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In a world where darkness is encroaching, it's time to rise up, shake off complacency, and get engaged in the spiritual battle around us! Join Pastor Tony Nardella as he unpacks powerful insights from Scripture that will stir your spirit and help you navigate these challenging times. Rooted in the Word of God, this show encourages believers to step boldly into their faith, powered by the Holy Spirit.
With foundational verses like Luke 21:7-9 and Hebrews 10:32-39, Pastor Tony dives deep into the urgent call to be vigilant and stand firm in Christ. As we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:1), we are reminded that He is the only way (John 14:6), and our mission is clear: to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20).
Tune in for weekly teachings that inspire, challenge, and empower you to live courageously for Christ. For more information, visit our website at http://www.heartoftitus.org Let's go—there's a battle to win!
Welcome to Let's Go, where our passion is to equip you to serve God in your neighbor as you grow closer to Jesus, even in the midst of these perilous times in which we live. Get ready to hear teachings and testimonies which will help you prepare for what's coming and to be worthy of the kingdom that we are longing for. Let's go! Welcome everyone. My name is Tony Nardella and we're here to make your day. I've got a word for you today. I know that you've been crying out for a fresh word from God and I believe that we have one for you. You know, we are living in perilous times and I believe that the Lord is calling us to sharpen our focus, get the wax out of our ears, and hear what He is saying to us if we're going to be able to survive and thrive through what is coming our way. And you're saying, "Whoa, wait a minute. What is coming our way?" So, well, you know, the Scripture talks about these perilous times, that in the end times, perilous times will come. And, you know, I don't know if we're in the end times, but we are dangerously close to them if we're not already in them. So, let's start off today with what Jesus said to warn us about these times. Let's go to Luke 21. After telling the disciples in the beginning of Luke, actually in the middle of Luke 21, that everything they trusted in was going to be destroyed one day. Well, the disciples had some questions for Jesus. And in verse 7, it says, "And they asked Him, 'Teacher, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when these things are going to take place?' And He said, 'See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am He.' And the time is at hand. Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once." Well, you know, understandably, when Jesus gives Him such shock and awe treatment by saying that everything that they loved, the temple, and all the religious things that was the center of their spiritual and natural life and culture were going to be destroyed, they naturally wanted to know when those things were going to happen and what the sign would be that they would come. But Jesus does not immediately give them the answer to the question that they wanted to hear. He gives them the answer they needed to hear. He tells them, 'See to it that you are not led astray.' So His focus is not on the big signs in 666, even though that's in there and that will help us, but His heart is to warn us, to prepare us for the deception that is coming. And He makes it a very stern command. He says, 'See to it that you're not deceived.' Now, I don't think Jesus would have said that if there wasn't some possibility that even His disciples could be deceived. But let's go ahead, let's drop down to verse 29, because here He finally answers the question they ask back up in verse 7. And it says, 'And He told them a parable, look at the fig tree and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.' So then He does tell us to watch the signs. He says, 'When you see these things.' And so a question for you is, 'What things? Do you know what these things are?' Even though nobody knows the day or the hour, Jesus said, 'We can know the season and we must be ready, or at least we should be ready.' But getting ready is something that is on us to do. It's something we have to do. So let's keep reading down at verses 34 through 36. He says, 'But watch yourself lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation.' That means crowdsing around and drunkenness and cares of this life and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man.' Wow, that's a serious, serious passage there, isn't it? You know, I don't think most Christians are dealing with carousing or drunkenness. At least I hope not. But I do think that we do get caught up in the cares of this life. And if we are too wrapped up in the cares of this life, that day could come upon us like a trap. And it's hard for me to imagine that that could happen to Christians, but you know sometimes we get a little distracted, don't we? And Jesus is saying, 'Stay awake, stay alert.' But you know, there's some other things in this passage. Besides telling us to stay awake, that's on us, to stay awake. There's pray that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to happen and to stand before the Son of Man. Strength, escape. Yep, this is pretty serious stuff. And it also says that this is going to come on everybody who's on the face of the earth. So no one is exempt and that we have to pray that we will escape these things. Now it's pretty obvious in the scripture what this is saying, but it seems to me that to do what Jesus is telling us to do is going to take an incredible amount of self-discipline and perseverance. And I think that's why we're here today. It's because those kind of things are in short supply. They are not natural to the human being. And frankly they're really not very natural to believers. So let's take a look at what some of these things are that we need to escape. Maybe we'll find in them some motivation to stay awake, to be alert, to not be caught in this trap. In verse 17 it says, "You will be hated by all for my namesake, but not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance. You will gain your lives." Let me just say that on the day that I'm recording this, it's pretty clear that the moral decay in our country and in the world is pretty bad and it's accelerating. We are no longer living in a time of leave it to beaver if any of you are old enough to remember that or even from Nick at night. We are entering a time even here in the US where Christians and the values that we live by are no longer universally accepted. In fact more and more people despise those values and they despise us. So here's a question that every Christian really needs to ask himself based upon Jesus's teachings on the end times. Are we strong enough to bear up against the emotional and spiritual attacks and even the physical attacks that are going to come our way? Now I by saying that I really pray it doesn't happen at least not for another 10,000 years, but we need to be ready. Jesus is warning us. We see the sign of the times. It may not be time for Jesus to come back and rapture us out of here yet, but we can't see that even in my lifetime these short years things have changed a lot. Now let's look at some of the facts here. Millions of Christians in this century who are going from a statistic I heard recently, 30 million Christians who used to go to church are no longer going to church in the last 25 years or less. That's an incredible number. That's almost 10% of the people in the United States. And you would think that a healthy thriving church would be adding to its number daily those who were being saved, but instead we're seeing attrition. Tell me if that's not true in your church. I pray it's not, but we are seeing people that we know used to go to church with us that don't anymore. To me these numbers are horrifying. Many of the people used to go to church don't go to church anymore. It's getting more and more difficult to get people into the door of the church. And many who do go to church are going to churches that are not teaching Orthodox Christian doctrine. They're teaching other things. I won't get into that today. Now hear me out here. If these people have left church because the AHC is too cold or their son or daughters playing soccer on Sunday morning or you know God forbid the pastor said something that offended them. What are they gonna do when the whole world hates them. When everybody's despising them. When they're under constant emotional attack. Now I don't know about you, but I don't like being rejected. I think most human beings have this thing where we like to be liked. And when everybody's coming against us because of the name, well what are we gonna do? Can we hold up with that? So this kind of just brings up the whole point of we need to have built into us this ability to hang in there with Jesus. We have to work toward that now. We have to prepare ourselves now for that. But how do you get it? Well there's ministers like me, people who are sharing the gospel with you, and it's our job to make disciples who will observe everything that Jesus has commanded. Yes, so we're here to help. But ultimately it's up to each person. You know, let's look at what the author of Hebrews says in chapter 10, "For yet a little while in the coming one will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls." Now I just want to say right now that we're doing these programs and it is our heart, cry, and our prayer that everyone within the sound of my voice will be just like the people described in that last verse, that we will not be of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. We have to build up our capacity not to shrink back. You know, things will make you want to shrink back when people come at you and they challenge your beliefs and you're not really sure what to say and they're coming at you and there's some consequences to that. Well, that's typical persecution, but we can prepare ourselves for that. And you know, there are certain things that I think we can talk about today, which are going to help you understand that this is something that we can overcome. So how do we get ready? How do we persevere to the end and be saved? Well, I've got a number of clues. Another of hints, let's say. And let me give you the first one. The first one is that we need to stop thinking that Christianity is event-driven. Going to church on Sunday does not make you a Christian any more than driving through Chick-fil-A makes you a chicken sandwich. Listen, I love it that you go to church. We need to all go to church. We need to hang out with one another. We need that mutual encouragement. We need the word. We need to worship the Lord. But just because you block out two hours of your life on Sunday morning and you participate in a Christian activity does not mean that you have a thriving, intimate relationship with your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I can say that not going to church doesn't mean you aren't a Christian. It just means it's going to be harder for you to stay one. Look at Hebrews 10 verse 24. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see that day drawing near. You know the truth is that we don't hang out with other Christians. We're gonna get isolated. We're gonna miss out on getting some much-needed encouragement. We're gonna miss out on receiving the benefit of the spiritual gifts of others as well as miss out on the edification that comes internally when we fulfill our calls and ministries by ministering our spiritual gifts to others. And you know when you're missing all that it just makes it easier for Satan to deceive you and pick you off. So I really want to encourage you. Christianity is not a vend-driven but you need to hang out with other believers. Now another key and this is something I really want you to think about here too. Christianity is more like a marathon than it is a sprint. The Christian life takes some time. So let's look at Hebrews 12 verse 1. Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let me stop there. What is a cloud of witnesses? Well if you go back and read Hebrews 11 you'll see that the writer of Hebrews listed many of the faith worthies in the Hebrews Hall of Faith fame. Abraham and Moses and Noah and so on. I mean it's an incredible list of people who did incredible things with their faith. And we have all of them in heaven cheering us on. So since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. See we we have to get this understanding that it's not like we're in, well you know maybe some of you may have played basketball or seen a basketball practice. So the guy in basketball practice, the coach says okay line up on the baseline right now running underneath the net, says okay I'm gonna blow the whistle and you're gonna have to do a sprint to mid court. And so everybody starts sprinting as fast as they can and they stop on the line and they turn around and the whistle blows again and you run and you do that a few times and you're done. Now it's murder when you're doing it but it's done after a short period of time. Compare that to the people who run the Boston Marathon 26.2 miles I think. I mean that's a long time. I mean it would take me hours just to bike that and these guys are running it in two or three hours. But it's a long way to go. It's a race. It's a long way to go. Christianity is that way. Let me explain further. The truth is it's a relationship and not a status. John 5th 14 verse 15. Jesus says if you love me you will keep my commandments. Now that word keep what does that mean? That means I'm gonna do it today. I'm gonna keep them tomorrow. I'm gonna keep them the next day. I'm just gonna continue to keep Jesus's commandments if we love Him. That doesn't mean that we come into the church one day and we check a box and then we're done. Oh I I kept His commandment for today. I met with the other believers and I said nice things to them and now I can live the rest of my life any way I want. No. Jesus' command to keep His commandments is one that continues. So why is that important? It's because we're doing life together with Him. It's a relationship. It's not an event or a status. So if I've been married for a long time. If I told my wife on the day we got married that I loved her and I never told her that again or never acted consistently with that after that it really wouldn't be much of a marriage would it? Now with my Lord He has loved me continually. Yes He died on the cross and He poured out His blood so that I could have access to His love and His mercy. But He also wants to show me so much more of Himself. He wants to reveal things to me. He wants to guide me through this life and I ought to desire to do the same with Him. It's not one and done. You know I tend to look at the Christian life as a sacred sacrificial covenant with God that goes even beyond till death do us part. This is one that's going to last for eternity. And you know when you look at Jesus's teachings on discipleship it focuses on continuation and faithfulness to Him. It's a long-term relationship. So let's go to Matthew 16 verse 24. It says there, "Then Jesus told His disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.'" Follow that whole word follow which is so critical to understanding discipleship. It's a process. It's like I am observing what He's doing and then I am going where He's going. It's watching closely and basically imitating. It's going where He's going. It's giving up control over where you want to go and it's deciding that I'm going to go where He is going. So it's not just a relationship. It's a relationship of submission. Let's look also at what Luke says about this in chapter 14 verse 26. "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters yes and even his own life he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." It's the same message just used with different words, different figures of speech. Our priority for Jesus has to be so high that even our love for our parents, our children, our spouse is nothing in comparison to our love and submission to Him. That's an incredible attachment isn't it? To think of Christianity as a status that you obtain because you did something to check a box is completely inconsistent with how Jesus has described a relationship with Him here. In fact let's drill down on this a little bit more. In Matthew 7 verses 13 and 14 Jesus says, "Enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few." I go whoa I think I lost some of you right there. "I did not sign up for a hard life." I mean I get it. I get it. You know there's only one thing harder than following Jesus and that's living life without Jesus. So I just want to encourage you today that even though Jesus says the road is hard he also says his yoke is easy and his burden is light and I don't understand all of what that means other than to tell you that I think that walking the narrow road is intentional. It's something that you have to really pay attention to that you don't end up driving off onto the shoulders of the road. It's a narrow road. The gate is small. The road is not that wide. It's narrow. It's kind of like driving down the interstate highway versus you know driving in your driveway. Your driveway is narrow and it's small and if you don't hit your road or get into your drive into your garage just right you're going to hit something and that's kind of how it is in the Christian walk. You know Jesus gives us that narrow path. So there's another thing now, piggybacking on this we are recognizing that the Christian life is a journey. It's not a destination that we have already reached. So when the apostles ask Jesus to show them the way to heaven in John 14 he says this Jesus said to him I am the way that and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is the way. He's not the event. In fact the word way in the Greek is HODOS and I'm not going to try to pronounce that for you but the same word for way in John 14 6 is the word for road back in Matthew 7 13 and 14. Isn't that interesting that Jesus is a narrow way. In fact you can kind of say that the road to heaven is very narrow. It's as narrow as Jesus is. So we have to find out what this means. So now this word way is used in this context at least six more times in the New Testament in describing the Christian way of life. You can look at Acts 9 2 and very various places in the books of Acts. I'm going to read two of them for you right now. In Acts 22 verse 4 Paul, the Apostle Paul while he's giving a defense of himself to before the Romans he says I persecuted this way to the death binding and delivering to prison both men and women. So he refers to people who were following Jesus Christ as living in the way. He didn't say the event. He didn't say the one-time deal. It's a process. It's a journey. It's a narrow road. Acts 24 14 by this up but this I confess to you the Apostle Paul says that according to the way which they call a sect I worship the God of our fathers believing everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets. Again he's making another defense for himself and he's saying to them he's making the good confession that according to this way to the way even though they call it like a sect I work a cult you could say in today's language I worship the God of our of our fathers. So the early church understood the Christian life as a way of life. Why is this important? Let's let's go there for a minute. We're talking about building within ourselves a steadfastness, a perseverance, a strength of character so that no matter what comes our way we are going to hold our ground and you say no Jesus is Lord and what he says rules in my life. I am not going to cave in to the modern cultural norms of whatever. I am holding my ground. I am believing in Jesus and I'm going to confess him as the only way the only truth and the only life. There's a third clue that I think is going to help us have that kind of steadfastness so that we will not be swayed and or not be deceived. This third thing is that as I was alluding to earlier we must abide in Christ and in his word in John 8 31 and 32. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. I love that passage but you know many people quote that passage using only verse 32 saying that oh you're going to know the truth and the truth is going to set you free. Well yeah that's true if you meet the conditions of verse 31. Verse 31 says if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples. They're this abiding what does this mean? It means living in the word. It means remaining in the word. It means searching the word for guidance and seeking God to reveal himself to you in his word. That's what it takes to be a real disciple, a true disciple of Jesus. If you're not doing that then you're not as free as you think you are and you're more susceptible to deception than you realize. How are we going to avoid deception? Seriously. How are we going to avoid to avoid deception if we don't know God's word? How are we going to know if what we're being told is consistent with what God has said or not but the truth is that abiding in Jesus is our best defense against the attacks of Satan. He is coming after us. He is not playing fair. He is vicious and he's ruthless and it says in the word that most will fall away. They ask Jesus one time. Well many be saved and he says you know enter by narrow gate because few there are that are going to find the way there. Few? I don't know what that means but I don't want you or me to be part of the large multitude that doesn't make it. It's not work salvation. It's just being faithful with what you've been given. God has opened the way for us to come close to Him but we have to decide that we want to be taught by Him. So I do believe that we are all going to overcome life's problems and obstacles and Jesus will lead us safely home to our heavenly King of our heavenly mansion that He's preparing for us right now. So thank you for being with us today. It's been a pleasure to share these words with you and I want to encourage you to come back for our next episode. God bless you. We trust that you were blessed by today's show. That's why we're here to lift up the name of the Lord Jesus and to bless and strengthen those who are called and chosen by Him. Are you one of the called out ones? Has the living God touched your life in a real experiential way? Well my friends be encouraged and please let us encourage you even more. We invite you to come and visit our website. While there you'll have access to hundreds of videos and teachings and podcasts that are going to build your faith and help you go deeper in God's Word. You know here at Let's Go with Heart of Titus Ministries God has blessed our team with many years of experience in taking ordinary people and helping them accomplish extraordinary things for God's glory. We invite you to leverage our experience to your advantage. While you're on our website you could sign up for our email newsletters. In this way we can keep you informed about what the latest testimonies are from our trips and also invite you to participate with us while our online video conferences that will help to activate your faith and your giftings. And we ask you to pray for us as well. We're on the front lines every day and we need your warfare on our behalf. Thank you and God bless you. [Music]
