Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. We’ve just gotten back from a very fruitful and encouraging summer traveling the country with the Cola Clash team.

We did nine Cola Clashes in various states, in Indiana, in Ohio, in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. And we’ve just been thrilled with what God has done. Many young people, almost 800, heard the gospel.

And 250 young people this summer trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior. And we’re just pumped, honestly, as we come back. In fact, the final week of tour, the 10th week, was a little bit of a different week.

We did revival meetings at Martinsville Baptist Tabernacle in Martinsville, Indiana. And we also did a Thee Generation Youth Revival, which was a mini summit of sorts for their Christian school. And we’re thrilled with how God worked in the revival services in the evenings for the whole church and how God worked in the mornings with the young people.

Pleased to tell you there were three adults that got saved last week. And there were 36 young people in the school that stood to their feet that said they wanted to join Thee Generation. They’re with you now.

They wanted to be totally surrendered to God and totally dependent on his power to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so it’s definitely been an encouraging summer just to see how God has worked in evangelism and how God has worked in even new Christians to surrender to the call of God and to be willing to do whatever he wants them to do.

And you know, as I was preaching last week to the church there in Martinsville, God just stirred my soul with something that, just a line of thought that I, as I was meditating here today on what to present to you, I really feel like I need to share with you.

Because I preached about this at last year’s Youth Summit in our opening morning message, but as I was meditating on it last week, I felt like the Lord gave some additional insight into the text. Before I get to the text, I just want to ask you a question, and if you were to answer honestly, I know you’re going to answer like I would answer. Have you ever just not cared?

What I mean by that is, have you ever just not cared that people around you are dying and going to hell? Have you ever viewed people as more of a nuisance than as people who need to hear the gospel? Have you ever had a perspective that not for lack of trying, just doesn’t even think about how many people around you need to hear the gospel.

I’ve been there. I remember as a teenager, I was so focused on my own things, so focused on my own life, and literally the people down the street that were dying and going to hell never entered my mind, never for a second. I remember as a young person singing the song, Give me a passion for souls, dear Lord, a passion to save the lost.

And honestly, I would sing it, and at times I would mean it and I would want it, but I had absolutely no passion for souls. And that song was actually somewhat of a mystery to me because I would sing it, and maybe you felt like this, I’d sing it, I’d want it, but I didn’t have it.

And even later on in life, you know, as I’ve gone into Bible college and gotten a sense of God’s calling and his direction for my life, there are still times in my life when I don’t care that people that I meet in the grocery store are dying and going to hell, that I just don’t care that people that maybe come out and do work on my trailer or people that I meet in the street or wherever, that they’re dying and going to hell.

I just sometimes don’t care. And sometimes you don’t either, if you’re honest. And so it’s a question of why.

Why don’t we care when people are dying and going to hell? Because honestly, if you’re here and you consider yourself a part of Thee Generation and you’ve ever thought seriously and reflectively about this, it ought to bother you that you don’t care. And in Matthew 24, again, I know I spoke about this.

I’ve just been stirred about this here again recently. Matthew chapter 24 and verse 12, Jesus is speaking about the end times and things that would happen, and he shares in the midst of kind of a little bit of a timeline of what’s going to happen. He shares a principle that is going to be true in the end times that’s also true now in our times right now.

He says in verse 12, and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. What he’s saying here is simply that iniquity or sin or lawlessness, breaking God’s law, does something to our love. You see, I think we’ve seen this in the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve were in the garden. They had an amazing relationship with God. And what happened when they sinned?

They immediately began to run from God. They didn’t want to be around God. They fled from God.

They hid from God. They did everything they could to get away from God. And you know, in our lives, the same is true.

You know, when you sin, when you break your parents’ rules in your house, when you break the rules of your school, when you disobey the law of God, when you place things in front of God in your morning times, when you lie about things, whether it’s a big deal or a seemingly inconsequential fib, as we might call it, when you look at garbage on the internet, when you maybe even take God’s name in vain or use minced oaths, and you know it’s not right.

When you break the law, our consciences are hurt. The last thing that we want many times is to be near to God. So what we do is we avoid him.

We don’t really want to go to church. We don’t really want to spend time with him in prayer. In our hearts, we are doing just like Adam did.

We’re trying to run from God because something is wrong in our conscience. And here’s the thing about that. I think if you’ve ever really met with God, you know that you feel whole.

You feel right with the world when you’ve met with God. You feel your sense of purpose. You feel the sense of the divine order of the universe.

You know that you are in a relationship with God, which is how God created you to be, and you can get your sense of self-worth and self-satisfaction from meeting with God. But when we don’t meet with God, we feel worthless. When we don’t meet with God, we feel useless, we feel depressed, and that leads to further sin to try to cope with this feeling of depression in our hearts.

Well, that being said, another thing that running from God leads you to is it leads you to really cut yourself off from the only source of supernatural love that you can have. You know, the Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love. And the only way that you can love your neighbor, the only way that you can love the lost, the only way that you can have a passion for souls is if you get it from God.

Now, I know we sing the song, Give Me a Passion for Souls, Dear Lord, and I think there’s a sense in which in our heart we’re hoping that there’s some kind of zap that happens, but that’s not the way it works. You see, the way it works is when you draw nigh to God and God draws nigh to you, God boosts your love for him.

God opens your heart to him like you never thought possible, and you begin to value the things that he values. You begin to see his love for you, and you begin to realize that he loves all men and that he wants to pour out his love upon all men. And as you get close to God, God gets close to you, and he can give you his heart for the lost.

And see, the tragedy is that many times we’re too cold to care. We don’t care about the lost around us, and we don’t know how to solve it. And I will bet, young person, that the reason why you are too cold to care, The reason why you’re apathetic is because there are areas in your life where you have broken God’s law.

There are areas in your life where your conscience is not clean, where you’re doing maybe doubtful things, things that maybe you can’t pin a particular chapter and verse on it, but the Holy Spirit’s telling you that it’s not right and you shouldn’t be doing it. And because of this soiled conscience, you’re kind of drifting. You’re drifting from God.

Your walk with him is not vibrant. You’re not experiencing his love on a day-to-day basis. You’re not finding your sense of worth in God, and you’re not living in that vibrant relationship that he created you to have.

And because of that, the love of God that’s supposed to be shed abroad in your heart, the love of God that’s supposed to ooze out of you to the world around you, it’s not happening. And that’s why sometimes you don’t care. You know, last week I told you I did a revival meeting, and I’ll be honest with you, as much as I’m standing up there preaching to the folks at the church, God’s working in my heart too.

And I know last week as I was preaching, there were several applications that I gave, and it was like God just turned his finger right back around at me. And I did some business with God, you know, areas of my life where I hadn’t been really where I ought to be.

And God put his finger on my heart, and he showed me, you, Bobby Bosler, leader of Thee Generation, or whatever you want to call it, you’re too cold to care. And honestly, in my heart, I drew nigh to God. Last week was so wonderful.

I got to spend so much time with the Lord and just seeking his face and his presence. And you know, that next night, I remember I preached a different message, And afterwards, I remember seeing a couple that had come to the church. And I remember thinking, I don’t know if they’re saved or not, but I need to talk to them.

And I went and I talked to them. And, you know, I don’t think they quite understood what I was after at first. And I said, hey, you need to come back tomorrow night.

And I said, I’ll give you a gospel tract when you come back that next night. And afterwards, I turned around, I saw another guy. And I don’t know, it was just like I knew he needed the Lord.

And so I just started talking to him, and I just asked him some questions straightforwardly. And before our conversation was done, he bowed his head, and he trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior. And I was so encouraged.

This guy got saved. And, you know, it was like the more I talked, the more God just put his love in my heart. And that next night, one of the fellows in the couple, I went up to him and talked to him after the service.

He’d come back. I’d given him some gospel tracts there. we had a little bit more of a conversation.

And, you know, he shared some things in his heart and some things that he was wrestling with. And I told him I’d pray for him. He came back the next night and we talked again and wasn’t quite there.

He shared some further things that were kind of holding him back. And, you know, on the final night, I preached again and I included some elements of the gospel. And right afterwards, I was bound and determined I was not going to leave until that man had trusted Christ.

I caught his eye after things were done. And he came right up to me and he said, hey, preacher, I did it. I said, you did what?

I got saved. I said, when? He said, right up there.

And he pointed towards the altar. He said, I trusted Jesus alone to save me. And I’m telling you, we were glorying.

His girlfriend, she also, she had talked to one of the ladies from the church, and she’d gotten it settled in her heart. And, you know, honestly, last week was such an encouragement to me. And honestly, since then, God has just put a desire in my heart to talk to people and to tell people about Jesus.

And it’s just been a thrill to me. And I just want to encourage you young people, where iniquity abounds in your life, your love will wax cold. And if you reverse that, if your love is cold, you should examine your heart and ask yourself some tough questions.

Have I allowed iniquity to multiply in my life? Am I allowing things into my life that don’t please God, that are soiling my conscience, that are keeping me from drawing near to him and finding his heart of love for me and for the world? You know, if you’re listening to this right now and God’s putting his finger on some things in your heart, can I just encourage you, don’t just go on with whatever else you’re doing.

Get on your face before God. Confess it to him. Get right with somebody if you need to get right with somebody.

And get right. Cleanse your hands. Draw nigh to God.

And he will draw nigh to you. You know, we can totally surrender to God and totally depend on his power. But if we don’t have clean hands, how in the world do we expect to turn the world upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Thanks for listening and do business with God.