that
we are facing, than this book, "The Hidden Enemy."
Until and unless you know who that hidden enemy is and you be
informed about the forces of evil that are working
around the world, you will not understand
or you will not know how to be proactive to change things
in your environment, wherever you are,
to change things.
This book is gonna help you, not only impact your life,
but it will impact your surroundings.
I hope that your children and your grandchildren are going
to get this book to read it because our future and
the future generation depends on the information in this book.
Order it now.
announcer: The clock is ticking for Christians in
America and the Western world, but time is running out.
We try to go about our daily lives, but the truth is,
we know something is wrong, terribly wrong.
We see it on TV news and in the newspapers
where Christian values are under siege.
We see it online in the hysterical rantings
and bullies on social media.
We see it in schools and universities where free speech
is under attack, and we see it among out friends as people are
offended at the slightest thing.
We've become more and more divided.
In fact, the world has gone so crazy that it's almost
impossible to articulate the problem anymore,
and that's why the new book by Dr. Michael Youssef
is so critical for this moment in our history.
"The Hidden Enemy: Aggressive Secularism,
Radical Islam, and the Fight for Our Future"
is the first of its kind, revealing the monumental
challenge of a two-front war that followers of Jesus
are facing today.
On the left, an unrelenting liberal onslaught attempts
to silence Christians and obliterate America's
founding principles.
On the right, a growing number of radical Islamic warriors
fight daily to overpower the truth of Jesus Christ.
As they scheme to cripple the freest nation on earth,
will America's Judeo-Christian heritage even survive?
In Dr. Youssef's remarkable book, "The Hidden Enemy,"
you will go inside the war room for a behind-the-scenes look
at the biggest threat to modern-day civilization.
Dr. Youssef reveals this unholy alliance between
aggressive secularists and radical Islamists,
unveiling their sinister plan to literally wipe
Christians from the earth as they attack with full force.
This book provides Christians with a strategic battle plan
to resist the enemy and win the war.
You need this book right now.
Call or go online.
Don't wait another minute.
For the sake of your family, this country, the church,
and the future, we cannot afford to sit on the sideline.
"The Hidden Enemy" is available now
for your gift of any amount.
You can call or visit us online at LTW.org,
and when you order your copy today, we will send you
a free digital resource, "The Case for Truth
in a Post-Truth Age."
Call or go online now to order "The Hidden Enemy."
announcer: Connect with us on social media, like us on
Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram to receive daily
updates from Dr. Youssef and reports from the team
on the ground.
"Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef."
Proclaim the gospel, disciple new believers,
and help the persecuted.
announcer: Passionately proclaiming
uncompromising truth.
"Leading the Way" with Dr. Michael Youssef thanks you
for your faithful support through your continued
prayers and gifts.
Dr. Youssef: If you're ever in Atlanta on a Sunday, it would
be a great opportunity for you to come and worship with us.
For more infomation >> How To Get 3 Guaranteed Marks For CMFAS M6A | Ep. 3 - Duration: 1:25. 
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