Sermon: Socialism is Theft

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All right, if you would, open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 20.

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What's in Exodus 20? Ten Commandments, that's right, the

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Ten Commandments. As you guys get there,

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I'd like you to think about what Jesus said to us. When he talks about the law of God, he speaks in a different way about the law of God than we oftentimes think today, even in Christian culture.

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What's normative even in Christian experience in terms of how we talk about God's law.

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I can recount many instances of this kind of conversation, but I can think about times where I've talked to the moderate evangelical or professing

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Christian, and the question of the Old Testament comes up or the law of God comes up, and oftentimes it's expressed in this way.

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Well, that was the God of the Old Testament, now we have Jesus. And you see, God in the

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Old Testament was about anger and wrath. He was really a harsh lawgiver, but the

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God of the New Testament, he gives us Jesus. He gives us Jesus and God demonstrates in that point that now

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God is a God of love and grace and mercy. And oftentimes you even have it put in this sort of way, tell me if this sounds familiar to you.

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It almost sounds, as we talk about it, like the Father is just this harsh lawgiver and Jesus is sort of the love and mercy of God.

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Almost in a way that it makes God out to be sort of a split personality. Jesus is really the love of God where the

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Father is really the wrath and anger of God. And what Jesus is doing is he's trying to help the

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Father out. He's trying to help the Father to be better really than he is. And anyway, obviously that's a way to overstate it in a way, but I think it's consistent in many ways with how we even describe and oftentimes in instances with unbelievers.

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We talk about the law of God in the Old Testament with an unbeliever and they might say things like, well, hey, the law of God says this over here, that seems awfully harsh to me.

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And we often pad it by saying, well, you know, God is about love now. He's not concerned with those things now.

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So when we look at something like Exodus 20 and we see the Ten Commandments, we need to think about it in the way that Jesus did.

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And he said what about the law and the prophets? He said they're built upon two great commandments. What's the first one?

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Loving God, right? So Jesus quotes there the Shema when the guy asks a question about the law.

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What's the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus says, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. They know what that was because it was a

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Shema. They quoted it in the morning and evening prayers. They would pray that to God and it wasn't just a statement.

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It was a pledge of allegiance. It was a pledge of allegiance.

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Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, first great commandment.

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Second one is like it. Jesus says you love your neighbor as you love yourself. And what does Jesus say about the law and the prophets?

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All the law and the prophets are built upon love for God, love for neighbor. So that does mean that as Christians today, we can look to the law of God and what

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God says here and we can begin to ask the question, well, how is this loving God and how is this loving neighbor?

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We can think about what that means and its context. And I want to say something before we actually open this text and read it.

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It won't take long. I promise. It's short. Exodus 2015.

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I think when we talk today as a church about something like socialism, you might be thinking, well,

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I came for the Sunday worship, like I came for the music and Sunday service talking about socialism and church. I've had enough of that in my

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Facebook feed and at the Tea Party website and all the other things, you know, or whatever. You know,

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I think why a worship service? Well, let me just say why a worship service. It's because love for God, love for neighbor.

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That's fundamentally it. When we don't obey God's law individually or in a society, we ultimately don't love

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God or love neighbor. And I think that all Christians, no matter what your position is on the law of God, listen here, this is important.

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Whatever your position is on the law of God, we can all agree to something, no matter what.

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There's unity here, essential unity. God commands us in the new covenant to love

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God and love neighbor. Amen? Fundamental essential unity around that.

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Now, I want to say as a minister of the gospel, I want to say that if somebody says, what does it look like to love

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God and love neighbor? What's it going to appear to be? What does it mean in my life to love

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God, love my neighbor? And what's it mean in a society and culture to love God, love neighbor? I, of course, would say, well, we have to go to where God laid that down.

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And that's the law of God. That's what it looks like in a society to love God and love neighbor. So when we go to Exodus 20 in 21st century, modern evangelicalism, sometimes we can walk up to the average evangelical, the average professing

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Christian, and we could say, what are the 10 commandments? List them.

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Some of you right now squirming in your seats. If I asked you to come up on stage right now and recite all 10, could you do it?

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Don't be embarrassed. I won't do it. I promise. Okay. I won't do it today. That's next Sunday. Okay? But if I asked you to come up right now and I said, okay, recite the 10 commandments, could you do it?

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And if you could, praise God, and if you can't, can I ask you this without condemnation, not condemning in any way? If I asked you, could you do it?

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And you said, no, I can't. Can I ask you why? Do you think it's not relevant?

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Is it something for times past? Is it really some ancient law God's not concerned with anymore? Is it relevant today?

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Well, let me ask you this question. Is it relevant to you that God commands not to steal?

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Is that a relevant commandment? How about this one? You should not commit adultery. Relevant today?

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What do you think? How about this one? You should not lie. Parents, relevant? Right? It's relevant.

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All these are relevant. How about this? You shall have no other gods before me. Relevant? Relevant.

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We can go through the list. We can ask the question, is it relevant today? And I'm going to say absolutely. And so let's look at the text together.

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Again, this won't take very long. Exodus, but I want to say, man, all of Christian economics, the biblical worldview, society and culture, all somehow connected to this passage right here.

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Exodus 20, verse 15. You shall not steal.

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Thus far as the reading of God's word. Let's pray. Father, I want to pray that you please bless today.

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God, I know that I'm biting off a big chunk today, and I know that,

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God, there's so much that needs to change in all of us, and I know that none of us have it all together, and I know that,

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God, all of us are a work in progress being sanctified. But I also know, Father, we know that you promised to finish what you started in us, that you promised that you, who began a good work in us, will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

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You, God, are not going to stop until Christ is formed in us. And so,

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Father, I pray that you get me out of the way. God, no matter what disagreements exist amongst

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Christians in different areas, God, we know that we have fundamental convictions because there is clarity in your word about things.

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And we have a central unity around those things, God, and I just pray, Lord, in this small little church, that you would do something through this message, that Lord would bless the world for the sake of Christ and his gospel, in Jesus' name, amen.

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So, our current political situation, it's a tough one, right? It's a tough one.

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And you have a situation today where all of us as Christians, we recognize that there are real serious problems going on around us, and you might say, well, like, we're here for worship, like that's like religious, and now we're going to talk about a political situation.

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I'm going to say that fundamentally actually displays a problem in terms of our thinking about what

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God is Lord over. Jesus said the greatest commandment, number one, is to love God with heart, soul, and mind and strength.

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Jesus is supposed to be Lord over our minds. And amidst the disagreements amongst Christians, no matter where you may be on whatever issue, it doesn't matter, we can have a central unity about the fact that God is the sovereign over everything.

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Can we agree to that? Amen. God is a sovereign over all things. He is a sovereign. He's in charge. And here's what we need to know as Christians, is that every issue that we can bring up around us that's happening in our society and our culture is somehow connected to a falling short of God.

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It's somehow connected to not loving God and not loving neighbor, and I want to say that those are essentially gospel issues.

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So for example, if we have an issue today around us in American culture and society like rampant theft of the individual,

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I want to say that that's a gospel issue. How's it a gospel issue? It's a gospel issue because first and foremost, if we're willing to take stuff from our neighbor involuntarily that does not belong to us, that is because we have larceny theft in our hearts.

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And the only way you're going to stop a society and a culture from taking stuff from another person in an involuntary way, the only way you're going to ever stop it is if you can get, if you can shake that larceny out of people's hearts.

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People have to not love theft. They have to stop loving theft in order to desire in a culture and society to stop stealing from one another.

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And I want to say the only way that this problem will be solved in any society is if people's hearts are fundamentally transformed.

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Think for a moment about what God says in Ezekiel 36 about what we're talking about. Part of what He says

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He's going to do in regeneration and actually saving people is He does something that we can't do for ourselves.

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It says that He takes a heart of stone and He turns it into a heart of flesh. There's a heart before that that's hard to God.

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It will not receive the things of God. It's not soft. It's not malleable.

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It's actually resistant to God. Isn't it interesting in Ezekiel 36 that when He talks about how

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He's going to do this in our lives as believers progressively, no one's there yet. We're all that work in progress.

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As He says He's going to do it, you know what He says? He says He's not going to do it for us. He's going to do it for His name's sake.

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He's going to take out a heart of stone and put a heart of flesh there. And then it says He's going to put His Spirit within us.

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And then it says He's actually going to cause us to observe His statutes. So let me just say,

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I'm going to confess to something. There's a bit about this discussion where our hands are tied.

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We can't fix it. I can't fix it. You can't fix it. Neither political candidate right now can fix it.

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No political party can fix it. You're not going to come up with a solution ultimately to this problem that's better than God's.

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God's way is to take people who are resistant to Him, who don't love Him and don't love neighbor.

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He takes them from their rebellion and He brings them to a place of reconciliation and peace with Him.

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And He does something in you and me that we cannot do for ourselves. He causes us to desire to love

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Him, to love His law, and to love our neighbor. So I'm going to just start the sermon today by saying something that might kind of bother you.

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And that's this. Ultimately, I don't have a solution for you except God. There is no solution.

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You can do nothing ultimately to fix this problem in culture and society. It can only be

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God. So that's the beginning of the sermon. Ready? Hopeless. You're utterly hopeless.

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You cannot change the circumstances. You're not going to stop somebody from loving theft. And so the problem that we see around us, the rampant theft, the larceny in the heart can only be solved in a gospel kind of way.

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What's that mean? You have to say it fundamentally. Look, the whole problem here in culture and society is that people have no problem taking from somebody something that does not belong to them.

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And the only way you're going to shake it is if they have a heart that is repentant towards God and a love and respect for their neighbor.

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It's not going to be solved any other way. So what's that mean? People have to be called to repentance and faith. They have to be called to repentance and faith.

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You have to point out what the problem is. It's not merely a political problem. It's a problem of sin.

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It's a problem of larceny in the hearts. And that's the issue. So the current political situation we're in, I admit it's difficult.

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And I want to say, everyone, you've heard this a million times from this pulpit and you've heard it on Apology Radio.

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You've heard it as part of our culture. We talk about this sort of thing all the time. We know our origins and our history as a people.

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We know that our nation today, though we're in difficulty, our community is in difficulty, our society is in difficulty, we know that God actually did bestow some pretty significant and amazing blessings on us early on.

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We came in a pretty good way. Was it paradise? Absolutely not.

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They blew it in many ways. Was it a utopia? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Those Christians then, they were fallible human beings and they blew it in some ways too.

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I want to say we know where they blew it by looking at the Word of God and saying where they were off. But we have blessings now that we still actually benefit from that came from the

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Bible, that came from the law of God, and that came from our Christian forebears. That's where it came from.

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It's really amazing when you think about what God did with this place that we're at right now. It's crazy. You had

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Christians over in England that experienced a lot of difficulty, essentially the Puritan culture.

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They experienced a lot of difficulty. They experienced difficulty in their culture. They experienced difficulty in terms of religious persecution.

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They experienced difficulty in the system of justice that was over there. You had issues where the church over there had fallen off in many ways.

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The government had fallen off in many ways. They were no longer appealing to God's Word as a standard of law and government.

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And so Christians left that oppression. They came over here and they stated it explicitly.

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You can see it while they were on the Mayflower. They're writing it down. They're saying, we're going to make it compact.

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We're going to say it right now. We're doing this to expand the gospel. We're doing this to expand the kingdom of Jesus.

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That's why we're coming over here. It's explicit. It was all about God. It was all about His glory.

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And when they came over, they blew it in many ways. You had instances where they did some sort of trial and error stuff, where like a little bit of socialism started to creep in early on in that community.

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As soon as they got off, a little bit of socialism started to creep in. And then they realized, we're not getting anything done and society is crumbling.

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And then lo and behold, they look at the Bible and they read a text where it says, if someone doesn't work, they don't eat.

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And what did they do? They say, oh, lo and behold, God's Word has something to say here. Okay, everybody, we're going to obey

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God now. If you don't work personally, you're not going to eat. And all of a sudden, flourishing, flourishing, flourishing.

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And as the society started to grow and started to get bigger and expand now, now what happens?

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Now they need a justice system. They need a government in place and operational. And what did they do? They didn't say, let's hodgepodge it.

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Let's try to figure it out on our own. Let's see, what do you think about justice for this? What do you think about that? I don't know. What do you think?

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What do you think? What's she think? Let's figure it out. Let's make it up. They didn't do that. What'd they do? You can see it explicitly.

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When they created civil government, they would point directly to the Word of God.

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They would quote John Jay, our first Supreme Court justice. When you look at the legal codes, when you look at what they actually established as a means of case law for our nation, we still appeal to it today.

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It's the basis. What did he do? He quoted from the Bible. That was the foundation of our nation.

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They knew, they understood, they learned from the Bible and they learned from history. They said, this is what

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God's Word says about these issues. This is how a nation is to be set up. This is our worldview. This is what we think about man.

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This is what we think about society, civil government, culture. This is what we think about God. And they formed everything surrounding that.

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We think about the Bill of Rights today. We say, how could anybody ever want to get rid of freedom of speech? How could anybody ever want to get rid of somebody's right to defend their family, to defend themselves against a tyrannical government?

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How could anybody want to get rid of, I mean, the warrantless searches and seizures? Do we want those sorts of things now?

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People are saying, well, we don't really need them anymore. We don't really need that. Do you know why the Christians actually put those things in?

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Because they got it from the Bible. They got it from Moses' law. They got it from Hebrew culture.

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And do you know what? They also learned not from the scriptures only. They knew from their experience how things fell apart when you stopped looking to God's law and they understood.

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You know what? There was a time where people were actually being gathered together in the streets and thrown into jail and put before courts and they were treated as though they were guilty and they had to be proven innocent.

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They knew what that meant. They understood from their own experience, look, there are serious consequences to abandoning

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God's law in a culture. We need to look to God's law, and so they set it up. I mentioned at the start here the

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New England pulpit. Brothers and sisters, if you love today the rights and freedoms you have, the justice that's in place, as much as we've fallen off, you have to understand that the

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New England pulpit is responsible for the war for independence. People call it the

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Revolutionary War. If you would have said that to them, they would have been offended. They didn't believe they were fighting a revolution.

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They understood that they were fighting for independence from a tyrannical and oppressive government who had broken covenant, listen, listen, listen, with them and with God.

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They were charging, listen, them with sin, not simply some minor adjustments needed.

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They said, this is sin. It's against God's Word. You've sinned against us and against God, and therefore we are justified in being independent because you're sinning.

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You have issues that we talk about surrounding the Black Robe Regiment. Those are my homies.

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I love them. If you don't know about the Black Robe Regiment, thank God for them. Presbyterian ministers of the gospel,

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Baptists that stood behind a pulpit just like this, and they wore their

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Genevan black robes to preach from. And when they were done preaching about God's law, and when they were done preaching about the gospel, and when they were done preaching about justice, they took off their black robes, they picked up a rifle, and they went to fight.

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Don't forget that over in England, they didn't call it the Revolutionary War. They didn't call it the

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War for Independence. They didn't do that. You know what they called it? They called it the Presbyterian Revolt.

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That's how England described our war with them. Did you learn that today in public schools?

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Probably not. But you need to understand, we need to understand that it is specifically the preaching from God's law that got our nation to where we're at today.

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Now again, let me state it so that everyone can understand. Am I saying it was a utopia? Absolutely not.

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Am I saying they got everything right? Absolutely not. But what they did get right, we know because we can look at the

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Bible and we can see it there. That's where we come from. That's our heritage. So I want to say, listen, thank

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God. Thank God for the men and the women early on in our nation that stood on the word of God and the biblical worldview, and that's why we still experience the fruit of that justice today.

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And can I say one more thing? Listen, nobody's ever going to love these things.

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Nobody's ever going to love them if they don't love God first and they don't love His Word. Why do we live in a culture today where people would even think to try to fight against these rights?

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Why do we live in a culture today that thinks it's okay to take the property of another person just to take it?

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The only reason that people think this way is because we have abandoned covenant with God. We don't want

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Jesus to be Lord over us and we won't look to His Word as the standard. And so when you don't have

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God's law as the standard, well now, guess what? The standards are up for grabs. If you don't have a word from God, revelation from God that you stand on, then everybody's opinion is equal.

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Your voice is white noise with everybody else, and again, children, white noise you will never understand.

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You turned your TV on, that's all it was, okay? Now let me just say we have to start with the

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Word of God as our foundation, amen? No matter where we're at as Christians, we have essential unity in the midst of diversity around some essential things.

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Here's the foundation. First and foremost, lay the foundation. If we don't have God's Word as the foundation, we don't have any claim to true knowledge.

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There is no basis, no fundamental justification for knowledge or truth without God's Word.

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We talk about that a lot. We talk about apologetics a lot. We like to defend the faith at Apologia Church. That's the name of our church,

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Apologia Church, a reasoned defense. That counts for this discussion too.

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The Word of God has to be our standard. If we don't have Jesus, then we're on sinking sand.

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What's the text say? We were in it as a church. Matthew chapter 7, Jesus gives an example of two kinds of people.

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One is a fool and one is a what? A wise one. And there are two foundations.

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One is sand and one is what? A rock. And there are two destinations.

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One is desolation and one actually weathers the storm, and Jesus says people will hear

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His words. Some people will actually dig deep and build a foundation, and that foundation ultimately is

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Him and His revelation, and the others won't dig deep. They will not build on His Word, and they're on sinking sands.

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The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 1 verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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If you want to have knowledge and wisdom about something, anything, you have to start with reverence, submission, and all before God.

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There is no knowledge without Jesus Christ. There is no wisdom without Jesus Christ. There is so -called knowledge.

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Think for a moment about the antithesis. What do we have? We have the Word of God that provides for us a foundation for knowledge, for truth, for beauty, for goodness, for dignity and value in human beings.

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We have the Word of God that provides for us things like this, ready? Thou shalt not steal.

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A foundation, a word from God, an absolute unmovable truth that says it is absolutely immoral and wrong to steal from your neighbor.

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Now if you don't start with Jesus Christ, what do you have? If you take the popular version in today's culture, what do you have?

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You and me? And I'm not exaggerating here. This is not misrepresentation. This is quotations.

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You and me are stardust. We're simply products of a star that exploded, died so that you could be alive.

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We are simply the descendants of highly evolved societies of bacteria. We are

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African apes. There is no good. There is no evil. There is only blind and pitiless indifference,

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Richard Dawkins. There is no imminent morality, Dr. Will Provine. We could go on for days.

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We could go on with quotations from the secularists, atheists and agnostics of our day who will tell us that there is no absolute standard of good, no justice ahead of any of us, which means the practical outworking of that, brothers and sisters, is this, there is no basis to complain about anything.

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There is no theft. There's just what is. There's no lying. There's just what is.

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There's no adultery. There's just what is. There is no taking something that doesn't belong to you because guess what, all of us are just products of an evolutionary process that did not have us in mind.

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We have to start with God's Word. And let me just say, watch this. Take Christian culture and society.

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Name some things, quickly, help me here. Name some things that Christians are chastised for in history.

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Give me some big moments that people will bring up as a failure of Christian, the witch hunts, the

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Crusades, slavery, Inquisition. Anything else?

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Religious wars, people bring up all the time. Secularists love this one. Religion is the cause of all the wars in history.

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Do you know how fallacious and stupid that is? Utterly meaningless claim.

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If you were to take the failures in history of Christians, do you know how you can call them failures?

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Not just because it makes you feel good to do so, not simply because you think they were failures.

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They're failures ultimately because you can look to an objective standard in Scripture to say where they went wrong.

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Now, by the way, I'm not admitting to all those charges, mind you. What I am saying is that, yes,

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Christians had failures in history. We can point to them, and I can say, do you know why that was a failure? It was a failure because you didn't look to God's Word here, and therefore, that's why you failed.

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But if you were to compare Christian culture and society and atheist regimes and culture in history, do you know that atheism and atheistic regimes are responsible for more deaths than any religious wars put together, and I believe,

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I estimate, ever will? We're talking they're winning by the metric ton in terms of how many people they've killed under atheistic regimes.

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So you compare cultures, Christian cultures versus atheistic and socialistic cultures, they win in terms of injustice and murder.

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There are moments in Christian history we can point to as failures, and we can say why they were failures because, watch, they said one thing about Jesus and one thing about His Word and law, and they did something completely different, and that's how we know.

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When atheists act evil and murderous in history, they are acting, get this, consistent with their position.

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Now let's talk some more about that. When we think in terms of how worldviews affect you, we talk about no neutrality.

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There is no neutrality. All of us have a worldview. All of us have a perspective of history, origins, human beings, rights, justice.

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Everyone has a worldview, and you should know something. If you reject God, if you reject

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Jesus Christ and you say, I don't want Him to rule over me, I don't want His Lordship, I don't want

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Him to tell me what to do, I don't want Jesus, I will not have Him, and I will function well without Him.

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But know this, if you abandon God, it doesn't mean that you're not going to worship.

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Now you'll worship anything. And listen, it's not a question, this is from my friend,

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I borrowed this quote from him, it is fantastic. It's not a question of whether a society will have a

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God over it. It's a question of which God, which

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God, which ultimate authority, which self -attesting authority, which one that has the final say, which one deserves, are you ready, our full obedience and allegiance.

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It doesn't matter if you say not Jesus, it means that you're going to go elsewhere and have some other self -attesting, final, ultimate authority.

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And listen, it's not a question of whether you will have a law to govern you.

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It's a question of which law and more specifically, whose law, whose law.

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And so when we come to this question in society and we say people are being oppressed and crushed, widows and orphans are being tossed out and destroyed, people are having their entire inheritance and all their life's work taken from them by an out of control government.

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When we ask these questions and we think about love for God and love for neighbor, we need to know, Christians, if you're quiet, it doesn't mean that no one's going to fill that gap.

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Someone's stepping in, somebody, ready, somebody is going to be forcing their worldview.

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Somebody is going to be proclaiming it, somebody is going to be heralding it, it's a question of who's going to be doing it.

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Which God will we serve, whose law will we obey, whom will we serve?

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And so let's talk about foundations quickly and this is, some of this is relatively easy and I plan to go kind of fast with these today because I don't think

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I need to do a lot of convincing on this today. I hope not, okay. First thing is, you need to understand two foundations, if you're taking notes, here's a note you can take, two foundations.

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Number one, we have to understand when we approach this issue, the first foundation is the sovereignty of God.

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We talk about that so much in Apology of Church, listen, don't be jaded, don't be indifferent towards it, it means everything.

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If you want to have a culture and society that doesn't steal from another human being, you have to understand the first foundation that our

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Christian forebears understood was first the sovereignty of God. Now watch, I don't mean so much in terms of His necessarily,

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His control over things, but His rule over everything. Here's the thing, He's the boss.

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He owns everything. He's in charge. Let's do a couple of verses together, okay, quickly. Psalm 24 one,

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Psalm 24 one. And let me do this, I'm going to have you participate today. Someone read me out loud, stand up and read

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Psalm 24 one, nice and loud and slowly. The earth is the

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Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.

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The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Everybody in the world belongs to God.

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He's the owner, He's the possessor, He's the sovereign. Here's another one,

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Deuteronomy 10, 14. And while someone's getting there, someone else get to First Chronicles 29, 11.

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First Chronicles 29, 11. So let me hear somebody stand up nice and loud and slowly recite

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Deuteronomy 10, 14. Everything belongs to God.

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Someone else stand and read First Chronicles 29, 11. Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God.

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One thing early Christians understood was that God is the ruler and owner of everything

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He's created. Next, we need to understand the second foundation is the individual's derivative sovereignty.

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That means that God is sovereign, but He has given us derivative delegated authority and sovereignty over what

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He's given to us. We're ultimately, in some sense, managers of the stuff that God gives to us.

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There's so many texts that we can go to in this respect. We can go to the parable of the talents, the responsibility they have over what

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God gave to them. But let's go to a text that maybe you might be surprised we go to in terms of personal ownership.

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Go to Acts chapter 5. It's actually a well -known passage, Acts chapter 5.

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And this is the instance of Ananias and Sapphira.

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What happened to them? They died because they didn't give with a heart that was pleasing to God, and they lied.

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Acts 5, verse 1, but a man named

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Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet.

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But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?

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While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?

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And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it you have contrived this deed in your heart?

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You have not lied to men but to God. What's the issue there that I'm pointing to? He says this, it was yours.

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You could do with it as you pleased. Belonged to you. But the issue was how they lied about the proceeds.

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And Peter says, as an apostle, he says, you haven't lied to men, you've lied to God. When you lied to the

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Holy Spirit, you've lied to God. Don't you know when you had that, it belonged to you, you could do with it as you pleased?

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Why did you lie? There is that derivative sovereignty of personal ownership.

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There's so many more texts we can go to, I think you get the point. When God gives a person something,

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He's the owner of all of it, we're responsible to Him, but He gives to us a delegated authority and derivative ownership.

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Now God's blueprint for society, there are little spheres of sovereignty in the

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Scriptures. The first sphere of sovereignty is the individual sovereignty before God.

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We're responsible before God. We have to obey God personally. There's a sphere of individual sovereignty.

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What's the next sphere of sovereignty? Who knows it? What's that? The family.

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The next sphere of sovereignty God's created, the next society God has created is the family. We operate together with a little bit of authority in this society.

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The father, head of the home, the mother's role, the children's role. We have our love for God displayed in particular ways for us to live together.

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No we don't do it perfectly, but we have a standard we all point to. We know what God says. There's another society

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God has created. There's another sphere of authority, and that's the authority in the sphere of the church.

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We're all there together. It's a different society. It's a different kind of sphere of authority, and there's another one.

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It's the civil government. What does the Bible say about that? It says in Romans 13 that civil government is given as God's servant, supposed to be the servant of God, not some other

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God, not some strange God, but the servant of God, and the purpose of civil government is to punish evil, enforce contracts, and to organize for defense.

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That is the specific purpose of civil government in Scripture, and wouldn't you know it, when our nation started, that's the view of government they had.

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That was the purpose of government. It was to punish evildoers, enforce justice, enforce contracts, organize for defense.

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Do you know it wasn't a part of our heritage? Health care. You don't see early

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Puritans going, you know what? I think we should take everybody's stuff and force them to buy something they didn't ask for.

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You know what you didn't see? You didn't see the early Christians actually organizing different institutions like the

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Department of Education. They saw education as the responsibility of each individual family and church.

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Do you know where people went to learn? What was the primary place in a community to learn, to read, to write, to church?

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Oftentimes people would go to the pastor's home to learn, to read and write. Do you know what they used, it's famous in history, to teach kids their

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ABCs? It was actually a list of ABCs connected to different doctrines and verses in the

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Bible. So as they learned A, they learned about Adam. As they learned the different letters of the alphabet, they learned different biblical themes, heroes,

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Bible passages that went with each different letter. That's how they learned to read and write. Do you know that when we were starting as a nation that education was completely private?

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And did you know that we had the highest literacy rate in the world? You think, well, how would you do that with homeschool and private education?

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Wouldn't you be stupid? I know, you would be socially awkward, right?

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Some of your greatest heroes in history were private school, educated, homeschooled.

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We didn't need government to get involved in this. And I want to say when they did, we all know what happened.

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We didn't see any of these institutions. We understood what the purpose of government was and we understood what the purpose of government was not.

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So the blueprint for society God gives to us, individual, family, church, civil government, and each society, each sphere of authority has its particular role and responsibility before God.

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Now let's move on to the text for today, Thou Shalt Not Steal. Let me give you something that I actually borrowed from Dr.

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Bonson in talking about this particular subject. Parents, you ever had an instance in your house where you hear the kid crying in the background, mine.

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Do you ever hear that? Mine. Dad. And they call you in the room and they start talking about somebody who took their stuff.

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What do we typically do in that situation as parents? Sometimes don't we do this? Does this happen to you ever?

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You have, because you just like, it's that old famous comedian that says parents in those instances aren't interested in justice, they want quiet, right?

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Kid cries, mine. Our first response to the big kid is what?

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Let him have it, right? Little kid wants something, big kid has it.

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We say to the big kid, give it to him, right? Do you know how unchristian that is?

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Think about it for a moment. Now I understand we want to solve the problem of how we relate to one another and how we actually solve and settle that conflict, amen,

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I get it. But we actually ought to commend our children when they say this is my property.

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We should commend that thought, that mindset. This belongs to me,

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I have delegated authority and derivative responsibility, they may not word it like that, but this is my

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Jedi knight. Belongs to me. God gave it to me, it's my property,

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I can decide what to do with it. Don't you have that with your stuff? Think about it as adults for a moment.

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If someone came to you and said, this is another borrowed example, I think it's fantastic. If someone said to you, all right,

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I'm going to give you this tree. It's your tree, it's your property, here's the only thing.

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The tree belongs to you, I'm giving it to you, it's your property, but you're not allowed to eat any of its fruit, and you can't chop it down, and you can't touch it, and you're not allowed to give it to anybody else.

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Can I ask a question? Do you own that tree? No. If it's not yours to have a sovereign rule over it, to do with it as you please, it doesn't belong to you.

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We should know fundamentally that God honors in Scripture this idea, and it sounds so strange in our culture.

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Are you ready? If something is yours, this is profound, it's yours.

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It belongs to you and nobody else. God gave it to you with your own sovereignty over it, and I'll give you proof.

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Ready? Ready? Thou shalt not steal. That verse, that command is meaningless if there is not individual sovereignty over our own things, because thou shalt not steal means nothing.

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If something doesn't belong to you, and you can say what happens to it, thou shalt not steal.

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The Scriptures give us so much on this point. Private property. Here's an example.

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If you look in the Bible, you'll see that there are penal sanctions, punishments for people who take somebody else's stuff.

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So think for a second how it works. Ready? In the Ten Commandments it says, thou shalt not steal, right? And then it says over here, if somebody does steal, here is the just way to bring harmony and to take care of the victim.

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This is how you should actually take care of it. So God says, thou shalt not steal. If somebody does steal, here's how they should be paid back.

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This is how you should bring harmony. This is how you care for the victim. Here's how you love your neighbor if something is stolen.

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Then God has other things in Scripture, like, for example, it seems kind of meaningless to us today, maybe if you're renting, but God says you're not to move the boundary marker or property marker of your neighbor next to you.

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What's that mean? I can't take my neighbor's boundary marker and start moving it over closer to his land, expanding my property, and why?

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Thou shalt not steal. What's the basic fundamental understanding?

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God is sovereign. I have to obey God. He has the final word, but he gives me my own stuff that I'm sovereign over, and he tells my neighbors, don't you dare take from Jeff.

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Don't take from Jeff. If you do take from Jeff, this is how you should be punished. Don't you hate your neighbor by taking his stuff or her stuff.

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That's what God says. It seems rather simple, right? Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about this?

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At a certain point, it has to hit you. Why are we discussing this? We're discussing it because we live in a society and culture today that says, well, that's not necessarily yours, and God doesn't necessarily have the final say, and thou shalt not steal is more of a recommendation rather than a way of life.

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That's the kind of culture that we live in. God's Word gives us that. So quickly, let's go to Matthew 20, quickly.

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Matthew chapter 20. Now you know this, but perhaps you've never thought about it in this way.

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Matthew chapter 20. How does God feel about private property, and in this case, somebody's business?

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Somebody's business. Matthew chapter 20, verse 1 through 16, for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

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After agreeing with the laborers for denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard, and going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace.

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And to them, he said, you go into the vineyard, too, and whatever's right, I will give you. So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and about the ninth hour, he did the same.

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About the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing, and he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day?

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They said to him, because no one has hired us. He said to them, you go into the vineyard, too. And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foremen, call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last up to the first.

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And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.

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Now when those hired first came, they thought that they received more, but each of them also received a denarius.

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And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, these last worked only one hour, and you've made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.

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But he replied, listen, to one of them, friend, am

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I doing you no wrong? Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go.

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I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what

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I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?

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So the last will be first and the first last. Now quickly, quickly, what's the point?

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He's not teaching an economics lesson per se, but he is teaching a spiritual truth that God is the sovereign over what?

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Salvation. And these Pharisees and these Sadducees, these religious leaders are like, look,

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I've been working this whole time. I've been serving God. I've been obeying the law.

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I've been doing all this work, and now you're going to give to these tax collectors and prostitutes, these sinners salvation after I've been doing all this work.

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And what's the point? God is sovereign. He can do what he pleases with his grace and salvation.

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It's not owed to anybody. It's his to give. But watch what's the truth underneath that lesson.

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It's an economics lesson. It's a lesson in personal property. What does it say?

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It says the person who owns the land can decide with their own stuff how much they want to give, how they want to give it.

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Don't begrudge their generosity. They don't have to give you a thing. Now you apply that principle today to things like, yeah, we're going to go there.

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We're going to raise the minimum wage. We're going to force business owners to do with their property what the government says they ought to do, which means what?

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Who owns the business now? The government and not the individual. Now watch.

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You might be saying, well, Jeff, that's a spiritual truth. How are you deriving an economic lesson from that? Well, there's more we can go to, but here's the point.

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Ready? Jesus can't make the parable as an analogy if it's sinful at bottom.

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So for example, Jesus can't give a parable to draw an analogy by using a sinful, adulterous thief as the example in the story and saying, that's like how

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God is. What's the point of the story? The landowner is good.

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He's right. He can do as he pleases, and that's like God. This all belongs to him.

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You belong to him. He can do what he wants with his own stuff. That's moral.

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That's just. That's good. Private property. God delegates, gives derivative authority.

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It's yours. No one can tell you what to do with your own stuff. And by the way, brothers and sisters, that's the foundation of the free market.

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If you don't have that, you don't have a free market. And I want to say, watch. The moment somebody else starts encroaching upon your property and telling you what to do with your own stuff and taking your stuff, you destroy commerce.

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You destroy people's desire to actually get ahead because if there's no reward, there's no point to work.

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And if people know that whatever they build, it'll be stolen from them, they stop building to protect themselves.

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As soon as you abandon God and the biblical worldview, you destroy culture and society. You hate your neighbor. Jesus makes the point based upon a moral foundation.

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He's not making a point based upon a sinful illustration. The spiritual meaning we know is that God's sovereignty is there and his free grace is his to give.

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Now, let's do a quick talk for a moment now on socialism. Socialism, a basic working definition, and it matters for Christians if we're going to be about the gospel.

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Basic definition of socialism is the involuntary community ownership of production.

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Let me say it again. It's the involuntary community ownership of production.

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The involuntary community ownership of production. That's pretty much self -explanatory, right?

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It's not voluntary. It's forced in some way. There's some coercion there. We don't own our own stuff.

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It's actually owned by the community. And you actually also own not only my stuff, but you own my production.

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Okay? Now, hang on to it because, guys, this gets big now. Hang on to it. What's a practical definition of socialism?

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Ready? Practical definition, and you all know it. You're already thinking it, I hope. The government ownership of production.

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That's a practical working definition of socialism. Let me give you the definition of slavery for a second, and tell me if you think there's something to it.

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The definition of slavery is the ownership of one's production. People say, well, there's history where in some

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Christian societies there's been slavery. Well, let me just say that if you study history, you know that it's only because Christianity and the biblical worldview that society is ever abolished in any...slavery

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is ever abolished in any society. Did you know? Did you know that in every single nation that Christianity has gone, did you know that slavery has been abolished?

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Wicked forms of slavery, done away with. And on the basis of what? Just because? No, that's how the world operates.

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That's the world system. Own other human beings. Own their production.

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Christianity, because of the gospel, because of our freedom in Jesus Christ, had a basis to say we're all equal under God, all created in God's image, and it's sinful to have oppression like this over another image bearer of God.

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You must stop. Let me just say this. Atheism doesn't provide a basis for the end of slavery.

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You can't command one random result of evolutionary processes to stop oppressing another.

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That's foolish. Only the biblical worldview does away with it, but let me just say this. When we say today in the 21st century in 2016, when we say that we've abolished slavery,

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I have to ask a question. If slavery is the ownership of another's production, let me just ask you this question, and it's a dangerous question to ask.

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I admit it. I'll confess to the dangerous... This is a dangerous attempt to take a stab at this.

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When you got your paycheck, when you...

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Sage, he's working now. And on the way over here, he picked up his paycheck, opens his paycheck up, and thankfully he's young, and so he's not feeling what most of us are feeling.

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But he opened up his paycheck, and before it even got into his hand, before he got to put it into his bank after he worked as hard as he did, and I worked as hard as I have to pick him up at 12 .30

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at night, as soon as he got it, he opens it up. What's the thing? He pulls it out.

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What's he do? He sees the total amount of his labor, and then he sees the total amount he could put in the bank.

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There was somebody that took something from him before he got it. Do you get the point?

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What is the government doing today in society? They own your production. Before you even get your money, what do they say? I'll take mine first.

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Now, when we say, well, that's not slavery. Slavery has been abolished. Is it risky to say that it's slavery?

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Maybe. Is it inaccurate? No. Now, you might say, well, that's just the way of the world.

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That's just the way things are. Well, I'm going to say this. Just because something is doesn't mean that it ought to be.

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And if we had a society that was governed by biblical love and law, we would abhor such things.

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So the definition of slavery is the ownership of one's production. You want to talk about the Mark of the

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Beast? That's exciting, isn't it? Like Dr.

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White says, you can say, we're going to hold a conference on the Trinity, and there's like crickets in the room, right?

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Who are like, why would we want to do something like that, right? But if you say, we're going to hold a prophecy conference and talk about the

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Mark of the Beast, people are like, sign me up, right? I'll take two tickets. Let's talk for a moment about, now that we're past slavery and the foundations we need to think about, let's talk about what the early

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Christians had to confront. So, are you ready? Open your Bibles to Revelation 13.

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Now, let me just say, if you're a new believer, no, you should not start reading your

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Bible at Revelation 13, or Book of Revelation. If you don't have an understanding of the

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Old Testament, then you cannot ultimately understand John's point in Revelation.

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Let me just say quickly that you have to see that Revelation has over 400 verses.

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Over half of those verses are direct quotations from the Old Testament, or allusions to Old Testament passages.

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What does that tell you? You have to understand John's world and his framework before you can even begin to understand

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Revelation. And did you know that the Book of Revelation actually has created the genesis of many of the modern

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American cults? When you look at Mormonism, when you look at the

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Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, when you look at David Koresh in Waco, Texas, all of those cults use

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Revelation and bad -ass catology to drive their theology. Now, I'll just say as we start to enter this text, we need to understand the

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Biblical distinction between Antichrist and beast. And yes, all of this is relevant to our situation today.

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Antichrist and beast. You'll hear people today saying things like, who's the Antichrist? You're the Antichrist? He's the Antichrist? She's the Antichrist?

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Every single election season, they're the Antichrist. Every single one.

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Everyone? Everyone. Ronald Reagan was the Antichrist. George Bush was the Antichrist. Bill Clinton was the

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Antichrist. Just kidding. Obama.

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Antichrist, right? Every pope has been the Antichrist. Look at history. Every time, it's the

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Antichrist. Well, we should read our Bibles. Rather than thinking about pop

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Christian culture, about who the Antichrist is, or anything else, we should actually look through the Bible.

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What's Antichrist? Did you know that it's only used in the Bible by one person? John. And did you know when he said it in 1

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John 2 .18? He said that there are many Antichrists.

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And do you know what makes you Antichrist? If you deny that God has come in the flesh, you are

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Antichrist. So do you know who's Antichrist? Muslims.

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Anybody who denies that God became a man is Antichrist. So when people say, who's the

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Antichrist, they're asking the wrong question. Because we can go all day with that. There's not just one

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Antichrist. There are many Antichrists. And anybody who denies that God became a man is

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Antichrist. Do you know what question you should be asking? If you really want to get to the heart of what Christians are saying, you should be asking, who's the beast?

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Who's the beast? Because the beast of Revelation is a central figure. But let's backtrack for a second.

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In the book of Revelation, John says that he's gotten this revelation. And he says that there are things that are soon to take place.

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And that he's coming quickly. Now, I believe that John wrote the book of Revelation before the fall of Jerusalem in 70

59:50

AD. I think I can prove that point to you from internally in the book of Revelation and externally through corroborative evidence in history.

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I think I can prove that point to you, but that's not the full point of today. Here's the point of today.

01:00:04

I'll give you my interpretation of Revelation 13. In Revelation 13, when John describes the beast, he describes this terrifying creature that most commentators agree is

01:00:16

Rome. Rome, seven heads, ten horns, he says later on.

01:00:24

The seven heads. Rome was known as the Septimontium, the city of seven hills. Rome had ten imperial provinces.

01:00:32

When John gives the list of kings in Revelation, he says five have fallen, one is.

01:00:39

And the one who is to come will remain for a little while. Before Nero Caesar, there were five

01:00:44

Caesars. Then Nero. And the one who served after Nero, Galba, only remained for less than a year.

01:00:52

A short time. So it fits. But if you look at Revelation 13, just read for a moment now, look what it says.

01:01:01

Revelation chapter 13, when it describes the beast in this biblical imagery that means something significant, we can't do it today.

01:01:11

Verse 5, and the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words. And it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months.

01:01:21

It opens its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming His name and His dwelling, that is those who dwell in heaven, also is allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.

01:01:31

It says the beast here is given 42 months, listen, to make war with the saints.

01:01:39

Now as an aside, do you know how long Nero persecuted the Christians? 42 months.

01:01:46

It says further here that the beast is going to die by the sword. Do you know how Nero died?

01:01:52

By his own sword. But that's not the point of today. Here's the point of today. Revelation 13, describing this monstrosity, this beast.

01:02:04

Revelation 13, verse 16. Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or on the forehead.

01:02:20

Now what do we know about this? Have you seen it? Have you seen it come up in your feed?

01:02:26

Have you seen Christians sharing content that shows you something about a microchip in someone's head or hands?

01:02:35

Perhaps you believed it. Perhaps you used to be worried about one day a government that's going to slip a microchip into your head or hands.

01:02:44

That's before, yeah, that's right. Before Apologia, right? That's part of our culture today in the 21st century.

01:02:51

Evangelical Christians go, right?

01:03:00

Do you know today they have technology that they can put into your hand and the government with Obamacare is going to start chipping people?

01:03:09

And that's the mark of the beast. It's Obamacare. It's been Obamacare all along, right? That's what people say.

01:03:14

They say it's a microchip or something goes in the head or hand. You know what this is? It's the result of Christians not reading their

01:03:21

Bibles. It's the result of Christians not understanding their Bibles and understanding the world

01:03:26

John lived in. No Christian reading John's letter thought that Rome was going to put a microchip in their head or hands or anything like it.

01:03:37

Do you know what they knew in the first century, these Christians? They knew, it's in the book of Revelation, that Jews were persecuting them and killing them and the

01:03:45

Romans were persecuting them and killing them. They had oppression from both sides and they also knew that Rome wanted you to say something.

01:03:56

Say it loud. Caesar is Lord. All you had to do in the first century to be safe from Rome.

01:04:04

They didn't care that you worshiped Jesus. You could worship anything in Rome. They were pagans.

01:04:10

All they wanted was this. You can't worship Jesus. We don't like that God. They said you must have ultimate allegiance to and devotion to the

01:04:21

Caesar. He must be Kyrios. He must be Lord. And Christians died because they weren't willing to mouth the words

01:04:29

Caesar Kyrios. Can you imagine that? You go home. You're brought before Nero. He ties you up in his garden parties that he rode his chariot through.

01:04:39

He tied Christians up or rounded up in the streets to a pole. He'd wrap them in pitch and they're about to light you on fire.

01:04:49

Imagine they say to you, you got kids at home. You got a wife at home. All you have to say is

01:04:56

Caesar Kyrios. Give your devotion to the emperor. Give your devotion to the state.

01:05:04

Caesar Kyrios. Just say it. And Christians died. Nero would round Christians up, bring them to his garden parties, light them on fire, and they acted as Roman candles for his garden parties.

01:05:16

Roman candles. Bet you'll never use that firework the same way again. He used to take

01:05:24

Christians and he'd, for sport, kill them because they wouldn't say Caesar Kyrios. They wouldn't have ultimate devotion to Caesar and to the emperor, to the state.

01:05:34

He would get naked, cover himself in the skins of bears or lions.

01:05:40

They would tie Christians up nude to a stake and then he would eat them alive. This is the kind of thing that Nero did.

01:05:48

He was truly a beast and people in history called him exactly that word, a beast. Nero demanded worship.

01:05:57

Caligula began the imperial cultus, the worship cult. He actually started to really get it going but Nero perfected it.

01:06:06

Nero demanded that people worshiped him. Caesar Kyrios and worshiped Caesar.

01:06:11

Do you know what Christians were called in Rome? Atheists. Christians were called atheists because they refused to worship ultimately the

01:06:20

Caesar and submit to his ultimate authority. They wouldn't say Kaiser Kyrios. They had to say

01:06:26

Kaiser Kyrios to live. They would say Jesus is Kyrios. He's the Lord. He has my devotion.

01:06:32

And do you know what Nero wanted? He wanted your worship. He wanted your devotion and he wanted your production.

01:06:40

And do you know what? When any Christian read John's revelation here, well, the revelation of Jesus Christ, do you know what?

01:06:47

No Christian would have thought there was a literal mark on their head or hands that was coming. I want to ask you something real fast.

01:06:54

Do you recognize those words? Now seriously, come back. If you checked out, come back because this is good.

01:07:00

Do you recognize that from anywhere else? A mark on your head and your hand.

01:07:09

Is that anywhere? Think biblically now. Is there anywhere else in the Bible where there's a mark on the head or hand described?

01:07:28

Let's see if you get it. No, don't be afraid, Ann. Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you if you get it wrong now. It's getting close.

01:07:38

Come on now. There you go. Go to your

01:07:43

Bibles now. Come on now. Deuteronomy 6. I've already said it today, but did you know there's more?

01:07:52

Deuteronomy 6. This is really amazing. John, remember, is quoting Old Testament passages the whole way through Revelation.

01:07:59

If you don't understand it, you can't understand Revelation. He says this beast is causing all to worship him, and he's going to put a mark on their head or their hands.

01:08:14

Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

01:08:20

You should love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your might, and these words that I command you today shall be on your hearts.

01:08:27

You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise.

01:08:35

You shall bind them as a sign on your hands and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

01:08:44

You put this sign on your head and your hands. Now, can

01:08:51

I ask you a question? Do you think that they understood that they literally had to walk around all day with something on their forehead and hands?

01:08:56

That would get extremely annoying. Listen, watch. Understand the

01:09:02

Hebrew world and how they thought. A mark on your head symbolized ownership and devotion.

01:09:10

A mark on your head symbolized who you belong to, who you're devoted to. The Hebrew culture was a right -handed culture.

01:09:18

You see in Scripture so many references to the right hand, to the right hand. It was a right -handed culture.

01:09:23

They understood things in terms of the right hand. Listen and work what you produce.

01:09:31

Everything I am, I belong to God. He has authority over me. I'm devoted to Him. And everything

01:09:37

I do will be in God's name. A sign on my head and my hand. That's what it meant.

01:09:43

Now watch. Revelation chapter 13. This beast, he wants you to worship him. He wants your full devotion.

01:09:49

He wants his sign on your head and he wants it on your hand. He wants your full devotion and guess what else he wants?

01:09:57

Your production. Are you seeing it now? The Bible isn't merely this spiritual document that's up in the air somewhere.

01:10:05

It's about the real world. And Nero died by the sword, persecuted Christians, and demanded they take high security off.

01:10:13

They said no. But do you know what it's described as? What is an out of control emperor and state described as in the

01:10:23

Bible? A beast. A devouring beast. It wants your full devotion.

01:10:31

It wants your production. And you know what else the beast does when God describes an out of control government?

01:10:37

A government worthy of his condemnation and wrath? Do you know what that government also does besides wanting your devotion and your production?

01:10:46

Go to Revelation 13. Back to that text. Look what else the text says about the beast.

01:10:59

It says, verse 17, a mark on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

01:11:17

What is an out of control, worthy of condemnation state do in Revelation 13?

01:11:27

It tries to control commerce, production, business.

01:11:37

God's Word has the answers, brothers and sisters. This is how the Word of God describes a government that is out of control.

01:11:46

Is it relevant? Yes, it's relevant. Early Christians, again, were called atheists.

01:11:53

They wouldn't say Kaiser Kurios. They were considered, listen, enemies of the state. There was a

01:12:00

Roman doctrine called the genius of the emperor. The Roman doctrine of the genius of the emperor, the idea was that deity itself sat within a person from the beginning of their life to the end.

01:12:15

That person ultimately had all the answers. They were the self -attesting authority. They were the ultimate authority.

01:12:21

What they said goes. They were worshipped as though they were divine. The state was divine.

01:12:31

Human beings were under the state. That was God. Brothers and sisters, what does the Bible say about that?

01:12:36

In 1 Samuel 8, what does it say? The people of God wanted a king like all the other nations.

01:12:43

What does God say? He says, okay, I'll give them a king and here's what I'm going to do.

01:12:48

I'll give them a king to punish them. Don't worry, Samuel. They didn't reject you. They rejected me in asking for a king to rule over them.

01:12:56

Here's what I'll do. I'll give them a king and he gives them a king to punish them. The people of God have always said human authorities are subordinate authorities to the singular

01:13:08

God, the only God, and all of us ultimately are equal underneath them. We're not to desire an ultimate king that has the full say.

01:13:19

Any earthly authority only has delegated authority from God. Let me just say quickly, what are some consequences of rejecting

01:13:29

God's command and the biblical worldview? Overblown taxation. A broken system.

01:13:38

Too much government. 1 Samuel 8. Again, read it later. We don't have time right now, but read it later. Some of you guys knew exactly what

01:13:45

I was going to say, but what does God say? I'll give him a king and here's what he's going to do. He's going to take your kids to war.

01:13:52

He's going to take your kids to war. He's going to tax you. Are you ready?

01:13:58

When I punish a nation, when I punish a nation, I'm going to give them a king to punish them that will tax them at 10%.

01:14:08

That's God's judgment on a nation. What's that mean? That state is going to actually have so much nerve and gall that they're going to think that they deserve the same amount as the tithe.

01:14:24

God calls two organizations, this is amazing, to actually be allowed to have a right to some of your income.

01:14:33

Worship in the church, tithe, 10%. And the state is worthy under God to receive taxes, but only in a righteous way.

01:14:44

And in 1 Samuel 8, it says that when God judges a nation, the state is actually going to want what

01:14:51

God gets. Where are we at today? We think about love for neighbor, where are we at today?

01:15:01

10, 20, 30, 40, 50? I was talking to Sage earlier.

01:15:07

He was talking about France, right? France, Sage? You're at 70%, 80 % sometimes.

01:15:17

You have people, their entire production is taken from them. Their property, their production, what belongs to them and their children and their posterity is taken from a government.

01:15:28

God says when He punishes a nation, the state will actually have so much corruption in their heart that they'll think that they're worthy of what

01:15:37

God gets. 10%, that's punishment. Now we say today, brothers and sisters, and by the way, this is no means to be offensive.

01:15:44

I love my country. I love our history. I love our heritage. I love it.

01:15:50

It's the best thing I think that's ever happened in the history of the world in terms of what God gave to us as a nation. We're not where we were, but I love our nation.

01:15:57

We think today, well, we're free. We're a free country. We're free. We're free Americans. We would never take people's children to war.

01:16:07

We don't have a draft. We would never tax people at 10%.

01:16:13

No, we'll do 30, 40, 50 % of people's income. We don't have slavery any longer.

01:16:21

We've abolished slavery. We don't own anybody's production. Brothers and sisters, can't you see that who wins this next election ultimately in the whole scheme of things it's irrelevant because there are issues at bottom, sinful issues, that are still going to be present within our culture and society until we repent.

01:16:45

So all the difficulties and disagreements amongst Christians, ultimately we need to think about the core issues of what should we be speaking prophetically to?

01:16:54

Should we be heralding this guy or that guy or this girl? Okay, we can have disagreements and we should talk about those and do it with love and respect, but the core issue is we have to speak prophetically to the main issues.

01:17:05

The main issues. What's government's role under God? How do we call it to repentance?

01:17:11

How do we stop people from wanting other people's stuff? It's only going to happen with a heart change. More consequences.

01:17:20

Again, the state wants God's tithe. Consequences, things like Obamacare, destroying families, destroying people's health insurance, destroying industry, all those things.

01:17:31

Destroys businesses. Government ownership of business. Slows commerce.

01:17:38

It destroys commerce. Businesses close when the government gets involved. I'll take one perfect example and it didn't take long and I'll say this briefly.

01:17:46

It's really interesting when you think about it. We've decided that taking other people's stuff is okay for us.

01:17:52

We've decided that the government ownership of personal businesses is perfectly acceptable, so when we've actually said, okay, we'll let the government tell business owners what to do with their stuff.

01:18:03

You must pay somebody this amount of money. What has it done to those industries? It's destroying them.

01:18:10

How many businesses have closed because they cannot afford to pay their employees $15 an hour?

01:18:16

How many businesses actually cut their employees hours back to avoid the penalties and consequences of something like Obamacare?

01:18:25

Yeah, let's create now a mechanical system that takes the place of a human being because guess what?

01:18:31

It's cheaper than the human now, so we destroy industry, we destroy families, we destroy businesses when we don't do it

01:18:41

God's way. When we watch, when we say to God's law, you shall not steal, when we say to it, no thanks, then we feel the consequences all around us and it will eat us alive.

01:18:57

One example I'll give you, and it's my favorite one now. If you have another one, give me another one because I love these examples.

01:19:05

I think they're fantastic. Other than God's word, what happens when we disobey? I saw a fantastic little clip.

01:19:13

Some of you guys heard me talk about it before. It's really amazing because we say this stuff all the time, but like these examples are helpful.

01:19:21

It was a guy who went into Cuba and he goes into the business section of Cuba where all the businesses are downtown and you would think, well, it's

01:19:30

Cuba, right? Bustling businesses, things are great there. He goes in to get a sandwich or go to a restaurant and get something to eat and all we could find are all the same restaurant all over town selling one thing, ham sandwich.

01:19:46

He can't figure this out so he goes into there and all they're selling is ham sandwiches and all the employees are just sitting around doing nothing with bare cabinets, nothing to sell, waiting for their daily gift of bread and ham from the government to sell.

01:20:02

And you know what? You know what they get? They get the same amount of money no matter what. So are they working hard?

01:20:08

No. Are they trying to create something beautiful for the glory of God? No. Are they actually increasing production and making society beautiful and wonderful?

01:20:17

No. Why? Because they get paid the same amount from the government no matter what they do and they have to wait for their support from the government to do anything in business.

01:20:25

And so when you go to Cuba downtown, ham sandwiches. And I hate ham sandwiches personally.

01:20:32

So I wouldn't do well there. But you see what it does? It destroys a culture. It destroys a people.

01:20:38

They can't survive. Does God give the government rights over your property?

01:20:45

I'm not going to read this to you. I just want you to read it by yourself later. So write it down and go read it as married couples, single people.

01:20:52

Go read it by yourselves later. Go read 1 Kings 21. And in 1

01:20:58

Kings 21, you're going to see an example of a wicked king who wants to buy private property from a citizen.

01:21:08

You know what the citizen tells him? No. And so then there's a woman named

01:21:14

Jezebel. You guys, when I said, isn't it amazing how you say a word and it already gets like this, oh you

01:21:21

Jezebel, right? There's a woman named Jezebel that sees the king all distraught. He's so mad.

01:21:27

Like he seriously, this guy's such a wuss, this king. He really is. By the way, in history, he's one of the most famous ancient kings.

01:21:35

He's not just written about in the Bible. He's written about in Assyria. The Assyrians loved him, but they don't mention any of this stuff.

01:21:42

He wants the guy's property. The guy tells him no. He's the government. Jezebel is like, what's wrong?

01:21:48

And he's like, won't sell me the stuff. Like I want the property. The vineyard's great. I said I'd buy it from him and he won't give it to me.

01:21:55

And she's like, what's wrong? He's like, I'm not eating anything because I'm just so sad. He's like, I want that so bad.

01:22:00

I love it. Beautiful, like oceanfront property. It's nice, right? Or whatever it was. I made that part up.

01:22:07

But you know what she does? Jezebel actually forges something to have the state go against the guy and they claimed and they found false witnesses to say that he actually blasphemed the king.

01:22:21

And so then they kill him. They kill the guy. Jezebel has him murdered so that the king can actually take his land.

01:22:29

And do you know what God does? God sends a prophet. God sends a prophet to tell him essentially that dogs are going to eat your blood up.

01:22:42

You're going to be destroyed. You're going to die. You're going to be animal food for what you did. How does

01:22:48

God feel about a government taking ownership of your property? The point of the story is the guy said, it's mine.

01:22:55

You can't have it. And this wicked king and his Jezebel thought, well, then

01:23:02

I'll take it by force. And God says, well, then I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do to you. I'm going to destroy you.

01:23:11

How does God feel from cover to cover about private property? He says,

01:23:16

I'm the sovereign. You have sovereignty over your stuff. You shall not steal.

01:23:22

You can do what you want with your own stuff and nobody has a right to it. Final thing

01:23:27

I'll say, that doesn't mean that as Christians we're not supposed to be giving and gracious and loving and caring.

01:23:35

You know what? If you have a society where you stop stealing from people, if you have a society that starts respecting other people, their property, their dignity, their rights, do you know what the society often does?

01:23:46

They start actually giving of themselves to one another. They start loving neighbor more.

01:23:54

When you don't steal from people, those people have more to give away.

01:24:03

The solution, quickly, let me read you this.

01:24:09

I know I have you over, but I got to give you this. This is really a blessing. I told you earlier that all the major Protestant confessions actually talked about this issue, socialism.

01:24:19

Can I read you this real fast? From the 39 Articles of Faith. Here's one. The Belgic Confession, the 39

01:24:25

Articles of Faith, listen to number 38. Of Christian men's goods which are not common.

01:24:36

I know that's old English, but ready? The 38th article is of Christian men's goods which are not common.

01:24:46

You know what that means? Your stuff is your stuff. It doesn't belong to the community.

01:24:52

It's in their article of faith, and it says this. The riches and goods of Christians are not common as touching the right title and possession of the same as certain

01:25:03

Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor according to his ability.

01:25:13

You know what that says? What's yours is yours. It doesn't belong to anybody else. However, you ought to, under God, be gracious and giving to the poor and to the needy but nobody has a right to take it from you.

01:25:28

And we ask the question today. How come we have a culture that so loves other people's stuff? And how come the early people in this country didn't live in such a way?

01:25:37

It was in the Bible. It was in their very confessions. Their confessions said no to socialism.

01:25:47

Why? Because that's stealing. You should not steal. So the solution, speak prophetically.

01:25:55

Brothers and sisters, don't be a jerk but talk about it. Call it what it is. That's theft.

01:26:01

God says you should not steal. How come not socialism? Because socialism is sin. Don't do it because it's stealing from your neighbor.

01:26:11

How come not socialism? Because we ought to love our neighbors. Oh, but socialism is loving your neighbor because you should take care of the lower classes and take care of their needs.

01:26:20

What about the mass of people that you're going to rob in order to do such a thing? See, we don't ever talk about that.

01:26:27

The emotional argument. What about the poor? What about the needy? What about the broken? What about the families?

01:26:33

What about the children? What about the widows that you're stealing from to do it? What about them?

01:26:39

Thou shall not steal is not a recommendation. It's a command. Speak prophetically. Next, preach the gospel.

01:26:45

Only God's going to change the heart. Larceny is in people's hearts. They're going to love it until God changes them.

01:26:52

Last thing, the church's role. You know why this exists? Because we failed.

01:26:59

How come it exists? Because we failed. Christians, we failed. The church has failed.

01:27:06

When the church steps out of an area where there's a need, someone's going to fill it.

01:27:14

Someone's going to take care of it. And guess what happens? Every single time the church steps out of a place in culture that is necessary, needed for us to be in, do you know who comes in to save the day?

01:27:27

The state. And they always fail, and it always becomes a system of oppression to fund it.

01:27:34

We have to step in. We've got to take care of the poor. We've got to take care of the needy.

01:27:39

And let me just say something. Do you know what that means? And this is where it gets heavy and convicting, and I'm speaking to myself as much as I'm speaking to you.

01:27:46

Do you know how the church will be able to actually function in that way if Christians stop robbing

01:27:52

God of the tithe? Do you know what percentage of Christians actually give?

01:28:04

It's so low, it's shameful. As a church, the only way for us to take care of the needs

01:28:10

God calls us to do is if we actually have the ability to do it.

01:28:16

But because Christians don't give faithfully, they don't give in a way where they say, God, you own it, it's yours.

01:28:22

Because we don't, we don't have the ability to take care of the needs of people. We can't provide the necessary function to be able to take care of the needs of the poor in the way that we're supposed to.

01:28:31

So what happens? The state goes, we'll do that. And guess what? Since you don't tithe to God, the state says,

01:28:37

I need to tithe. Why? Because I've got that duty over there to take care of this need and that need and this need. So I'm going to have to take it, but I'm not going to take 10.

01:28:44

I'll take 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70%. Why? Well, the church isn't there, so we have to do it.

01:28:50

But you see, when we do it, we're going to take more, a lot more. So there's a real sin at bottom here, and it's a sin in every single one of us.

01:29:00

I confess to it. I have a history of it in my past as well. You think, well, I'm saved. I don't have to give.

01:29:06

I don't have to tithe. God doesn't really require that, so I'm not going to do it. And so we don't do it, and then the church suffers.

01:29:12

The church can't take care of needs, and so someone steps in and does it for us. We have to repent.

01:29:18

We have to repent of our sins and not giving. We have to repent of our indifference in this area, and we have to call the world to repentance and faith in Jesus.

01:29:27

That's the call. Was this helpful? I hope it was. I know it was long.

01:29:33

We went longer than usual today. I know I kept you. But I think these things are so important for us to get, and I know that we're in a difficult time right now where Christians disagree.

01:29:44

I understand. I understand there are arguments on both sides. Here's what I'm saying. We have a central unity over the core issues.

01:29:51

We've got to at least stay unified around those core issues. Those are issues we can fight together and ought to fight together because they matter no matter what.

01:30:01

These are the issues. Let's pray that God helps us to do it. Amen? Let's pray.

01:30:07

Father, thank you so much. Please bless. Please bless what happened today. Please help it,

01:30:13

God, to send it to our hearts. Send it out to do your will. Please use the words of an unworthy man to change the world through Christ and his gospel.