This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today daily program originally aired on 1/17/24. To listen to the program, please click HERE.
Sam Rohrer: Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Stand in the Gap Today. This is also our bi-monthly Israel prophecy and Middle East update. Today, Dr. Carl Broggi, Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina and host of his own radio ministry, Search the Scriptures, is joining me again.
Today, however, rather than the normal focus on Israel and the unfolding events in the Middle East, although you’ll see that intertwined, I’ve asked Carl to join with me and consider an issue I am finding is plaguing far too many, even professing Christians, in these days of, as we know, confusion and deception. That is, how should we pray in these days? How should we prioritize our lives and plan for the uncertain days ahead?
Now, as true believers, we must not be meandering in a mist, corrupting our mission and confusion, or standing paralyzed with a spirit of fear instead of living in hope and communicating the truth with conviction. Far too many people I think are doing that though. At a time when we must be praying with purpose, prioritizing with confidence, and planning with biblical knowledge, far too many are failing to lead when we should be leading the way.
With that challenge in mind, I’ve chosen the following title to guide today’s discussion, How Should We Then Pray, Prioritize, and Plan in Light of Biblical Prophecy? Now, as I’ve just considered the days in which we live in the latter years of the end days, Jesus alerted us so much about that. I am personally chagrined and amazed that when we have God’s word in our hands that tells us all we need to know about the past, our present, and the future, that so many seem to refuse to read what the Bible says and compare it to our days and to make the connection between if these things are true, then this is how I should think and live.
We’re going to go that direction right now. Carl, thanks for being with me today.
Carl Broggi: Pleasure to be here on Stand In the Gap with you.
Sam Rohrer: Carl, in Scripture, I’m going to lay out a thought here and then we’re going to track into this. I find an undeniable pattern, at least to me, of how God works with mankind and how mankind works with God, and with man to man even. It’s what I refer to as the if/then principle. God used it throughout history, people like Abraham. God said, “If a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seeded be numbered.”
II Chronicles 7:14, God answered Solomon’s prayer regarding the idolatrous nation of Israel and their propensity to walk away, and God’s mercy to them. God answered, “If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and seek my face, then I will hear.” So, if/then again. Hannah said to God, “If you give me a son, then I will give him back to you.” God instructed the entire nation of Israel if/then conditional promises in Deuteronomy 28:1-3 and verse 15, “If you obey my word, then I will bless you, but if you disobey my word, then I will curse you.”
So to me, Carl, it says that choices have consequences and that when we believe what God says, we can fully be confident in all that he’s told us in his word. Now just some thoughts. Share your thoughts about the significance of this principle, what it tells us about God’s communication to us and how it should guide us in interpreting and living out God’s word in these days with confidence.
Carl Broggi: Well, Sam, in the broadest sense, when we think of God’s promises, there are conditional promises and unconditional. Unconditional God’s going to fulfill no matter what. He’s going to rapture the church someday, whether people believe it or not, looking forward to it or not. Then there’s those if/then conditional promises and they really fall into two categories, a general promise which is given by the spirit of God to every Christian in every age, no limitations, and then a specific promise.
In the opening here, you mentioned II Chronicles, “If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and seek my face, then I’ll hear from Heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.” Well, the land contextually is the land of Israel. In fact, he goes on a few verses later. He says, “If you turn away and forsake the decrees and the commands that I’m giving you, I’m going to bring judgment. But if you turn back, I’m going to bless you.”
And so he is echoing what God said through Moses in Deuteronomy 28, these if/then statements. It’s a conditional promise for the healing of the people of Israel, but sometimes God will take a conditional promise to a specific group and broaden it. He does so with this. King David will write in Psalm 144, “How blessed are the people, the nation whose God is the Lord,” or Solomon in Proverbs 14, the off-quoted promise, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.”
I think one of the reasons God blessed America in a profound way is because for decades, for centuries, we were characterized by righteousness, but now sin really characterizes us. In many ways, we’re like the people of Israel in the days of the Judges. It says, “In that day there was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes.” There’s these conditional promises. Sometimes God extends them like in the decalogue, “Honor your father and mother,” the First Commandment with a promise that “It might be well with you and that you might live long on the land.”
What land? The land of Israel. God broadens the promise in the New Testament when Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, “Honor your father and mother,” the First Commandment with a promise, “So that it may be well with you,” that’s the same, “And that you may live long.” Where? On the earth. And so, he broadens the promise. When we look at these, if/then statements, context is everything. To whom is it given? Is it a contextual, conditional promise just to a group of people or is it a broad general promise, or has that specific promise been broadened by other passages of scripture?
Sam Rohrer: All right, that is excellent. Let me just broaden a little bit in here. Can you think of a biblical illustration of this principle, perhaps another one, that would underscore God’s intent that we as his people should not be walking in confusion in these days of confusion, but be walking with clarity and direction and purpose?
Carl Broggi: Well, Jesus said for instance, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it’ll be done for you.” That’s a conditional promise, an if/then, we might say, statement. One, we have to be walking with him. And so many people are in the dark, in the fog because they’re really not abiding in Christ. The world seems to be dominating their hearts. They spend more time on social media than they do with this promise.
“My words must abide in you.” God wants us to chew and meditate on his word, whether it’s the words found in the Gospel or those given through the Apostles and the rest of the New Testament. Then there’s this marvelous, astonishing pledge and promise that God will give us those things that we desire. Why? Because our desires will be consistent with the things that he desires. Our wants will be consistent with his wants and they’ll be in harmony with the Lord.
Sam Rohrer: Carl, that’s excellent. Ladies and gentlemen, if you’re just joining us, stay with us for the balance of the program. We’re dealing with an issue of how then should we pray and prioritize and plan in light of biblical prophecy? All of this is in the context that we are in days of great confusion and deception. We talked about a lot. We are aware of it. Too many people are though confused, God’s people, but that ought not to be.
The focus of today’s program as Dr. Carl Broggi and I walk through this is looking at what scripture says. Since these things are true, if these things are observant, then how should we think? How should we act? Ultimately, we’ll conclude with how then should we pray and prioritize and plan?
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Sam Rohrer: If you’re just joining me, today is our bimonthly emphasis on Israel, the Middle East and prophecy. But we’re focusing on an aspect of what the Bible tells us. An element of that is prophetic, but it all frankly is forth-telling of truth since that is God’s word. Dr. Carl Broggi, Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church is with me often, is with me again today. He has his own radio ministry and he has a website, SearchtheScriptures.org that you can find a host of information in his teaching and answering questions which he does to his audience on that program in such a great way.
Let me continue into this discussion today. Since the biblical pattern, and we talked about in the last segment of being aware of… I mean we’re told through scripture, be aware, observe, take note of all that’s happening around us. We’re admonished to walk in the light and not in the darkness. We are admonished to connect God’s promises and warnings within this awareness. It only makes sense then that this type of logical and predictable thinking is one that should be pursued and sharpened. It’s a way of thinking and observing.
Now, praying for wisdom and discernment so that our walk with God, with clean hearts and hands is a pattern. Obviously, every true believer is encouraged to adopt and pursue so that when we pray God will answer. Now, prophecy in scripture is given in part to not only establish our confidence in God’s will and God’s way, but also to alert God’s people as to what is coming. The reason Jesus gave us signs of our times in Matthew 24 and other places in regard to these latter years, is part of alerting us to his sovereign hand at work, to increasing our anticipation for his return, focusing our motivation for the moment and encouraging us to warn others about the dreadful days of judgment about to come on the earth.
With that, obviously the urgency of people trusting in Christ alone while it is still day. All of these things and more. But Carl, without a doubt we are in days unlike any in history. To not conclude from all that scripture says that we are in the last of the end days, we’ve talked about end days and latter years in this program before, to me it’s simply not possible that a person can be alert and not come to that conclusion. But yet coming to that conclusion requires a prayerful attitude of being aware and then asking questions in regard to how can I know, for instance, God’s promised return is at the door?
So let me ask you some questions here in this regard to get us going. Is it possible for believers alive right now, those listening to this program in 2024, to have great certainty that for instance, the Rapture and the return of Christ is literally at the door? And if so, what indications does scripture give us by which we can know with some certainty, if not a lot of certainty, that we are in the latter years of these end days?
Carl Broggi: Well, let me share four or five maybe prophetical markers that might be helpful by which we do know that we’re in the final timeframe of human history. Number one, we often call it the super sign, Israel’s back in the land. Moses, Jesus, the prophets predicted the scattering and the regathering of the Jewish people. We opened with Deuteronomy 28 in your segment there, Sam.
In these if/then statements, “If you’ll follow me, I’ll bless you. If you don’t, I’ll bring my divine discipline on you,” and it’s in that context in Deuteronomy 28 that Moses writes, “Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, all nations from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth.” That never happened in Moses’ day or any of the timeframe during the Old Testament. Never happened. Now, they did get scattered once to Assyria, and another time to Babylon, but never to the ends of the earth.
Well, Jesus pinpoints when that scattering will happen in Luke 21. “They will fall by the edge of the sword and you the Jewish people will be led captive into all the nations and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” And indeed, that happened as Jesus predicted in the context of the temple being destroyed. Beginning in 70 AD all the way until about 135 AD, the Jewish people were expelled, removed, they had to leave the country. You couldn’t find the name of Israel on a map for the next 18 centuries.
Moses then says in Deuteronomy 30, “If you are outcast at the ends of the earth, from there, the Lord will gather you and he will bring you back.” And indeed, that’s what God has done. He began a movement. It was slow at first around 1900. It grew, it grew, it grew. And then they became a nation. Ezekiel likewise said, “The Lord God said, I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries among which you have been scattered. I will give you the land.”
Now, it was their land, but God gives it back to them, just as Ezekiel prophesied. In Israel today, there are more Jews living in Israel than in all the nations across the world. There are more Jews living in Israel today than at any time in all of human history from over 100 nations. God fulfilled that prophecy. Secondly, Israel’s back in the land and that’s essential because the final prophetic schedule for the Second Coming is driven through the people of Israel.
Second marker, Israel be hated more and more. Zechariah the prophet says, “I’m going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the people’s round. It will come about on that day. I’ll make Jerusalem a heavy stone and all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.” Hey, the scripture teaches that Satan has always hated the Jewish people. Whether he works through a Pharaoh in Egypt, he wants to kill little babies, or a Haman who wants to destroy all the Jews, or Hitler who murdered 6 million. They’ve always been hated. That has been their history.
The spirit of the antichrist has been at work, but something happened that kicked this anti-Semite movement into high gear on October 7th. We’ve gone from a handful of nations vocalizing their hatred to nations across the world. Just last Saturday, there were demonstrations in major cities across America, including Washington DC, across Australia, across Western Europe, protesting Israel’s, what they call the occupation of the land. They haven’t occupied the land, they own the land. They’re unwilling these groups to call Hamas terrorists.
Yet these were people who abused women. They hurt elderly people, they cut off limbs, beheaded folks, burned babies alive. I mean if they’re not terrorists, I don’t know what is. And yet, this hatred is growing and it’s multiplying for this coming time during the Tribulation when all the nations will in a unified way actually go against the land of Israel. Third major thing I would say would be the unification of the world through groups like WHO, World Health Organization or the World Economic Form.
You’ve got guys like Klaus Schwab who saw COVID “Not as a catastrophe,” to quote him, “But as an opportunity.” Again, their goal is to bring the nations of the world back together. In addition, you’ve got people like Joe Biden who wants to make a new kind of monetary way in which to pay things across America, digital money. He signed a signature bill that is on the White House website that basically says this is the first time in American history that we want to study the whole idea of turning our US dollars into digital assets.
Again, these are major, major signs, the coming together of the world nations, a monetary unification which will be necessary when the Antichrist comes. You won’t be able to buy or sell anything. Then I would say this departure from historical Christianity because the spirit explicitly says in latter times, not the last days, but latter times, term used to describe the last of the last days, that men will fall away from the faith. We’re witnessing that.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, we are. Let’s go here, because I want to get this in as well. I go often. Many people go often. Matthew 24, I’ve already talked about it. Jesus said to the Disciples, “These are going to be signs of the latter years before the beginning of the Tribulation, deception, earthquakes, pestilence, wars, rumors of wars, false prophets.” He compares it to a woman approaching childbirth. On this program before you and I, and I think you’ve accurately said well a couple of years ago, that certainly we are in this Braxton Hicks part of this illustration of a woman’s birth.
But here’s my question for you, with everything that is happening, is it possible for us, for believers, to know when that change from Braxton Hicks as an example to active labor is beginning, has it begun?
Carl Broggi: Well, the Day of the Lord mimics the biblical day. It gets dark, it gets bright, it gets dark, and so the Jewish Sabbath. But the Day of the Lord is not a 24-hour day, but an extended period of time beginning with the Rapture, going through The Great Tribulation, the Second Coming where it gets bright again, he reigns for a thousand years and at the end of the thousand years it gets dark again.
So sunset, where I live today is at 5:42, but yesterday it was 5:41, and by :15 to me, I would’ve said, “Oh, the sun’s setting.” It was getting dark. By 5:42 the sun had set. I think what we’re seeing right now is we’re right before the time when it gets really dark because Matthew 24:3-14 describes actually the Seal Judgments. It perfectly parallels Revelation six that happens after the church is taken out, this gross death, these earthquakes, these famines.
But we are seeing the precursor. To have the water break, you have to have a pregnancy. I think the pregnancy has come and it’s about full term. And so yes, there’s a lot that’s happening we need to pay attention to.
Sam Rohrer: Ladies and gentlemen, as you’re listening to me, we’re trying to be as practical as we possibly can. I prayed about this theme today because I think it’s something that for all believers, it’s walking through our minds and our heart. How do we make sense of what we see? Can we know? How do we know? How’s the scripture guiding us?
In the next segment, we’ll come back and we’ll take some of these things that Dr. Broggi identified and connect that then, all right, now based on these things, then how should we think? Then how should we live? We’ll conclude, as I said, with then how then should we pray, prioritize and plan?
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Sam Rohrer: The strength of the if/then mindset which we introduced in the first segment, and special guest Dr. Carl Broggi expanded upon and put that in context, if you didn’t get that, go back and listen to the entire program, is all of these various segments connect one with another. The strength of the if/then mindset is so embedded within God’s character that our entire concept of integrity and justice and law is executed by civil government, for example, hinges on the faithful execution of if/then.
For instance, if you break the law, then this is what’s going to happen. That’s what we’re based upon. When it happens appropriately, then certainty, predictability and confidence results. When it’s violated, lawlessness, bribery and corruption results. That’s what we see today. The human application of the if/then principle which begins in the character of God seems only to happen if individuals and those in government actually think and act with the fear of God and in obedience to his commands.
When God says, “If you obey me, I will bless you. Or if you disobey me, I’ll discipline and curse you,” as he does in Deuteronomy 28 and other places, it is certain. The God-fearing believed it and they conformed their lives accordingly. They’re called the Remnant. The unbelieving rejected it and plunged into death and judgment. When God told Israel that once he blessed them earlier in the book and that if they forgot him and took credit for God’s blessings, that God would judge them, all that he had given them would be taken away. It was certain.
In the New Testament, God did the same thing in regard to salvation, the Christian life. He says, “If anyone comes unto me in faith, I will in no wise cast out.” That’s certain. We’re told that if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God has raised him from the dead, then we shall be saved. That is certain. Jesus also provides other input into how we should respond, when and if we see signs that he’s given us are identified.
Now by application of these, we can also be certain and to those who believe our lives should reflect that certainty. I’m hoping you’re getting the sense of where we’re going. Carl, Jesus chastised the unbelieving Jews of his day for being able to discern the sky and predict the next day’s weather, but they were blind to the larger sign that God himself in the flesh was standing right in front of them.
While it might be obvious, why does it seem that so many people, including professing Christians and many pastors in the pulpits of our day, seem either unable or unwilling to see the truth when it’s standing in front of them to connect the dots between what’s observable and therefore rendering them unable to warn or teach others about what the scripture instructs us that we should be praying and prioritizing and planning in these latter years?
Carl Broggi: Well, there’s so many reasons, but it comes back to the pastors, into the pulpits. Pastors are called to preach the word in season and out of season. Today, pastors often fear man more than they fear God. The fear of man is a snare, Proverbs tells us. Pastors sadly have clung to a theological system rather than to literally plainly interpret scripture. Take replacement theology, that the church has superseded Israel, that God’s done with the people of Israel.
They see no significance in Israel being back in the land and so on, why they’re holding onto a system that came really out of Augustine into Catholicism from the reformers. And it’s just wrong. It allegorizes and spiritualizes prophecy. This is often characterized in the reform movement. I would say, “Hey, do you believe in the Five Solas of the Reformation? Of course. They’re in the stained-glass window behind me where I preach every week.
I believe we’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone based on scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. Do I believe in reformed theology that the church has replaced the Israel? No. Think about Zechariah. How were the prophecies fulfilled for the First Coming? Well, it said that Messiah would come into Jerusalem on a donkey. It happened. That one of his Disciples would betray him for 30 pieces of silver. That happened.
Zechariah said, “The shepherd would be struck and the sheep would flee.” That happened on the night he was arrested. He said not only that, but the Messiah would be pierced through and they would see it. John 19 records that as being fulfilled on the cross. It happened. They were literally fulfilled. What do they do with Zechariah 14? Messiah comes, he’ll set his feet as he stands on the Mount of Olives and he’ll split it in two.
Oh, they spiritualize it. They allegorize it. They have to because they clinging to a system. You have those and then you have those who have adopted just a whole nother way of doing church, largely through the influence of Bill Hybels and Rick Warren. It’s a bad way to do church. We’re called to open the word, we’re to preach the word. Then you have your mainline denominations that won’t preach about end times because they may be anti-Semitic themselves.
I mean you’ve got the BDS movement, boycott, divest and sanction Israel. You’ve got the UCC, the Mennonite Church USA, Presbyterian Church USA, Unitarians, Roman Catholics, United Methodists to name a few, who are opposing Israel. Why would they preach about Israel? Of course, they would not. It’s all part of this growing anti-Semitic movement. And so pastors can’t read the signs that are right in front of us.
What is so unusual right now, Sam, is that for the first time in the recorded history that we’ve only had for 6,000 years, God’s wrath is being displayed not just on a country here or a country there, but on nations across the planet. There’s different expressions of wrath. There’s his catastrophic wrath like in Sodom, or the Great Flood, there’s his eschatological wrath, the wrath that will be revealed in the Lake of Fire. But then there’s the wrath of God that is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness, God’s current expression of wrath, and it’s happening.
Our nation suppressed that God is the one whom we should worship. We said we weren’t created by him. We evolved. We said we won’t read the Bible anymore in schools. We’ll remove the 10 Commandments off the walls. We’ll no longer… And what has happened? We were given over to sensuality, we were given over to homosexuality, and now we’re given over to a depraved mind. Romans one is being fulfilled not just in America but across the world. These discussions that a man can become a woman and a woman could become a man, that would be laughable. People would laugh at you 10 years ago for saying that.
Now if you don’t embrace it, you have the problem. And so these are some of the reasons sadly, that the pulpits are quiet and they’re unwilling or unable to connect the dots.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, so very clearly theological, a problem with the scripture, fear of man as you talked about it. Ladies and gentlemen, think about this, what we have, fear of God and keep his Commandments. Well, if you are not keeping God’s Commandments and you don’t fear him, what’s going to be the result? Well, inability to connect any kind of dots, and the ability to be able to see what God is saying to us.
Carl, let’s shift here now. Certainly, Jesus, in all through scripture, never gives instruction to us as God’s people, to his Disciples, Jesus to his Disciples, just to tickle their ears or create a narrative for some inconsequential information. He always had a purpose and nearly always connected to other scripture and often in the if/or since/then way of thinking. Take a couple of those items you mentioned in the last segment. Since Israel is back in the land as an example, or since we’re seeing the world hating Israel more, or since we see the October 7th from a handful of nations to really the whole world beginning to hate Israel, to global unification.
All these things that you said, if those things are true, put that into context, why and what purpose should we walk away with if/then what?
Carl Broggi: Well, obviously no one knows the day or the hour of Christ’s return. If I told you, Sam, I knew definitively that Jesus was coming back 30 years from today, you wouldn’t quit your job. You wouldn’t forsake your house payment. You would just keep living and doing hopefully what you’re doing for the glory of God. No one knows the day or the hour. There’s a sense in which we can continue on. We occupy until he comes, but we live with a sense of expectancy and that the scripture does affirm, we can know the season.
That’s assumed in Hebrews 10 when we’re told not to forsake our assembling together, but we’re to gather all the more. And then he adds, “As you see the day drawing near.” We are seeing the day drawing there, and so we need each other. We need to be in good churches. If people are in crummy churches that have adopted BDS or aren’t teaching the scripture, or expounding God’s word and they’re playing on Sunday morning with smoke and mirrors and entertainment and rock bands, they need to find a Bible-believing church. They need to assemble with believers who are serious.
Then I would just say, I’m always reminded there’s only one command, one command between the Resurrection and the Ascension. The command is to go preach the Gospel. That’s the only command Jesus gave. If there was ever a time to do it, it’s now because when the Antichrist comes, the scripture says God will send upon those who are left behind a diluting influence and they’ll believe what’s false. That’s not a good thing. Because they did not receive the love of the truth so is to be saved, they will believe what is false. That’s the warning of scripture.
And so if there is ever a time to preach, it’s now. We need to be sharing Christ. We’re doing an outreach next month. Todd Friel is coming, with Wretched Radio. You can’t come to the outreach unless you bring a lost person. It’s a Valentine’s banquet. We need to be thinking in a forward sense. We need to be thinking, how can I reach my next door neighbor for Christ, the guy I work with? What can we do as a local church? What can we do as individuals to carry the Gospel? Because time is running short and an hour is coming when no man can work.
Sam Rohrer: Ladies and gentlemen, did you get that motivation? Now I ask you and I ask myself, is that motivation within my heart? Are you sensing? If you’re listening to this program regularly, you are way ahead of many people because what we bring here on this program are those things that are happening anchored in scripture with a biblical worldview so that we know how to live. Then that takes us into this next segment. Stay with us because then based on all these things, how then should we pray and not pray frankly in these days, prioritize and prepare?
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Sam Rohrer: Within scripture, as we talked about so many times, and if you’ve listened to the program regularly, you know what I’m saying is not just some current analysis. We know as God’s people that in scripture we have all we need to know about the character and the nature of God as creator, law-giver, judge and king. We also know of God’s plan of redemption established before the world began. We know that God’s plan to send his Son the Redeemer was the big story, the meta narrative of the entire scripture.
Scripture in history records, as Carl mentioned in a previous segment. The Redeemer indeed did come, was born, lived, died, and was resurrected, ascending to Heaven where he said he was going to go to prepare a place for all who trust in him to live eternally. We also know from scripture that he said as the groom that he would call up his bride, us, the church at an appropriate time. Then as the certainties of what scripture foretells of our day, we can with as much certainty know that he is soon returning as King of Kings in wrath and judgment against the God rejecting human population and the devil himself.
We can also know with certainty that he will simultaneously fulfill his covenant promise to Abraham and the nation of Israel, thus preparing the way for them to say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Second Coming occurs, sets up for the millennial kingdom reign. These things, we know and we can know a scripture because the Bible says. Now the question is, based on these things as we’ve covered in the program, since these evidences and signs given to us in scripture are observable now, and since the scripture says “When you see these things, then this is what you should do,” it brings us back to these basic questions and how we’re going to conclude today.
We’re here to occupy until he comes, waiting on the return of Christ. But how should we pray? I’m going to ask Carl that first, how should we pray? Then if we have time, then ask him to comment on how should we prioritize our time and how should we prepare for that, which is, well, I’d say imminent. So Carl from scripture, can you give us some practical counsel on how should, we, God’s people, pray in these days and follow up with that? How should we then not pray?
Carl Broggi: Well, we should certainly pray for those who are in authority over us. We’re commanded to. Paul says, “I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority.” In other words, I may not like our president and I don’t. I do not like our president, but it doesn’t matter whether I like him or not. God has commanded me to pray for the man. I hope he will come in genuine faith and repentance and call upon Jesus, but our government in many various aspects have the ability to make decisions that can keep us from, the next verse, leading a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.
Why does God want that to happen? So that we have freedom to share the Gospel and that’s good and acceptable because he desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth. I don’t want to go to prison. My ministry would be limited, not totally hindered, but it would be limited there. I don’t want to be a martyr, but if I’m called to be, I will be. I want freedom out here to preach the Gospel until the Lord takes me home. So pray for our government. Sometimes that means putting shoes to our prayers and making decisions.
We sent last week a group of people from our church went up to the State House. Why? To protect little children from allowing their bodies to be changed without their parents’ attention or knowledge. We wanted a bill in our state legislator to protect that. We’ve been praying for that, asking God to work. Now, do I think it should just only be in the parent’s control, as one of our Republican leaders said? No, not at all. I don’t think a parent should be able to decide that they can change a child’s gender. That’s child abuse. We wouldn’t allow that. But children need to be protected, so we need to pray for our nation.
We certainly need to pray that God’s men and God’s women, whether they’re in formal ministry or lay ministry, faithfully share the Gospel. We’re called to do that. We’re called to pray for the purity of our churches in scripture. There are many, many passages that speak about removing those who are not sound in doctrine. Yesterday, I got a call on the radio and the church and there’s a lady in a particular Bible-believing church and she’s teaching a senior high girls class and she’s saying that the LGBTQIA lifestyle is okay, and that the word homosexual has been mistranslated. There’s a whole movie that came out on that a year or so ago, which is just totally false and distorts the scripture.
They said, “What should we do?” I said, “Well, she should be confronted. She should immediately stop teaching the high school girls because she obviously, if she isn’t at all a believer, is not qualified. And if she doesn’t have ears to hear and she’s believed the false narrative that’s going around, she should be removed from the church. She should not be a member.” The church needs to be pure. Reject the factious man after first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning is self-condemned. Churches don’t practice church discipline anymore.
Pastors, I’m praying that we would preach the whole council of scripture. Paul warns “After I leave,” as he’s speaking to the Ephesian elders, “That among your own selves people will arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them.” That was that woman in that evangelical church that someone called yesterday on. That’s the day we’re living in. I’m praying for purity, not just in my own life, but for the people in our church. Peter said, “It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God.” That’s where it starts. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome of those who don’t respond to the Gospel?
Repentance, we can’t be pointing the fingers out there all the time. When believers go home at night and they watch filth on television, they listen to music that’s compromised, they’re reading things that they shouldn’t be reading, repentance begins with a household of faith. The church has nothing to say unless our light is bright and our salt is salty. These are critical days in which we live. I hope that makes sense. Those are a few things I’m praying for.
Sam Rohrer: I think they do make sense. Pray for those in authority, that God’s amend faithfully. You and I share the Gospel fervently. Pray for purity of the church. Pray for pastors to preach the whole council of God. Pray that in our own lives that we are living increasingly holy. All right, just a few. All right, we don’t have too much time, but the idea of prioritization. If we really believe these things that we’ve talked about, Carl, then it ought to alter our priorities. If it doesn’t, I don’t think we really believe it. So speak just briefly to the matter of the reordering of priorities.
Carl Broggi: After the Rapture of the church, the next event after that is the Judgment of the Just. It takes place in Heaven during the time of the Tribulation on the earth. God will look at my life. He’ll look at the life of every believer. It’s not the Great White Throne judgment where only lost people are present, but the judgment in Heaven is made up only of believers. Of course, not to determine if we get into Heaven, that’s done by grace, but how God will reward us throughout all of eternity.
The scripture says, “We’re not to run without aim.” We’re to run in such a way, box in such a way as we’re not just beating the air, but we’re making solid punches in things that matter to God. We need to lay up treasure in Heaven and not on earth. Everything I own 30 years from now or less somebody else is going to own. Look, you can’t take it with you. Billy Graham used to say, you’ll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse, and that’s true. We look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen or eternal.
I’m doing actually a series right now on Wednesday nights at Community Bible Church on how to develop an eternal perspective. The scripture says, “Our life is like a vapor that appears for a moment and then vanishes.” And yet, the way we invest our vapor will determine how God will reward us through all of eternity. Moses said, “Teach us to number our days that we might present to you a heart of wisdom.” That’s what we need to be praying among other things.
Sam Rohrer: Thank you so much, Brother Carl. Ladies and gentlemen, we didn’t get to plan, but I’m saying if you pray appropriately, go back and listen to this segment. If you pray biblically and if you change your priority so that what we do is anchored in scripture as to why, and we lay up more treasure in Heaven than on earth, that’s going to alter our plans. Almost comes naturally. Thanks for being with us today. Share this program with your friend. StandintheGapradio.com, you can go to. Easy to share or on our app. Dr. Carl Broggi, thank you so much for being with us again.
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