The Meaning Of Life (part 2)

Father in heaven, Lord, we just thank you and praise you for the opportunity we have to gather together to be free from governmental interference and to freely worship you and to look to your word to see what it says about how we ought to think, how we ought to view life in light of the cross, in light of your goodness to us, in light of your sovereignty over every living thing.

Lord, would you bless our time together this morning in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, we've been talking for the last several weeks, this, well, we didn't talk last week, did we?

About the, what I call the meaning of life, different aspects of it, the fact that we are created in the image of God, the

Latin term is imago Dei, just the fact that we, you know, even it's just amazing to me to read

Genesis chapter one, to just think that here's

Adam, this little slab of dirt, you know, molded together. And then the picture is that God just breathes kind of CPR's Adam's lifeless form into life.

Then we started talking about dominion and the fact that man has been granted control over the earth by God.

God essentially gives us the keys as it were to the earth.

We have control and dominion over it and therefore responsibility. And we, we've been talking about various aspects of this.

And last week we spoke about how, I think we talked about parental rights, about this

Justina Pelletier case. And I thought

Flo brought this to me and I thought this was kind of interesting.

There's a case in Washington state that I wanted to bring to your attention. Why? Because I think it shows that sometimes obeying the government may not be as easy as it seems.

We want to obey the government, but consider this case here. While most parents probably want to keep their kids away from marijuana, one mom and dad were accused of child abuse for their avid use of the drug.

The stepfather here, Jesse Thompson, he says, I use it pretty much every day.

Jesse and his wife, Vicka or Vika, I guess it's probably Vicka. Vicka Thompson are from, wherever they are,

Cedro Woolley, Washington, where marijuana use, including recreational, is now legal.

So it's not against the law to use marijuana. The Thompsons are both medical marijuana users with doctor's prescriptions.

Now, if you know anything about medical marijuana, you know that just about anybody can get a prescription.

All you have to do is go to the doctor and say, I get headaches, my foot hurts, I have an ingrown toenail, you get a prescription for medical marijuana.

Jesse Thompson, a cancer survivor, takes it for pain, while Vicka Thompson uses it for arthritis and a nervous condition.

Okay. They run their business, a medical marijuana dispensary and garden store called

The Grow Shop, where they sell homegrown strains of marijuana, as well as marijuana edibles, and are strong advocates of medical marijuana.

The two also are parents to five -year -old Jerry and 13 -year -old

Sohani, Vicka Thompson's son from a previous marriage. But they insist they are still capable of being responsible parents, even when they're high.

This is a quote here from Vicka. She says, it just means I have an elevated mood. It doesn't mean

I'm incapacitated or that I can't think straight. I'm on pot right now and I'm able to parent.

Now I'm going to go on with the article, but for just a minute, I just want to take a break. Marijuana used to be against the law.

We understand that it is a drug, the active drug, and the abbreviation for it is

THC. Really won't bless your soul to give you the whole chemical name of it. But what's happened over the decades since marijuana became kind of cool to smoke is the levels of THC have increased so that less and less marijuana is needed to get more and more high.

Now, have you ever seen anybody who has really had their mood elevated by marijuana?

I mean, I pulled a vehicle over once. It was a pickup truck and it ended in kind of a fun way.

I guess I'll give you the fun story too. But we pulled these people over because they were driving erratically. And I really thought,

I mean, even though it was daylight, I thought we were going to run into a drunk driver. And you say, well, who drinks during the day?

Trust me, if you're ranked, what was that, first or second in the country for the worst drivers and Boston was the other one, you know, it was like all over the country.

They took a survey, Boston and Worcester one and two. We're not only good in football, you know, we're, yeah, that's right.

It's good to be good in something, right? Yeah. Okay. So we pull this vehicle over, three occupants in this pickup truck.

One guy is pretty stout. He's probably about five, 10, 250 pounds. Another guy is about six, five.

And maybe, I don't know, I think he was probably about two 20 or something like that. Now at this point in life,

I think I was probably one 95 because the full Mrs. Cooley effect hadn't hit me yet. And, and there was a woman in the vehicle too, and they were all pretty much stoned out of their minds.

And there's a way of measuring THC just, you know, by, by watching the bounce in somebody's eye.

It's called nystagmus where you can get them to move, you know, follow a pencil or something. You can actually watch their eyes when they get to the edge and it'll just bounce back and you go, they were pretty, they were pretty loaded.

So we're going to take the driver for driving out of the influence of drugs. Well, as we're doing a background on check on these guys, well, the one guy who's probably six, five or so, he comes back with a warrant for resisting arrest.

It's a $10 ,000 warrant. Now we're, we made this stop. We're just in the foothills of the, of the national force there.

What is it? The Angeles national force. We're just in the foothills. We're on a little turnout. So we've got this

GMC truck, that's our vehicle. It's a Jimmy. It's kind of a mini, it's not really a minivan.

What is it? It's one of those SUV kind of thing. Well, it's a smaller one. And so I've got this guy on the side of the vehicle and I'm just going to pat him down and then

I'm going to put him in handcuffs. And, you know, so I tell him to put his hands behind his back and he just kind of, he's a little slow and I thought, well, you know what?

He's kind of loaded. So he puts one hand behind his back and then he spins on me.

And he's, he takes a swing. I mean, he's a big guy. He takes a swing on me, but I don't know, you know, if it was my lightning fast reflexes or if it was a

THC, but I'm able to kind of duck the punch and he just kind of, he misses me, but he just keeps on going.

And, uh, you know, it's like, and then I, you know, I, so I stepped back and now he takes a few more steps and then

I go, wait a minute, there's the end of this turnout and he's about to go over the edge of this cliff.

And there he goes. So I go over to the edge and I'm just watching this guy.

Now that's funny enough, but the same thing that happened about a month before that, you know, I'll just give you this little thing.

Like the next night in, in briefing, when we all get, I'll get to the end of the story here in a minute. But the next night in briefing, we all get together and a guy who's now a commander on the department, he's way up there.

He goes, so his name is buddy. He says, so who are you guys going to throw over a cliff tonight? You know, anyway, we never did find that guy.

I don't know what happened to him. Right. We call in search and rescue and he was just gone, you know, so, um, sad times.

Maybe they found him a couple of weeks ago. I don't know. But all that to say these guys,

I mean, I think marijuana can be fairly serious. Now they also had a hash in the car, but if you know anything about hash, what's the active ingredient in hash

THC? This is a more concentrated form of it. So THC can, you know, definitely have an impact on your life.

So we never caught that guy. We took the other two into custody. That's the end of that story. But it was a, you know, kind of a unique situation.

The article goes on talking about, she says, I'm on pot right now and I'm still able to parent.

Well, maybe you are, you know, but I think if you smoke enough of it could definitely impact your capacity.

And if you've seen anybody who's chronically smoked, marijuana can have an impact on your ability to think, you know, and to reason.

Now this article says, but there's an apparent gap between enforcement of child protection laws and marijuana statutes.

In many cases, child protection services, listen, are taking children away from legal legitimate users of medical marijuana.

So marijuana is legal, but if you use it, we'll take your kids away. One doctor says to, this is a 2020, the

TV show says, we have irrefutable evidence that it's damaging for kids. Marijuana kids who think their parents approve of it are six times more likely to begin using marijuana and begin using it much earlier than the average high school age kid.

So in November of 2014, just a couple of months ago, authorities came for the Thompson's son,

Jerry. The Thompson said they had an employee they let go. About a month later, she called

Child Protective Services. She told them that we were not only feeding our children marijuana all the time, open up, mommy's got something for you, but that they have access to it in our home and in our business.

Within days, CPS questioned them. The half brother, the 13 year old, told authorities that his mom fed him, quote, a goo ball.

A goo ball, Vicka Thompson explained, is a peanut butter raisin ball medicated with psychoactive marijuana.

That's just good parenting. She says she's trying to defend it. She says he gets aggressive and is too mean sometimes.

It just needs to look inside and relax. After that, the city quickly shut down the grow shop, their business.

When CPS Child Protective Services requested a meeting with the Thompson's, Jesse, the father, asked to wait with their attorney and was able to attend

Child Protective, or until their attorney was able to attend. Child Protective Services didn't reschedule the meeting and instead decided to just take

Jerry away and make him live with an aunt. The Thompson's could only see their son by visiting him at the local

Child Protective Services office. Here's the father saying, quote, it's destroying me.

I can't not be with my son double negative. In other words, he wants to be with his son. He is all that matters.

Okay, stop giving him marijuana and letting him be around marijuana and having a store that sells marijuana and your whole life is marijuana.

Vicka Thompson's son, Sohani, went to live with his father, Fulton, so they lost both kids. She says,

I felt like my heart might stop, but not the marijuana. The Thompson's went to court to fight to get

Jerry back home. Child Protective Services had Jerry take a hair follicle drug test.

When the results came back, Jerry tested positive for THC. In other words, he'd been using. Vicka and Jesse were accused of posing a risk to Jerry's well -being by feeding marijuana to him.

They denied doing so, but Vicka Thompson said she did rub a marijuana salve on his skin to treat a rash, which would not put him at risk of getting high.

Anyway, this goes on and on and on. Court commissioners said strict conditions for sending him back home, he not be exposed to marijuana.

If Jerry were to test positive, this is the five -year -old, the court commissioner said he would not be allowed to live with the

Thompson's. The mom says, we're not going to hide, or sorry, we're going to hide the marijuana.

I definitely feel like I shouldn't give it to children. Awesome, but you did.

Vicka Thompson said that if it were legal to give marijuana to children, she would do so. So listen to that again.

This is the same article. We're going to hide the marijuana. I definitely feel

I shouldn't give it to children, but if it were legal, she would do so. So they lose the kids over marijuana.

The government says it's legal, but if you smoke too much of it, we're going to take your kids away.

Disconnect. Can the government be unreasonable?

I think the answer is yes. We're to submit to government, you know, I mean, this is just kind of, I think this just shows that maybe, and I think some of these laws, these marijuana laws, we're going to see over time, them kind of swing back.

I was even, I'll get to you in a second, Bruce. I was even reading, and I don't know if you saw this, but the governor of Colorado, now he was against the legalization of marijuana in the first place, but recently he said, you know what, the state made a mistake because, and he started listing all the reasons he thought it was a mistake to legalize it, all the unintended consequence, you know, namely a bunch of people who just want to get high moving into the state.

So, yeah, I mean, there are problems with all this, Bruce. Yeah, I mean, it definitely has a, here, here's today's word, deleterious effect on the children.

Thank you. Thank you very much. It has, I just, I could have said something easy like negative, but deleterious just kind of popped in my head.

Listen, let's just examine the facts. Now, and I want to address this from this standpoint.

The state can say that marijuana is legal. My question for you, before we get back to the parenting aspect of it, which we will, but my question for you is if the state says something is legal, does that mean it is moral and right to do?

Okay. The state says it's legal and moral to abort your baby.

Actually, it makes no claim about the morality. It just says it's legal. You can do that. God says that that baby's a life.

The state says it's legal to smoke marijuana. That doesn't mean it is moral.

And why would it be a moral or ethical issue? Well, for one thing, if you have kids,

I mean, even the state recognizes that it can have a negative effect on the kids, right? I mean, again, you know, just people tend to think that marijuana is harmless.

Maybe it is. If you live by yourself and all it causes you to do is eat excessive nachos.

But if you have kids, it's like alcohol in and of itself. It's legal.

You know, I think it's sinful to get drunk. We could argue about whether it's sinful to ever have any alcohol.

But if you get to a certain level of intoxication, which is what it is, make no mistake about that.

If you get to a certain level of intoxication, you are less capable of tending for your kids.

And the same goes for marijuana. You are less capable. And by the way, I think the scientific argument or evidence is pretty much.

I mean, I don't have any studies back this up. I have my own personal observations where I've seen people who smoked marijuana chronically.

And let me just tell you that I'm confident that over a period of years, they were no longer as smart as they used to be.

They were no longer as capable as they used to be. And they certainly weren't as swift as they used to be. I mean, I remember, you know, the legendary

Roger Brown. I've talked about him before. But when I met Roger, I knew who he was. Without ever seeing him, as soon as I heard his voice,

I go, that's Roger. I said, I turned around. I'll just briefly give you the story.

I'd heard about Roger Brown in the Army. Roger Brown was somebody who was in Panama.

And the guys who'd come from Panama to Maryland said, they said, marijuana is cheaper in Panama than cigarettes.

Now, this is back in the 80s, early 80s. This is cheaper. And, you know, they talked about Roger Brown and how much he used to smoke.

So I get to Okinawa, and I'm in Okinawa several months. And all of a sudden, I hear a voice behind me, and it's just kind of like droning on like, and I'm going, that's exactly how they used to think.

I'm just thinking to myself, that's exactly how they used to talk about Roger Brown. So I turn around, never seen this guy before.

I said, excuse me, are you Roger Brown? He says, my name is Roger Brown. You know, and I'm going, how did

I know? You know, listen, it has an effect.

It definitely has an effect on you. And so when we think about, you know, what's the purpose of smoking marijuana?

She says, you know, it's to help her relax. She has this nervous condition, all that. What is ultimately the purpose of marijuana?

Alter your mind. To put you in a different frame of thinking.

To let you just kind of forget about the world's troubles. Now we could say the exact same thing about the way some people use alcohol, right?

You know, why is it you get drunk every night? Well, I just want to kind of unwind and forget about my problems.

Why do you get high every day? I just want to kind of unwind and forget about my problems. You can't really do that when you're a parent.

And I don't care what the government says about whether it's legal or not, or whatever. I think you ultimately have to think to yourself, and it gets back to this, gets back to this dominion issue.

We have dominion over animals. We have dominion over the earth. We have dominion over plants. You know, like MacArthur says about tobacco.

You know, if you think it's a great idea to, you know, get a bunch of dried leaves, roll them up, and smoke them, you know, inhale that stuff into your lungs, well, okay.

It doesn't really seem smart to me. And multiply that times a lot.

You know, if you think cigarettes are bad for you, and they are, you know, how can something that not only contains all manner of particulate matter that you are, that, you know, it's smoke into your lungs.

I mean, you know, I've never heard anybody say this. Why'd you go to that burning building? Was it to save somebody's life?

No, I just wanted to experience the smoke going into my lungs. It's just, you know, it makes me relax.

So, why would you, you know, think it's good to take some marijuana and smoke it into your lungs if that makes you relax?

It's your mind. It changes the way you feel. And over time, it changes the way you think.

I don't know if you, probably most of you have known, if you're old enough, have known people who smoke marijuana on more than an occasional basis.

You know, would you say, you know, I know so -and -so, he smokes marijuana all the time, and he's a hard charger.

That guy works like there's no tomorrow. You know, he's up at six o 'clock in the morning, and out the door, and I don't see him again until eight o 'clock at night, and wow, and he's out there, he even mows my lawn on his spare time.

You know, that's not true. You know, what we say about him typically, you know,

I've known that guy for a long time, he smokes a lot of marijuana, and he still lives in his mom's basement, and he's 35.

You know, that's probably a little bit closer to the truth. Hasn't had a job for six years.

You know, that's more typical, the kind of thing that you see, and it definitely is, you know, and it takes away from, talk about parenting, and the deleterious,

I said it again, the negative impact it has on your capacity to take care of somebody.

What happens to somebody who's smoked enough marijuana, just even on one occasion? You kind of zone out.

You know, I didn't notice the baby was crying. Well, why not? I don't know, man. That's just how it is.

Stoned is stoned. Stoned means incapable of doing what you're supposed to do, of taking care of the, you know, the little responsibility that you have.

Other thoughts about, I mean, the fact that it, you know, I just,

I really, if somebody, if somebody had cancer or something like that, I'd be open to having a conversation about it, but I think for, you know, the vast majority of people, why do you smoke marijuana?

It helps me, you know, de -stress or whatever. Well, my answer is, read the

Bible. You know, my answer is, go to church. My answer is, get together with other believers and pray.

You know, there are a lot of ways you can be handling things that don't include taking some kind of mind -altering drug into your body.

So, not, not the right thing to do. Any other thoughts or comments about it?

Anybody want to defend? No. I just, that just bothers me. So, but I did think it was interesting.

It's legal, but if you do it, you know, there are ramifications. It's the same government. I just thought that's bizarre.

I wanted to, and we'll probably talk about this, I think, for some time, this whole current issue of Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter.

Here's what I would like to say. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in this sight. Let's first open our

Bibles to, I want to say it's,

I have that, but I don't want to read that one yet. Let's go to Galatians chapter 3 and verse 28.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free.

There is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Now, how do you suppose that that applies to all this hubbub in light of Ferguson and a lot of New York City basketball players wearing t -shirts at games that say, you know,

Black Lives Matter? Do black lives matter? Yes. Should we care about what happens in the interaction between police officers and blacks?

Yes. Should we care about what happens in the interaction between police officers and whites?

Yes. Why? Because every life matters.

Every life matters. I remember being in Portland, Oregon years ago.

It seems like I'm doing that whole West Coast, Northwest thing today because marijuana smoking is very popular in Oregon too.

But this has nothing to do with marijuana. I was in a mall and I was just struck. I mean, Portland, Oregon is kind of like, well, it's like West Hollywood or it's like when you're in the new part of Jerusalem, people are just kind of bizarre looking.

I mean, they have piercings in places where you just go, why would you get that pierced? Doesn't that hurt?

It just looks painful to me, you know, to see things out of your face and all over the place.

And why would you do that to your hair? And who told you that that was good looking? And what are you thinking? And you just start getting,

I was in this mall and I'm just like distracted, thinking, looking at all these people and just thinking, why would you do that? That's just so weird.

And then I just had this sobering thought. I thought, you know what, here's the problem with my thinking. And it's my thinking.

My thinking is I'm thinking those people are really odd looking. And what I really had to come to think about was every single one of these people is a person.

Everyone has a soul. Every one of them bears the image of God. And every single one of them is going to stand before the

Lord Jesus Christ someday and have to give an answer for their lives. And what am I thinking about? I'm thinking about how weird they look.

And instead, I ought to be thinking, those people are in trouble. They're in trouble. They're one second away from meeting their maker and having no defense.

I need to have an urgency to preach the gospel to them. And when we see all these different issues, our focus needs to be not on the,

I'll just say it this way, and I'll back it up, not on the social justice issue.

But if I could say it this way, the gospel justice issue, our focus needs to be on the gospel first. And in Christ, we're all the same.

And outside of Christ, every life has equal worth. I don't care what color that person is.

But what I found really kind of troubling in the midst of this is that some people who would identify as Christians would be supporting some of these protests against police officers.

And it's not because I love cops, although I do. And it's not because I think we're below the government, because we're really not.

The government's below us, but we're to be subject to the rulers that God has placed above us. But it's not even that.

My real issue, let's go to 2 Corinthians 6. And this is the heart of my issue with some of these protests.

2 Corinthians 6. And if somebody would read verses 14 to 17. Yeah, Will.

Thank you. Now, how does this apply, this passage apply maybe? Or, well, let me back up.

What is the most common application that is made of this passage? Marriage.

Now, if you look in the context, will you see marriage? Not really.

But I think it's a good application of it in this sense, to be unequally yoked in marriage.

Marriage is a spiritual enterprise, is it not? You know, we enter into a promise before God, right?

So you would not want to be unequally yoked, that is to say, to marry an unbeliever.

And that's why it would be a sin to marry an unbeliever, to knowingly do that.

I mean, people turn out, they make a profession, and then maybe later on, they turn out not to be a Christian. But as much as it depends on you, you want to make sure that person is a

Christian. But the overall principle is not marriage.

It's any spiritual enterprise. What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?

In other words, if it's a matter of something that we're doing with a spiritual mindset for the kingdom of God, or what have you, or for righteousness sake, we don't want to be linking arms, as it were, with unbelievers.

Now, let's go back to these protests. I want to read a couple of news items. This is from December 1st, 2014,

Bloomberg News, quote, Communist Party members from New York, pastors from Atlanta, and the

Korean Culture Association helped form a gathering of more than 300 people over the weekend in a

St. Louis church with agendas as far -flung as their origins. They're all gathered together to kind of focus on what had happened in Ferguson.

And again, this is some of the riots in New York City. Listen, protesters chanting, no justice, no tree, tried to storm

Rockefeller Center on Wednesday to disrupt the annual lighting ceremony following a grand jury's decision not to indict an

NYPD officer in the death of Eric Garner. Hundreds of frustrated anarchists then trekked to the

West Side Highway where they vaulted barricades and clashed with police in riot gear.

Now, participating in these protests, is it wrong to ever protest the government?

I mean, we could debate that. But I think if you're part of a protest, and you look to your left, and there are the communists, and you look to your right, and there are the anarchists, you have to ask yourself, what am

I doing here? And if the answer is, I'm protesting the treatment of the government against people because I think those people are image bearers and the government isn't doing the right thing, then what you are really saying is, this is a spiritual enterprise.

I'm here protesting because there's a spiritual, biblical principle. And what do we hear? We hear it's about social justice.

So I'm here for social justice. And here are these people who hate God. Here are these people who hate the government.

And I'm locking arms with them. I'm out of my mind.

I am out of my mind. That is not the place I want to be. Now, I am mindful that it was maybe 30, well, 45 years ago.

And I haven't heard the whole story. But I have heard John MacArthur talk about how he was in the South, and how he was jailed.

He participated in some demonstration about equal rights.

And I think, you know what? Entirely different deal. Entirely different deal because this was a, what was going on in the

South during the 60s, was in the 50s and the 40s, was a systematic oppression of a class of people for the color of their skin.

What is going on right now are individual situations. And I just don't think we should be so quick to take to the streets.

I think we have an obligation before the Lord to think, is this the right thing to do?

And am I linking arms with the right people? Am I out here for the right thing?

Other thoughts about these protests? About marching in the streets?

About even, I think, even going on Facebook and saying, you know, I support these protesters.

I think there's a problem. Yes, Tom. Yes. Now, there have been some who've been more involved, and then have kind of stepped back.

The question was, you know, have there been evangelicals involved in this? Or has it just been, you know,

I mean, there's nothing that infuriates me more than, well, actually, let's put it this way.

If you call me Reverend, and sometimes nobody here does, thankfully, but, you know, if I travel somewhere else, they'll say, you know,

Reverend Cooley or whatever. I go, first of all, you know, Steve is fine. Secondly, please don't call me

Reverend. So when I see people, you know, come on TV and stuff like that, and they're referred to as the

Reverend so -and -so, and, you know, the Most Reverend, whatever. Well, if you understand that Reverend means feared one, then you have to just kind of, you know, and refers to your personal kind of majesty.

Forget that. But these so -called reverends who, you know, are involved in these kind of things,

A, I would like to know where their church is, because they don't have one, and they haven't had one in decades. B, I would like to know when the last time they actually preached the gospel was, because the answer is they don't.

So, you know, there's those people, but there have been evangelicals who have spoke out in support of these things.

And I just think, okay, now I'm not discounting the fact, and let me just be very clear.

I think in every one of those situations, we have to think, okay, that was an image bearer of God.

That was a human being with a soul. And we should not ever take joy in the fact that someone like that,

I don't care how bad they were, when Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in prison, that was a sad situation.

Why? Because he's still a human being. He still has inherent value.

And, you know, the other prisoners killed him because, you know, of the crimes that he'd done. So, I mean, we never want to discount someone because of what they've done, because of what they look like, or anything else.

No matter who they are, their life still has value. Now, that said, going back to this whole reverend issue, you know,

I would just say that there are a lot of charlatans who like to have titles, and they appreciate the adulation and everything else they get, but really all they are are people who just make a living at the expense of other people.

And they do nothing. They have no concerns. You know, the next time you hear one of those men speak about the

Lord Jesus Christ in a self -effacing way, that would be the first time that I've ever heard it, because I've never heard them talk about the or about the

Bible other than to say, than to abuse it, you know, to quote a verse out of context and use it as justification for what they're doing.

So, but to get back to your question, yes, there have been some evangelicals who, via various means, social media and other things, have indicated some support for these kind of protests.

And I just think we need to be careful and cautious, because on the one hand,

I take no delight in the death of someone that I don't think was saved.

If God does not delight in that, then why would I? But the bigger issue is

I don't want to be part of, really, a sinful movement.

I just don't want to be part of that. So other thoughts? Yeah. It's an excellent question, and one that we will deal with in the weeks to come.

But that's kind of how I was about to say a double -edged sword. That, you know,

Romans 13 says what? That the government doesn't bear the sword for nothing, you know, for no reason.

And the picture there is that government is an enforcer of good behavior and a corrector of evil behavior.

And so, you know, the other day there was this horrible case back where we used to live, where a 19 -day old child was sodomized, mutilated, and murdered by her father.

And if he was put to death, how could

I object to that? He won't be, because California doesn't really do the death penalty anymore. But I would still like the opportunity to preach the gospel to him before he was executed.

Because humanly speaking, I want to see that I do everything I can for the sake of his image -bearing, for the sake of his soul.

But the fact is, there are consequences for what we do. Even Jeffrey Dahmer, if he made a profession of faith in prison, and I mean, for those of you who don't know who

Jeffrey Dahmer was, he did horrible crimes, including even cannibalism.

He made a profession of faith in Christ. It seemed legitimate, but the other prisoners where he was, they weren't so quick to forgive, and they put him to death.

You know, there are certain codes. I mean, there are a lot of things that you can do when you're in jail that are just fine, that you would shake your head at and go, how could that be fine?

But there are some things you can't do. And what Jeffrey Dahmer did, you know, is over that line.

And what this father did, they'll have to protect him in jail too, otherwise he'd be put to death by the inmates.

But I think we always want, we have to find that balance to get back to what you were asking about.

And the balance is, there are some things that are so heinous that the government has to protect us, other people, from those sort of actions.

And the only way they can do that is to take wrongdoers, and I think, you know, in some cases, the right thing to do is put them to death.

So then what do we want to do? I think the answer is we want to do everything that we can to make sure that that person believes in the

Lord Jesus Christ before they're executed, but there are consequences for their actions. So I don't think it's either or,

I think it's both and. Charlie? That's an excellent point.

Let me just kind of reframe that, and we need to be closing, and we'll continue next week.

But think about this, you know, I'm locking arms with these guys. I wouldn't, but for the sake of illustration,

I'm locking arms, you know, I've got the communists on my left arm, notice how I leave them on my left. The anarchists, that is, those who do not want any kind of government at all on my right, okay, and I'm marching along with them because this is a horrible injustice that's been done.

Let's say I even believe that. Well, there's a bigger problem. Like Charlie just said, well, let's say that they're not believers, and there's a high likelihood, considering that communism ultimately is, has to be, or has always been implemented as a godless anti -christian system, and anarchy, if God establishes government for the good of mankind, then to say

I don't want any government is anti -christian again. So I'm going to lock arms with these guys, and if they are not believers,

I'm promoting this idea of protesting against the government, and I'm willing to use them to lock arms with them, but I'm not willing to turn to them and say, do you know the

Lord Jesus Christ? That should be my priority. Instead of locking arms with them, I should be going, hey, wait a second, you know,

I'm glad that you're concerned for these other image bearers. Have you considered for yourself that you are going to stand before your creator, and you're going to have to give an account for your life?

How are you going to stand before him and say, I deserve to be in heaven, when you can't?

These protests, even if they're righteous, they're not enough to put you in good standing with God. You need somebody who always obeyed

God, and you know, and then you just go into the gospel. Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, Charlie, final thought. Again, sorry to cut you off, but we have to get going.

Imagine, you know, he's talking about the protests on college campuses, about date rape, and about the evils, and everything of rape, and rape is a terrible crime, and it's a terrible sin, but we're going to lock arms again with all these different religions, and all these different, you know, for a social good, which we would agree is a social good, but here's the problem.

You're saying basically, we agree, we agree, we agree, and then how do you go to them and, you know, kind of turn it into a, yeah, we agree on this, but let me tell you where you're wrong kind of thing, and I think there's a real problem with concerning ourselves with questions of social justice, and putting that priority over anything else.

You know, social justice is good, but if you look at it, and we can talk more about this next week, if you look at it, this was never the issue for Jesus.

What'd he say? The poor you'll always have with you. He didn't say eliminate poverty. He didn't say a lot of these things, and neither does the

New Testament. The focus of the church is to do what? Preach the gospel, make disciples of all nations, teaching them all that I have commanded you, lo,

I'm with you even to the end, you know, all those kind of things. It's not about establishing heaven on earth.

We get heaven in heaven. Anyway, we need to close. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time,

Lord, just to grant us wisdom as we involve ourselves in just things outside of the church, various issues, political issues, social justice issues.

Lord, teach us to put the gospel first, to put the Lord Jesus Christ first, and his glory first, and Lord, be extra careful in the issues, and the causes, and the people that we are willing to stand up with and for.