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The apathy is a camouflaged enemy, and we should shoot it down, it'll kill us, and we'll
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go to kill it before it kills us.
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One portion of Scripture that thrills me like 10,000 other portions of Scripture is
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where Jesus cleared the temple.
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The zeal of his house, eight, and up, what does that mean?
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It means that he was zealous to a point of violence and is seeking for the Father's glory.
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But if you can get that zeal, which is the opposite of apathy, you'll do things that
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you wouldn't think possible in your life, if you can get that zeal.
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What criticism of me is I don't think of consequences, but sometimes that's good when you're
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Jesus didn't think of consequences.
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When he cleared the temple, he knew what the consequences would be.
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They wanted his death.
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Straight after that, they said they'd conspired to kill him, but he didn't care, because
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the zeal of God's house had eaten him up.
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How do you define apathy?
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Maybe it's a slow drift.
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We talk about slow drifting.
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Somebody comes knocking on your door and it's a woman not fully clothing, you're not
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It doesn't start like that.
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It doesn't work like that.
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If somebody offers you cocaine, you're never done drugs, you're never going to take
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Nobody, it doesn't start like that.
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There's always this progression downward of just avoiding certain things, avoiding certain
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people, unfortunately and sadly, that slow drift is what we need to really be careful
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with, where, hey, I'm going to skip a family Divo.
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I'm going to skip going to church on Sunday because my team is playing and they're on television
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So we think that fire, it once burned bright and then it just begins to flicker and before
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you realize that flickering becomes obnoxious, right?
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And so you don't fan it, what happens?
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It goes out and you'd much rather have it out than have it begin to flicker.
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You want that commotion, that noise of the spirit and then we look at it, like the spirit
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begins to just be noisy and nosy, perhaps, even inside of our lives, you know, just give
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me a break, give me a moment and there's this slow drift and before we realize and recognize
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we're apathetic, we're numb to conviction, oh, there's only one F word inside there.
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I could go with that in that movie.
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I could, I could, that doesn't, this doesn't need a bit angel or clear play and then we
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begin to rationalize maybe two or three or whatever and it just, it's progressive.
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You must always be on your guard, always putting on the full armor of God, always be alert,
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always be aware of your situation, your circumstance, having those bouncing eyes as Steve Arterburn
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talks about, bouncing eyes in the midst of our circumstance, always wanting to say,
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search me and try me, see if there's any wicked way in me, lead me in the way we're
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lasting because if you don't, there is a danger attached to that.
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So rebellion isn't necessarily completely outward.
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There's just a drifting, yeah, and I like that you highlighted that mark, it's not always
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overt, it's not always this, you know, expression of like, I don't care, but that slow drift,
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little by little and you just get to a place where you say, how did I get here?
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It's almost like this wonder, but small degrees.
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Ultimately, what we're talking about is what revelation calls a lukewarmness and lukewarmness
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is often misunderstood.
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We think like when we hear it say, you know, it says, you're neither hot nor cold, like
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certainly, certainly the scriptures aren't saying you need to be absolutely emotionally
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on fire or freezing cold, cold don't care.
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What that lukewarmness means, it means ineffective.
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You are ineffective for what God means to do through you in this world because you have
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an apathy and as it pertains to the church, that letter was written to, their ineffectiveness
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in their apathy came from comfort, like we are that comfortable city.
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If you have more than one pair of shoes, if your household has more than one car, you
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are in the top 1% of the world in comfort will make you ineffective, it will grow your
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apathy for the gospel when you are uncomfortable.
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When you are in deep need and deep pain, your mission in life, your call, the great commission
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is so much more clear and more importantly, your dependency on God is so much more obvious
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and that's the scary thing is that comfort makes us feel self-sufficient and when we forget
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our dependency on God, we grow apathetic to God's will.
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That's really, really good because I was having similar thoughts, how can I bring this
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back to evangelism and you did it.
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Apathy is a numbness, what's the question, it's a numbness about what, it's a numbness
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about the fate of the lost, this is what I think.
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It's a bad fellow of discouragement, when you get discouraged, you tend to become numb
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and apathetic about the great commission and so what I've got to do is a Christian
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is say no matter what life throws at me, the lost are still lost.
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As soon as it's still going to hell and so what we should be saying is I have no rights
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as a Christian, I'm not my own, my commitment to the great commission is ironclad, I've
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set my face as a flint toward Jerusalem and stubborn for the gospel.
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I love that word flint because a flint is such a hard stone, if you hit it, you get sparks
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and that's the attitude of mine, that's the attitude of mine that we should have to
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be the great commission to the lost.
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So what does it look like, apathy's camouflaged, I said that earlier it's an enemy that comes
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camouflaged, was it look like it, wakes up in the morning and thinks about itself, how
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can I make myself most happy today?
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It's self-send, self-absorbed and self-indulgent, but a life that's fueled by zeal for God's
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will is a life of self-denial, wakes up in the morning and says how can I serve God today?
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From my understanding in Scripture, to do that means to joyfully follow in the footsteps
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of Jesus, who said he was here to seek and say that which is lost.
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So nothing in this world matters for me, it's transient, it's chasing the wind but most
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importantly it's evil.
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You know, we said, oh, life has vented this world's vain but no, it's evil in God's eyes.
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Everything about it is like Lazarus after four days, it should stink in our nostrils
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because we want to do God's will.
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And so the Christian says with Jesus, like the dead, bury the dead, we have something
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infinitely more important to do and that's to seek and say that which is lost.
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You know, I think one of the main causes of apathy and numbness is forgetfulness.
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You know, you think about like one of the beautiful days we experienced here in California
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which is close to every day.
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You know, there are days where I'll walk outside and I live in a very, very quiet neighborhood.
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It'll be like one of those clear, blue sky days.
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You can't hear any noise of cars, traffic, the weather is perfect and there's a calmness.
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It's so hard at that moment to remember that the wrath of God is burning hot against
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evil wicked sinners.
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That's not on my mind at that moment, right?
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So if I see my neighbor, hey, Tom, how you doing?
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If he doesn't know the Lord, like he is a breath away from sealing his fate to be consumed
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in the eternal lake of fire forever.
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And guys, look, I can't tell you how many times I have praised God that I wrote something
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down on a sticky note because it was massively important.
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I was about to walk out the door or whatever.
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I was going to take that thing with me or do that thing or whatever.
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And I'm like, oh, I'm so glad it was a reminder.
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And I think what we need in our lives are constant reminders before our eyes because
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we know we're prone to water and forget the wrath of God is burning hot.
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Sinners are on their way to hell.
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There are believers that need encouragement who are broken right now and disheartened.
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One's the last time I picked up the phone and called that brother or sister, reached
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You know, there are people right now in convalescent homes rotting away with no family
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members witness visiting them or anyone sharing the gospel with them.
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There are people in prison right now that I could write to and reach.
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I mean, that's what I'm talking about, like being mindful of all that's happening when
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we're not aware that it's happening, but it's happening constantly.
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In our lives, are we attentive to God's calling, no matter what room we are in, no matter
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what situation are we in, are we listening for the Lord's calling on our lives?
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Are we so busy and so distracted that we cannot hear his booming voice?
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Or we don't want to hear it because we have our own agenda.
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Thank you for tuning into this week's highlights from the Living Waters Podcast, friends.
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So we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get
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equipped without the jokes and fellowship.
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Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the
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Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaters.tv.