For Those Who Have Forgotten

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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We will pray. Almighty Father, lead us to your word so that we may find healing of heart and soul and mind in the gospel of Jesus.

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Be near us as we read for ourselves that Jesus has indeed died and has risen again for us. Keep us steadfast in your grace and your mercy so that we may spread your love to those who haven't heard the good news and to those who have heard but have forgotten.

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Let us do all that we can to win souls for you that they may go out and do the same in Jesus Holy name we pray.

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Amen. All right. As is our practice.

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Any questions? Yes, I see that hand. I'm shocked that you would be asking a question.

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Got it. Yeah. Okay. All right.

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Romans 8. Let's take a look at it. Romans 8.

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Specifically 20? Around 27.

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Okay. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses if we do not know what to pray as we ought but the

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Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what is in the mind of the

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Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Now I will say this is that there is a you're absolutely right in this sense that the

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Spirit does intercede for us and Christ is our mediator. This is this is most certainly true. I was really kind of focusing on the aspect of what

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James says you have not because you ask not and so so the idea here is is that in dealing in it is absolutely true that Christ is our mediator and that the

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Spirit intercedes for us. I think some theologians would argue that that interceding is with groanings that the

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Spirit does. This is kind of a oh, this is not the best way to construct it.

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But oftentimes when we pray our prayers are soiled with sin and and and so the groanings there have a lot more to do with while we are praying the

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Spirit is also kind of working out and saying here's a better way for him to have said that kind of thing.

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And so it's an assisting role of the Spirit in in our prayers because even my best prayers are still soiled with sin and also may even be soiled with like really bad motives and intentions.

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So not only do we have not because we ask not but also we do not have because we ask with the wrong motives.

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And so and so in this case, there's the interceding work of the Spirit. All of that being said, it's still absolutely 100 % true that the devil is quite active in working against us.

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He can do nothing apart from what is granted to him by God, which is a frightening thing and also a comforting thing.

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And at the same time when we are inattentive in our prayers, and again I'm talking now running everything through faith, faith in the promises.

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Do you believe these things? Do you confidently come before God and trust that he hears you?

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Do you pray back his words that there that in that particular case then you'll note that we can trust

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God and he's never going to allow us to go through something that will destroy us in that sense.

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But at the same time there's certain things that we just do not have because we don't ask and the devil is asking to the contrary.

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And so that was that was really the gist of the point that I was making, but I understand, you know what you're getting at.

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Does that answer it satisfactorily? Did I betray the gospel? Well...

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Gosh... It's... Um... I just got a little flinchy

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The idea that if I don't do it, you know, that it's on me. Yeah, this your default though is going to be

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God is the one who's still, you know, Christ is your advocate. So, um, you know, so I'm not trying to put a new law on you.

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That's not it. That's the in fact, it's more like if the gospel is true, oh and it is, and you are forgiven, you know, you really can and and there's a there's an oughtness, a shouldness to it.

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But that is that is the natural fruit then of faith, not the guilt trip of of the law which says you're not praying enough.

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Well, how much is enough? You know, I remember one time when I was in high school, we had a chapel teacher come, you know, preacher come to our our school and his argument was this, that scripture requires us to give a tithe of our money.

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So if scripture requires us to give a tithe of our money, does it not make sense that we would then have to give

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God 10 % of our day? So, well, of our day meaning hours spent reading the

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Bible, praying, journaling, and things like this. Well, you do the math. I mean 24 hours, you know, we're talking almost three hours a day and I went for it.

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I thought this would be, you know, I this is what God wants me to do. I mean, I don't want to upset God and and I found myself exhausted after three days of trying and gave up the whole endeavor and said

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I don't think God wants the tithe of my day, you know. But so that what we're not trying to do is go back to something like that.

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But again, you are blood -bought, you are forgiven. Have confidence then God wants to hear from you.

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Pray back his word and also pray in defiance of the devil, you know, and the fact that we have so many troubles, sufferings, trials, and tribulation mean that the devil is still a very, quite active in tempting us to sin and to despair of our faith.

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That being the case, in faith you come back and you say, you know, I clearly missed a court date here, but, you know, still you're my father.

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He's the devil, you know. You've said to be there my time of trouble and he will. And then pointing out also that Scripture also says that the sufferings that we go through, suffering produces perseverance.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, all those things. So I do believe that many of the sufferings that we go through that God is using them to assist us in the mortification of our self -righteousness, which is the best way

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I could put it because when things are going well in my life, and I'm super healthy, you know, what do

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I need God for, you know? So, you know. Exactly, right.

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All right, any other questions? All right, let's get back into the

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Torah. Again, reminder, this is law. It shows us what good works are. It also convicts us of our sin.

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And I'm gonna use a text that's a little bit odd here for a cross -reference.

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Here's what it says, When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

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I am Yahweh your God. Now clearly, Israel sojourned in Egypt, but think through the

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Bible, the first five books of the Bible, and can you think of a really poignant, salient example of a place that mistreated strangers and sojourners?

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Huh? Well, Egypt, kind of. At first, no. And then later, yes.

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But there's an example in Scripture of a place where sojourners were poorly treated.

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Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah, Sodom and Gomorrah. I would say that a gang rape would be on, you know, that's the opposite of hospitality.

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So you'll note then that there is an aspect, and you can find this in some of the cross -references as it relates to Sodom and Gomorrah, that their sin is multifaceted.

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Yes, they engaged in sexual immorality, and they were judged accordingly. But there are other passages that talk about the fact that they mistreated people, and that they were not hospitable.

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You know, it was the opposite of hospitality. And so that we don't pit the two against each other, we recognize that that both aspects are true.

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And so what happens is that some liberals like to, you know, point out some of the cross -references and say, well look, the sin of Sodom actually was inhospitable.

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You know, they were not engaging in good hospitality. Right, yes, that's absolutely true.

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And so if you, have you, there's a book that is not Scripture that is referenced in Scripture, actually two of these books.

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There's a book called the book of Jasher and the book of Enoch. Have you heard of either of them?

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Okay, the book of Jasher is a fascinating read. And I like to think of it as kind of a book of legendary fill -in -the -gap data that's missing from Scripture.

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For instance, in the book of Jasher, it tells us that Noah, when he finally married, and he waited until he was what, 200 -something years old before he got married, he, the book of Jasher tells us that he waited to get married because he was, he didn't want to bring kids into the world, though the world was wicked and evil, and he eventually married the daughter of Enoch, the guy who was taken up to heaven, and that she was 200 years older than him when they got married.

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So she was totally robbing the cradle. So, you know, but when you're living the 900, my question is where does middle -age come in, you know, and stuff like that?

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You know, and when you live in the 900 years old, I guess 200 is the new 30. I'm, you know, I'm not sure how this works, but you get the idea.

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But also in the book of Jasher, it gives us very interesting details about Sodom and Gomorrah, and we can't know that this is historically reliable, but the picture that it paints is that Sodom and Gomorrah had a habit, it was practically like a sport with them, that if people would come and they were strangers and wanted, especially merchants who would bring merchandise with them to sell and engage in commerce, that they had rigged their whole law system in such a way that they could pretty much roughly abuse people, take all that they have, and then send them off penniless and bruised and beaten and really poorly treated, you know, is a good way to put it.

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And the book of Jasher gives the details. Now whether or not this is accurate, we don't, we can't say with 100 % certainty.

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I like to say it's, you know, these are things that were written down that were probably handed down word of mouth. It's also the book of Jasher that claims that one of the major sins of the pre - flood earth, they claim that it, that there was illicit sexual activity going on prior to the flood as well, but that's not mentioned in Genesis.

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So, you know, you have to be careful with books like that. Now the book of Enoch is a fascinating book. It teaches that, that the angels were despondent because after the fall, earthly women no longer had the splendor and the beauty that they had prior to the fall, and so the angels came up with the idea of convincing women to put on makeup.

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I'm not making that up. That's also in the book of Enoch. So, but all of that being said, you know, what is in the book of Jasher regarding Sodom and Gomorrah does actually fit with the cross -references regarding Sodom and Gomorrah in the

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Old Testament regarding their not engaging in hospitality, but mistreating sojourners and strangers.

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And so you'll note then that in this particular case, God gives a positive reason as opposed to a negative reason why a stranger or sojourner in a land must, you shouldn't wrong him, and the reason was because they were strangers in the land of Egypt.

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They know what it's like to be a sojourner or a stranger, and so the idea is God has been merciful to you who were a sojourning, you know, nation, and he has brought you to your homeland.

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So you then show compassion and kindness and treat the sojourner among you, not as a foreigner.

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You don't mistreat them. You treat them as one who is native among you. So in other words, you know, if we were to kind of apply this today, that anybody who moves up to this part of the world, even if they're not

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Norwegian, they are to be treated as if they are native sons of Norway. Y 'all look at me with skepticism.

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That's the gist, right? You don't sit there and go, oh, you're, well, you know, you're

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Armenian. You're, you're Polish. You're, yeah, now

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I'm stepping on toes. Okay. All right. You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity.

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You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hymn.

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I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules and do them.

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So, you know, then one of the con jobs that people have always engaged in from time immemorial is theft, you know, remember thou shalt not steal, the commandment says, but many people have figured out ways to steal from others while making it look like, putting on a pretense that they're just engaging in commerce, or that they're, that the way they're, you know, gaining money from their neighbors is, is completely legit, which is why

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I'm very thankful. Every time I go to the gas station and pump my gas, that I see that little seal on there, that the state of North Dakota, you know, has, their weights and measures department has tested the pump to make sure that I'm getting a gallon of gas, you know, rather than 0 .95

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gallons, because after a while that would add up, right? You know, so, so, did you have a?

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What, what I think is really interesting is, you look at ancient Near Eastern law, it entirely depended on having an accuser.

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Yeah. Right, there's a case in Rome where one clan had wiped out everybody in the other clan. There was no accuser.

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And they were like, what can we do? There's nobody left alive to bring a case, so we can't have a court, we can't try them, they must be, you know, so they were let go.

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And, and the soldier, the visitor, he doesn't have kin who can get up in the city council's grill saying, you know what you did to Billy Bob, I've got a problem with it, you know, he's got, you know, but what's really cool about the

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Lord is how he describes, in particular Sodom, right, in other times when oppression happens, he uses the verbiage of the family, the offended family member, right?

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Yeah. Their prayers and their cries have come to me. Right. I am bringing this charge. Yeah. You know, where God, the fatherless, father, the fatherless, you know, and the one who looks over our sojourners and visitors.

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Yeah. And he's doing, he fulfills that time and time again, where instead of your uncle, you know, instead of having the

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Hatfields and McCoy's, you've got God on one side, then you're in trouble. Right, right. And you'll note that there's a recurring theme, especially in the

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Old Testament, where God makes it clear that if the sojourner or the widow or the poor cry out to me, that he will actually take up their cause.

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And now you've got to deal with God. And that's a vital thing, because, you know, how do we say it?

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Dead men tell no tales. Right. But God says, no, their blood is crying out to me, and I will avenge it.

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So, yeah, always keep in mind, there's no place where you can go to hide from God. Yeah.

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He sees everything. Right. So you can, you can climb the highest mountain, you can dig yourself down into the greatest pit on the earth, and you are, you are still 100 % visible to God.

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He can see you and he can hear you. And so when people do evil, oftentimes they look to make sure there's nobody who can see who's a witness.

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But they never look up, you know. If only they did. Right. All right.

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Chapter 20. Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, say to the people of Israel, any one of the people of Israel or a stranger who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death.

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I always like to point this out. And let me make the Hebrew a little bit bigger here.

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Molech is not the name of this deity. But this is the way it gets pointed in the

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Hebrew scriptures. So the, the, the, I'm covering the letters.

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All right, let me move this over. And there we go. Memelad Kav.

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These three letters, every, every Hebrew word has three consonants generally. Now there's some weird exceptions.

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You get twos and stuff like that, but those are your irregulars. But what will happen is, is that every

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Hebrew word will generally have three consonants that form the basis of this word. Now, if I were to point this differently, and I would talk about David, David, I would talk about him as the

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Melech of Israel, the King of Israel. So these three letters then actually tell us what the real name of this deity is because nobody, no self -respecting person is going to worship a deity named

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Molech. And the reason why is this. When you point it differently, it becomes King, which is probably what his name was.

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But when you, when you point it this way, where you got the, the O and the E, the

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Melech, Molech, then what ends up happening is, is the word goes from King to the word shame.

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Totally changes meaning altogether. And you'll note that the

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Hebrew Bible has a really interesting habit of refusing to show any respect, any respect for idols at all.

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And you think of like, there's Elijah on Mount Carmel, right? And there's the prophets of Baal.

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And the great showdown is happening. You know, you guys go ahead and you cut your bowl.

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There's a lot of you. There's only one of me. You put your, your, your animal on your altar.

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I'll put my animal on my altar. We'll both call to our deities, the God who answers, he's God. And so they're the prophets of Baal and those who serve

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Baal are out there screaming and crying and carrying on and Baal isn't answering.

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And so they start cutting themselves. Still no answer from Baal.

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And then to drive home the point, what does Elijah say? Cry louder.

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Maybe your God's on the toilet. And yeah, it's, it's really that strong.

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It comes across in the ESV as maybe he's relieving himself, you know. Maybe he's asleep or he's on a journey, right?

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Surely he's a God. And so you'll note then that over and over and over again that the one true

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God refuses to show any kind of professional courtesy to a competing deity.

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And this, this, this idea of, you know, I will not only show no professional courtesy, but in some ways

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I will show slights towards and mock these false gods, that, that shows up in Scripture.

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And this is a, this is a case of that. And you'll note then that in, when it comes to the

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New Testament, I want you to consider Jesus's, his

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Jez, Jezebel. Hang on a second here.

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I want this in the Epistles Revelation. All right. I want you to consider what

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Christ has written to the church at Thyatira. So, consider

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Christ's attitude towards false teachers and false prophets. So, to the angel, the angel of the church at Thyatira.

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And we'll note then that this is really talking about the, the pastor there. The angelos here is not some winged creature or a spirit.

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This is really talking about to the, to the messenger, the pastor there at the church of Thyatira, right? The words of the

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Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your works, your love and your faith and your service and your patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.

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But I have this against you. You tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrifice to idols.

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So, note that Christ's attitude towards this woman

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Jezebel is, is that she is putting herself forward as a prophetess and she's not.

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And the doctrines she's teaching are leading people into sexual immorality. And so,

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Christ is holding then the church of Thyatira responsible because of their complacency, their utter complacency in, in allowing this woman to continue on doing what she's doing.

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She's not a prophetess. She's teaching false doctrine, and yet you are making concessions for her to keep doing these things, and this is what he has against them.

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And so, you'll note then that scripture constantly reinforces this idea that we are not to make concessions for false teaching.

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We are not to make concessions for false gods, that we are to stand the line.

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And when somebody comes to us claiming to be a prophet or a prophetess and having words from God and teaching doctrines that are not taught in the scripture, we are not to sit there and go, well, maybe they're from God.

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Who are we to say? It would be arrogant and contentious of us to say that this person really isn't hearing from God.

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Maybe they are. Christ says, knock it off. Knock it off.

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You know, you should not be tolerating this. So, he says, I have this against you. You tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess.

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I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. So, behold,

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I'll throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works.

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So, you'll note that Christ here at this point has decided he's going to intervene, and if the pastor of the church at Thyatira doesn't have the stomach to cast this false prophetess out,

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Christ is going to strike her dead and cause those who've committed adultery with her to go into great tribulation.

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He's going to act on his own. So, you'll note that the Bible does not have a tolerant attitude towards false prophets, false teachers, and those who are idolaters.

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And so, coming back then, so Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, say to the people of Israel, any of the people of Israel or the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death.

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The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he has given one of his children to Molech to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name.

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And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech and do not put him to death, then

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I will set my face against that man and against his clan, and I will cut them off from among the people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.

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Again, notice the strong language here. So, idolatry is oftentimes linked to terms related to sexual immorality.

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In this particular case, whoring, going after prostitutes. So, you know, sexual immorality is to, well, it's a picture then used by God of idolatry itself, all right?

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Unfaithfulness to God. And you'll note that God here says that if the people themselves are going to be responsible, if they close their eyes and turn away when somebody is doing such a thing in Israel, not only will the man who sacrificed one of his children to Molech be accountable to God, but the people who closed their eyes against that evil and said nothing and did nothing to stop it.

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Let me kind of give a metaphor here, all right? So, just recently watched

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Mission Impossible Fallout, okay? I like the Mission Impossible movies. They're just, they're silly.

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They're like, they're over the top, unbelievable. The action is ridiculous, but that's what makes it fun.

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But the basic, the main character in the Mission Impossible movies is a fellow by the name of Ethan Hunt, all right?

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And this guy has been called upon over and over and over again to save the world from evil bad guys who want to destroy the world, you know?

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And they, these are people who try to get a hold of nuclear weapons. These are people who come up with ways of engaging in terrorist acts and things like this.

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And Ethan Hunt always somehow manages with just one second left to save the day and to save the planet, right?

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Have you ever stopped to think that the make -believe world of good and evil that is the

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Mission Impossible movies, that we live in a real world where there is a real terrorist, there's a real arsonist, and what's at stake is not human lives temporally, but what's at stake are human lives eternally.

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And so you'll note then that in the

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Mission Impossible movies, if Ethan Hunt didn't do what he did to stop evil, evil would win. There is a sense in which we are called, and I know this is the law of God, we are called to speak up, to speak out, to condemn and do whatever is possible to put the brakes on spiritual terrorism.

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Because at the end of the day, sacrificing one child to Molech, that's not the issue.

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The issue is the whole narrative around why, and people buying into that, and then them sacrificing not just their children, but even their eternal souls to the devil, staying under his bondage and landing not in eternal life, but in eternal condemnation.

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And so you'll note then that Scripture calls Christians, Scripture calls believers of both

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Old and New Covenant to stand up and to be counted, to stand up and to speak out.

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When there's evil, to say, no, this will not happen, it should not happen, and do their best to bring it to a halt.

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The pastor of the Church of Theratera, why on earth was he allowing this woman who calls herself a prophet,

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Jesus doesn't recognize her as a prophetess, why was he allowing her to do all this stuff? Christ condemned them for for their complacency.

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And this is, let me kind of add a little bit more law onto this while I'm at it. Revelation 21 verse 6.

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So he said to me, it's done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of water, of life without payment.

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The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. And listen for the list, what comes up next in this list.

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As for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerer, the sorcerers, the idolaters, the liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

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So you'll note that first on the list of people who end up in the lake of fire by Christ are the cowardly.

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But you can't expect me to get involved. I won't be invited to the Christmas party next year if I do that.

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I might lose my job. You can't really expect me to.

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Who am I? If I do that, people will hate me. My reputation will be shot if I do that.

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Don't both the Old Testament, particularly the Book of Prophets, and the New Testament say if we see our brother sinning, we say nothing to warn him.

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Yes. He goes on sinning, God counts the sin against you. Wouldn't that be pretty much exactly the mechanism sending the cowardly, non -confrontational

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Christians straight to hell? Yeah. One of the scariest passages in the prophet Ezekiel, where God says that when you see your brother sinning, if you do not call him to repentance, and he perishes, his blood is going to be on you.

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How far do you take this before it becomes like a work?

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Because the way the world is now, you could spend every waking moment pointing out the debauchery of the world, and yet it would become almost a work then.

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Like, am I doing enough? It's like, no, I better start doing 16 -hour days here.

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I'm still not getting the word out. So note something. We collectively as the church should speak out.

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We as individual Christians ought to speak out, but oftentimes when we speak out individually, it's going to be within the offices that we have in our vocations.

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So Mike, I agree that you are a citizen of the United States, and what's happening in the United States is just horrific.

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But I know for a fact that here locally, you speak out against what's going on wrong in the

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United States. I've heard you do it with your own lips. Not only that, you in this community stand up for what is right in this community, and you're well plugged in here.

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I would note that you are already doing that. And so you'll note then that as Christians, we are tempted.

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And so you'll note this is where the temptation comes. We are tempted to listen to those voices that say, you need to be quiet.

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And in those situations, then we recognize that the impulse within us to protect our reputation, to protect myself and my standing, that that impulse within us that would keep us from doing the right thing or saying the right thing, that is a temptation.

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That is a temptation, we'll say, from the devil, and he's playing on our own sinful

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Adam's weakness in situations like that. And so you'll note none of us are perfectly courageous the way we should be.

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And there's a wonderful passage, I think it's in Acts 4, let me hunt it down real quick, where in the face of persecution, the

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Christian church prayed for boldness of all things. So let me find it.

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Yeah, here it is. All right. So after Peter and John were released from being interrogated regarding the fact that they were still preaching

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Christ, and they were told not to, and the meeting of the elders of Israel, the

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Sanhedrin, ended up releasing them, they punished them for what happened, but they let them go.

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It says this in Acts 4, 23. So when they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priest and the elders had said to them.

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And when they heard it, they lifted up their voices together to God, and they said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything that is in them, who through the mouth of our father

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David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?

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The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

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Note here, in faith, they are praying back the psalm, praying back the psalm to God.

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For truly in the city, there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both

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Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

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And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant

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Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the

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Holy Spirit, and they continued to speak the word of God with boldness." So you'll note then that the opposite of cowardly is to recognize your own weakness, and ask

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God to give you the strength and the boldness to do what is right. It's not to just turn into something, you know, pretend like you're some kind of superhero.

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Yeah, I'm going to be the vigilante Christian Batman, and I'm going to go and, you know, knock some heretical skulls.

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No, that's not how this works. But it's again to recognize our weakness, to recognize that the threats that we face are real, and to humbly pray back to God his word.

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Listen, the nations are raging. The people are applauding in vain. Lord, give us the boldness to keep preaching the word in the face of this persecution.

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Give us the boldness to do what is right. And notice it says that the place was shaken, and they were filled again with the

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Spirit, and then the Spirit gave them what was necessary to do this. So the idea then is that the opposite of boldness, the courageousness, the opposite of cowardliness, you know, is to rely on God to give you the strength to do the right thing.

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Knowing and trusting then that he's commanded you to do so, and also knowing and trusting that what you are called to do has consequences, and it's frightening and scary, and confessing that and asking

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God to give you the strength to do it anyway. And he's the one who does it. So you'll note then that it's a grace given, but that again calls for faith, faith, not some self -righteous work, okay?

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Now if a person turns to mediums, necromancers, whoring after them, okay?

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This was covered a little bit ago also in this same book. I'll set my face against that person and cut him off from among his people.

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Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am Yahweh your God. Keep my statutes, do them.

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I am Yahweh who sanctifies you. Anyone who curses his father and his mother shall surely be put to death.

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He has cursed his father and his mother. His blood is upon him. If a man commits adultery, and we noted this, we covered this a little bit when we went in our discussion about King David and Bathsheba, which is all the more reason why

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I think this is a very strong case that Bathsheba, you know, that her sexual contact with David was not willing.

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It was something that she was not looking to do. So if a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

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You'll note in this particular case, you're not to make a distinction.

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If adultery has taken place, both die. If a man lies with his father's wife, he's uncovered his father's nakedness.

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Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter -in -law, both of them shall surely be put to death.

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They have committed perversion. Their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination, and they shall surely be put to death.

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Their blood is upon them. Now a little bit of a note here, and that is that you'll note that the

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Hebrew way of talking about homosexuality is far more concrete than abstract, and so it is literally describing the very act itself, and making it very clear as to what's being referred to here.

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And you need to know that because there are people within the visible church who are trying to deny what this text is prohibiting, that somehow this is a prohibition.

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And so one of the ways in which they do that, and I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago, is that one of the ways they attack this clear passage, they'll say, well the

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Torah also says that you can't wear clothing that has two different types of fabric in it, you know, cotton and polyester.

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If you do that, you're sinning. And so they say, therefore, this has no bearing at all on anything that God cares about.

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You haven't heard that one? I've heard it, but we've just gone through adultery and incest in the same paragraph as this rule.

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I don't remember the member saying that those two things are also hunky -dory, because tweet.

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I wish I was in the same category as you in there. So let's just say that there's a particular

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ELCA Pastrix, whom I have conversations with from time to time, which are, it's always actually jaw -droppingly scary is the best way

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I can put it. In one of my conversations with her, brought up the fact that, you know, where does this end,

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Nadia? Where does this end? Because, you know, right now, you know, now, you know, we've got affirming gay marriage, we've got, you know, affirming, you know, people who feel that they are a different gender than the one

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God made them. What about people who are living in polyamory, polyamorous relationships?

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And if you don't know what that is, it's a group of college kids get together and go, why don't we all live together and we'll act like we're all married to each other?

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Two guys, four girls, four girls, three guys, doesn't matter, right?

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Polyamorous. She couldn't bring herself to condemn even that. It's absolutely frightening.

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Why? Because cotton polyester, man, and lobster. Scary world we live in, right?

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This same woman, by the way, recently wrote a book, and in that book, and she, you know, she alludes to it and actually wrote an article about it.

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She claims that using pornography is okay for a

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Christian as long as pornography has been ethically sourced. I'm pretty sure that once somebody takes their clothes off in order to have themselves photographed for the purpose of sexual stimulation, that we are no longer dealing with anything that is ethical.

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If only God himself in human flesh said something about looking at people for the sake of your strong desire.

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If only God in human flesh had done such a thing, we would never have to worry about weird claims like this.

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But note something here. I'm gonna be blunt. Nadia is not saying this from the vantage point of an atheist.

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She's doing this as somebody who the ELCA placed into the pastoral office.

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She claims to be a pastor and a theologian. What is happening?

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I seem to recall Christ saying something about tolerating Jezebel. I would say

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Nadia calls herself a pastor, but she's not. But we say nothing.

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We don't want to be disinvited to family events. We don't want Thanksgiving to be awkward. Who are we to say?

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We must make concessions for all these varieties of opinions. Who are we to say that our opinions are right?

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This is how the logic goes, right? We're just the messenger. We're not saying any of it.

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We're just FedExed guy. Delivered from you, from on high, here's your second notice.

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Now a little bit of a note here. But even the FedExed guy gets yelled at. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be the

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FedExed guy. I've seen what they do and they get blamed for everything, man. This was supposed to be here an hour ago.

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Now a little bit of a note also. This text is actually quite important for another reason.

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Liberals, when you get into a text like 1 Corinthians chapter 6, let me show it to you and we'll take a look at what this really is going on here.

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1 Corinthians 6, and you'll note this is, they have this funny way of dismissing this text.

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They call this a clobber text. And so therefore if it's clobber text you can dismiss it. And here's what

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Paul says, 1 Corinthians 6, 9. And here the

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ESV is basically taking two phrases and putting them into one umbrella translation.

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Now let's make this clear. This is the verdict of God's law.

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As Christians this does not apply to us, and here's why, and such were some of you.

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But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. And so I find it fascinating that when it comes to people who are practicing homosexuals or gay affirming, that their personal identity is wrapped up in their sin.

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To where they say, I'm gay, or I'm going to celebrate what

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I am, and we're going to have a pride parade for people who are gay.

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Their identity is wrapped up in their immorality. But notice

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Christians, our identity is not wrapped up in our immorality. Because Paul says, and were, past tense, some of you.

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And notice the list was quite extensive. It included adulterers and idolaters and all these other things.

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But is in this clobber text, one of the things that liberals have been trying to do is to say that it's really vague as to what

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Paul is talking about here when he talks about men who practice homosexuality.

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And the reason why is that there's this phrase here, the arson of koitai.

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He who has coitus with a man. Very vague. And a little bit of a note here,

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Paul is really quoting Leviticus 20, but in particular he's quoting the

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Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of Leviticus 20. Because in Leviticus 20, in the

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Greek translation of the ancient world, called the Septuagint, it says if a man lies with a male, as with a woman.

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The words used, in arson of koitai, it literally means a man better, or a man, like you said, having coitus with a fellow.

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It's very explicit as to what's going on here. So Paul knows full well the

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Torah in both Hebrew as well as the Septuagint. And the Septuagint is actually quite fascinating.

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And so the word that he's using, arson of koitai, is coming straight out of Leviticus 20, but it's coming out of Leviticus 20 from the

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Septuagint. And so the word itself is not vague at all. And so somebody who says, we're not even sure what is.

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What's a man better? I actually sat at an emergent conference where a woman was on stage and she was saying, we don't even know what an arson of koitai is.

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I mean, after all, I'm married to a man, so I guess I'm a man better. So the word doesn't mean anything, so therefore we should affirm homosexuality.

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I know, but this is how they play with words.

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And so note here that the world we live in, what they do is they try to evacuate the

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Bible of actual any kind of legitimate meaning and cause you to feel that somehow you could potentially be wrong for actually believing what the text says.

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And by getting you to have this type of anxiety and lack of confidence in what the text says, it makes room then for them to come run roughshod with their agenda.

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And that's what they do. But the texts stand. The texts are clear.

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Does that make sense? And we're not going to do like the

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Jimmy Swaggart thing and just rail from the pulpit and talk about how all these offenders are all going to be going to hell.

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No, we preach law and we preach gospel. And we recognize that when these lists show up, you know, of an idolater, adulterer, of thieves, of murderers, that when these lists show up, we end up getting pegged in those lists because these lists are quite expansive as far as the sins that they're going after.

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You sit there and go, well, I've never cheated on my wife. I say, great. Physically, that's amazing and great that you haven't.

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But you mean to tell me you have never looked at another woman lustfully? Well, well,

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Jesus said, if you do that, then you've already committed adultery in your heart.

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So we recognize that sin is a condition and it manifests symptomatically in a lot of different ways.

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And we've all got that disease. And so we're not better than somebody else because they are struggling with a particular sin.

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And not at all. We all come as forgiven sinners to this church. And our hope then and prayer is that they would receive the gift of forgiveness and pardon and grace from Jesus in the same way that we have.

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Period. You know, but oftentimes when the world hears Christians speak or people who are representing the church, all they're hearing is the law.

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They're not hearing the gospel. They're hearing condemnation, but they're not hearing that Christ is bled so that they can be reconciled.

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And it's sad that there just seems to be a disproportionate amount of people who will focus in on the

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Yahuwah who only preaches the law, but never the gospel. And somehow make that indicative of what

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Christianity is all about. And it's not. All right.

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So if a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon them.

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If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is a depravity. He and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you.

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If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal, and they shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon them.