1689 London Baptist Confession (part 48)

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Our Father in heaven You are glorious You are more glorious than anything we can imagine
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And father we come before you this morning In reverence, but also enjoy and just in The knowledge that you have called us to yourself in love through Christ Jesus father as we
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Look to your word this morning. We pray that you would Give us clarity concerning issues of Liberty and conscience and The law
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Father we pray that our discussion this morning would be fruitful to those who are here That it would be glorifying to you that we would ever be mindful of everything that Jesus Christ has purchased for us that we would be careful to hold those things with the precision that That he deserves we pray for these things in Jesus name.
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Amen Well, we began last week. We were talking about The conscience and about how
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God only God can rule the conscience since he is the one who Has not only given it to us, but he informs our conscience through his word and we talked about the idea that You know the first time that you commit a sin a particular sin
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You ought to as you even as you are committing it There are be fire alarms going off for you
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You ought to be very concerned and worried and nervous because you know that you're doing the wrong thing but over time you can actually sear your conscience by Repeating that sin or repeating other sins and actually dull your conscience to the point where you no longer
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Feel the guilt and the weight of your sin. We got to this point last week that our conscience
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Now this is kind of an odd thing to say, but our conscience can lie to us. How could our conscience lie to us?
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Why would our conscience lie to us? Okay, because we're rationalizing.
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I mean, I always come back to you. I don't always come back to it I mean that you know you guys are gonna say what's the big verse in all the
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Bible or the big passage and all the Bible where all the most difficult questions are answered is Romans 9 but another one that is very
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Handy and comes up a lot is Jeremiah 17 9. Why would that be you don't have to turn there?
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But if you just think about it for a moment, does anybody know Jeremiah 7 17 9 or Gary? The heart of man is desperately wicked
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In fact, the Prophet says who can know it and the idea is that nobody can know the depth of the depravity
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That is in the human heart So our conscience can lie to us
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It can actually excuse what it ought to accuse and that's why the work of the
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Holy Spirit is so important Maybe the
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Quintessential example in the Old Testament of somebody doling in their conscience For a long period of time was
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David. What did David do? He sinned?
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Yeah He committed adultery and murder now those things you would think
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I mean, especially them well, I think the whole thing the adultery part, you know was kind of a slippery slope where he sees a
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Bathsheba and she's appealing to him and you know, so the whole thing, you know, he didn't guard his eyes and we can go through all that but Then she you know, the problem comes up of course when she is with child so now
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He's the king. He's committed this sin and rather than confess it to the people he
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Decides he's gonna cover it up. How do you cover it up you get rid of her husband? So he sent to the front lines.
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He dies essentially David Make sure that he dies in combat. We we would I think it's pretty clear.
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He murdered him He wanted him dead and brought about the circumstances to make that happen.
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So then he can Take Bathsheba to himself with no consequence
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No human consequence anyway, I think we even said this maybe last week and if we didn't we'll say it now
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What do you suppose that David's thinking? He's committed adultery. He's committed murder and guess what?
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Nobody knows Nobody knows what he's done. These are the perfect crimes.
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He's gotten away with it. He has nothing to fear after all. He is the king Then Nobody knows what
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David has done except God I'm sure
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Bathsheba knows too, but she's not talking She's in you know,
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WITSEC, but God sends Nathan To convict
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David of his sin David had numbed his conscience, but God is the
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Lord of our consciences God was not going to let David's conscience remain in a coma as it were and history would tell us that there have been many instances in which the church has tried to Be God tried to usurp the role of God Taking God's authority and saying since we are
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God's earthly representative We can bind your conscience by telling you what you must believe and how you must behave.
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Can you think of examples? where the church has Either gone overboard in putting commandments on people or has grossly
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Underdone things. Can you think of either what either one where the church has created? Burdens for people's consciences or where they have wrongly removed them from people's consciences.
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Mr. Dunn Well, that's okay.
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You can do one or the other Okay Yes, okay, so if you don't do a certain thing by a certain time you're excommunicated,
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I mean I can think of What is Roman Catholicism say if you intentionally miss church, what is that?
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It's a mortal sin It's a mortal sin if you intentionally miss church Mortal.
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Yes, Bob Sabbath observance would be one that people put on Christians yes.
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Yeah, there are all kinds of Rules or restrictions the the Seventh -day Adventists have it on Saturday Anybody have any kind of when they were growing up any kind of Sabbath rules my daughter raises her hand.
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What is that? Go ahead.
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You want to give us a Sunday rule? We don't talk like that on Sunday, right?
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We get in the car and you know, they'd start sniffing each other I go kids and this is exact the exact voice
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I'd go We don't do that on Sunday we don't talk to each other like that on Sunday Why would
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I say it like that? No, not because Sunday's a holy day
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Because I was mocking the whole idea of Sabbath if I if I could be honest The whole idea was we don't ever talk to each other like that, but I wanted to make a point
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So I was just like now kids. We don't hate each other on Sundays like that Like there's a special set of rules, you know, you may not take the baseball bat to your brother on Sunday Monday through Saturday perfectly fine
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Sunday. I've got to draw the line You know, that's why I think yes Excellent.
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Excellent Karen. Yeah, there are blue laws here. I mean, I mean I didn't grow up in Massachusetts What sort of things were you not allowed to do on Sundays?
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By alcohol, right? I mean you have to love those Puritans. What was that? By lottery tickets really well that that ought to be
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Monday through Sunday The stores stores are closed right stores a lot of the stores are closed.
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Yep it
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Yeah, no no meats on Friday, especially, you know during Lent in fact that used to even in the jails in Southern, California I'd go to the
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The officers dining room and I almost never ate there because I just thought okay who's making the food.
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It's the inmates. I'll pass But they would often serve fish
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On Fridays and I'm like, oh, yeah LA County Jail where you can commit murder and do a lot of other things, but you will not eat meat on Friday It'll be fish and fish only school cafeterias
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Yeah, because everybody, you know, I mean, hey eating meat on Friday could cost you years in purgatory
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Yeah, these are all right. And I mean, you know, I joke sometimes about the Don't smoke don't chew don't go with girls who do
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You know, but that's like fundamentalism Don't have playing cards in your house that have faces on them.
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Why? Those are idols, right? You've never heard that one.
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Well, I'll be visiting your house and we'll be having a look at this You yeah you play well actually, you know, you're joking he says you play rook there
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There are actually decks of cards where they only have numbers on them, you know So that you don't commit the heinous sin of having him, you know an image in your house
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So yeah, there are all sorts of things like that, but the church can rob people of their
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Christian Liberty Because Christians are to be moral examples of the watching world, right?
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We should be different We say there should be if you live exactly the same as your neighbor Something's wrong if you speak exactly the same way as your neighbor.
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There's something wrong. So then what do we do? I Mean, I don't know if you've ever had this experience
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Somebody is a new Christian and what they what do they want you to tell them to do? Give me you know, give me a list of five things that I should stop doing or help me to sit
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You know help me to get my life, right? We're supposed to be moral examples, so we've it's easy to fall into the habit of moralism or legalism
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To so that we can feel more holy One of the major differences between Rome and the
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Reformed churches is that we acknowledge We acknowledge here, especially a Bethlehem Bible Church that the church may
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Err, I like to say err it can be err or error. I just like err because it sounds bad
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Err That What why is it possible for the the leadership here at Bethlehem Bible Church?
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Why is it possible for us to make mistakes? I you're laughing at the idea that we can't make mistakes.
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That's good. That's not good. Why is that Andrew? I'm a sinner.
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That's not a nice thing to say Especially this early on a Sunday morning. You don't know me
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Yeah, thank you, thank you, oh the shame Bob Okay have remaining the remaining sin nature.
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Yes And the church is made up of fallible people who make fallible decisions
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Rome on the other hand says what? That it is infallible all of its councils are infallible all of its
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Teaching and tradition is infallible So There's a big difference there but if a church is in error and teaches that Error in such a way that it binds the conscience as that it binds the consciences of people to that error then it is
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Taking the place of God it is establishing law where there was no law established by God if a church says you may not do something and God has never
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Established that as a law then essentially the church has become a law unto itself
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And it has taken the place of God. It's usurped the power of God Luther and that's why we say by the way if you if you come to Me or you come to Pastor Mike or you come to Scott or you come to Pradeep and ask for advice
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Well, we can give you advice, but a lot of times we might preface it by something that sounds very you know Godly and holy, but it's true right
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I Have no authority beyond what the Bible says so if you ask me a question that is beyond the scope of the
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Bible I'm probably gonna say something like well Okay, I can't really think of anything in the Bible that would cover that but my advice would be and my advice is not binding upon you
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You know if I say well, I would probably buy the Toyota instead of the Honda You're free.
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You're not in sin if you buy the Toyota and by the way I would probably I don't know if I would say that or not.
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I usually have bought Hondas so Sorry okay, but Luther Did not claim infallibility he understood that the
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Pope was just a man no matter what the Pope said his statement was Luther was unless I'm convinced by sacred scripture or by Evidence or plain manifest reason
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I Cannot recant because my conscience is held captive to what?
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the Word of God by the Word of God Luther told them that if they could show him that the
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Pope was infallible That church councils were infallible Then he would submit to them right he says okay, you guys say these things you say that the
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Pope is infallible Well if you can demonstrate that in other words show me in Scripture where it says the
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Pope is infallible I'm fine with that show me where it says that church councils are infallible.
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I'll submit to those things But he would not recant unless he was shown his error from the
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Word of God Okay, so we're studying the London Baptist confession of faith, and you say well.
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This is composed by men men are fallible This is not the
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Bible that we're looking at and we're not required to submit to it It has no right over our conscience
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And if we are shown if we leadership are shown error within it then the confession must be corrected
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No tradition nor teaching is above or even on par with Scripture itself. Let me say that again nothing outside of Scripture is
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On par with Scripture itself, it's Scripture alone Scripture must be the rule of faith and life
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Let's see Okay, so the confession goes on to say this and the requiring of an implicit faith and absolute and blind
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Obedience so when if I I'm going to use this term implicit faith and it means an absolute or blind obedience
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We would not do that we would not require implicit faith we would not require blind obedience to us
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Here have you ever had any have you ever been in a church that had that kind of thing where you just have to? Blindly obey your leaders is that me or the lights or what is that okay?
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If you've ever been in a situation like that me if I walk this way It's not working
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What would you call that blind obedience to leadership I Would call it a cult and I've been in you know
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I wasn't a cult the Mormon Church is like that Because they have a prophet who speaks to God, how do you question that right?
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Well in in that very in a very real sense the Catholic Church And we need to keep in mind when we're talking about the
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Westminster confession of faith or the London Baptist confession of faith It's written in response to the teachings of Rome So when they talk about implying or requiring an implicit faith and absolute and blind obedience
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Well there was in Roman Catholicism absolute blind obedience to the
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Pope RC says we should respect our ministers and other leaders, but that respect does not mean slavish devotion to everything they say
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Which is good especially if you're talking to Mike about food, but We must be careful
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Lest we have an absolute implicit faith in any human authority only God deserves that I Remember the old sign you know it or you still see it in some places in God.
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We trust all others do what pay cash? Becky knows
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To believe doctrines or obey commands that come from men not from God out of a sense of duty is to destroy the liberty of conscience and reason also implicit blind faith destroys
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Liberty destroys Christian Liberty well how so how does implicit blind faith?
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How does that? Restrict our Christian Liberty. How does it surrender our Christian Liberty?
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Okay, free will Andrew you lose the ability to make any decisions for yourself
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Because you are to submit yourself to a singular human authority.
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I mean it can get It can get pretty strong. I know of churches where if you want to date someone you have to get approval from The elder board.
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I think that's a little extreme although. We're thinking about it here You know just in some cases
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We call it the Becky clause, what's that? Well, I think that's a different. I mean parents have
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Explicit not implicit authority over their children, so that's a different matter good question
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Be careful to understand the Christian Liberty refers to the areas of our life where God has not laid down rules
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RC gives the story about when he was On the faculty of a
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Christian college and he and a colleague became Greatly involved in ping -pong tournaments table tennis.
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They like to play a lot But his friend got so wrapped up in ping -pong that he would he was either playing or practicing or Thinking about playing or practicing all the time to the neglect of preparing for his lectures
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You know he went in a class and would just go walk around and go okay now if you want to really get the guy to serve
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They're like hello Problem, this is a philosophy class So he finally comes to RC and he says he's decided to stop playing ping -pong all together out of Conscience it was a matter of conscience for him.
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He says There's a quote. He says I've become addicted to ping -pong and right now. I cannot handle it in a mature and moderate way
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Now what do you think about that? Here's a man? Who's a faculty? Professor you know at a university, and he he says
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I have to stop playing ping -pong because I can't control my compulsion to play ping -pong
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Okay, I think it takes a lot of maturity to know yourself that well and to admit that other thoughts
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Jeremiah 17 9 I mean, it's you know I could put it another way.
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It's the Clint Eastwood theology a man's got to know his limitations right? I mean, this is just this is smart
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Charlie Okay, anything not done in faith is sin right right when it becomes an issue for you.
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You know and I just think I'm not gonna call anybody out But there are people who play games so much video games so much
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That they can't get to church on time or that they can't do they can't function in the real world
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You know if you're at college, and you play a game so much that you can't get your studies done
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You're flunking out of class well It's not a sin it might be When it's stopping you from living your life
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It's something that you definitely should put off now You know should should a church should anybody in your life
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You know before you get into this difficulty say you know what playing video games a sin playing ping -pong is a sin
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You know Playing the guitar is a sin no But when something controls your life and is having a negative impact in other things that you need to do
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It's good to have the maturity to be able to step back and say I need to stop doing that RC says that this way non sinful activities that dominate our lives become sin
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I'll say it again non sinful activities. There's nothing wrong with it that dominate our lives become sin
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The same situation can develop with playing golf playing cards reading novels watching TV We are free to enjoy these things as long as they do not rule our lives
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And our tendency is to think that the only proper corrective To an abuse is complete disuse which is what this man did he's just stopped playing ping -pong all together
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He could have maybe slowed down, but he knew it in himself. He couldn't do it So he just stopped playing for a while.
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That's fine. He can pick it up later if he thinks he can Control it But what happens to us or to some people if they have a problem with a particular issue in their life
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Well, what do they do in response? They stop doing whatever it is and they want to Impose that standard on other people, right
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RC says this way He says we start posting rules and regulation concerning all kinds of things that God allows his people to use in Conscience and we try to take away the liberty of others in order to protect them from falling into the abuses, right?
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I did this to access it was a problem in my life. Therefore you may not do it Yeah, we don't do this because it might lead to that so Because we're so afraid of you falling into this then don't even do this
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Right. It seems like it seems like wisdom, but is it? It's just restricting your liberty on the basis that it might lead to sin in some cases it could be right
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I mean Yes Yes, and you know, it's interesting to me because when
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I think about I was talking to my My aunt who lives in Utah here
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Actually, I only have one aunt so it doesn't matter where she lives Just Amused me just to make that observation
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But it's kind of you know, they're really into Genealogy and it's just really it's kind of frightening as we start recounting all the people in our family tree who?
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Were alcoholics and it either killed them or you know drastically Affected their lives and I'm and I'm like, well, how did that not?
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You know happen to me and I I don't know the grace of God, right? But you know as I could see as Knowing that that was in So prevalent in my family, you know
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If I wanted to have that kind of rule for myself that I'm not gonna drink then I think there might even be wisdom to It but it's not something
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I should then impose on other people Paul Told Timothy, let's look at first Timothy 5 verse 23
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Because this is interesting this this verse. I mean there are some verses that you look at and you go.
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Well this this has a little bit of difficulty, especially for the fighting fundamentalist and I'm all about You know putting the fun back in fundamentalism and taking the fight out of it
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Somebody read first Timothy 5 23 will Okay.
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Thank you now you read that this is Paul talking to Timothy not a doctor to a patient but an apostle to a pastor a
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Pastor and what does he say no longer drink only water, but use a little wine Now, what are some of the arguments that people make about this?
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It's just grape juice What about that argument
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Daniel how is grape juice get which is a great question, how's it gonna help my stomach
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There's another argument against that argument which would be this I mean first of all
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Some alcohol would have an effect. How would the alcohol have an effect on your stomach? It would kill some of the bacteria, right?
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I mean they didn't have they weren't aware they had it they weren't aware of the properties of chlorine back then
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You know for killing bacteria and stuff like that, so a little bit of wine would kill some bacteria I'm sorry
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Drunks don't get colds and that's why you know back in it back in the back in the day You know, you could have what is that the
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Vicks stuff the? Yeah, but no, but the the drink NyQuil man, oh man.
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I remember the first time I ever had that stuff. I was like 18 My dad said, you know, I had a really bad cold
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And so I had some I was like What is that he says there
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I'll call him that goes he says now this is my dad, you know Really careful reader of labels. He says I don't think so.
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So So so I pull up the label and I'm not kidding. I just remember going This is 25 % by volume
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I'm going down Which you know, it's 50 proof. I mean for me mister, you know never had a drink of my life
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That was that was pretty dramatic Have a little marijuana,
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I don't think marijuana has Antibacterial properties I could be corrected there. In fact, what
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I've seen is it leads to a certain grossitude but anyway Yeah, he could he could say that Theoretically, I don't again.
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I don't under the spirit guidance of the Holy Spirit. I don't think he would say that Let's talk a little bit more
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I mean, I don't want to spend too much time about that. But you say grape juice I'm not a big proponent typically of word studies per se because they can lead you down some real
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Scary places, but in this one oinus grape juice
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It's interesting because Paul uses exactly the same word when he says what? Do not be drunk with Wine, let's say it's grape juice how much grape juice do you have to drink to get drunk a
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A whole lot. I mean, you know, you can get drunk on water, right? It just takes gallons
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But you can get the same effect by drinking just a ton of water
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But how much grape juice did it take to get drunk? And I think the answer would be a lot So it's that's just a nonsense argument.
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Well, it's only grape juice. No, it's really it's really not Well wine wasn't the same back then Okay, it wasn't the same back then but it wasn't nothing there was alcohol in it
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But some would like to tell Timothy contra the Apostle Paul disregard
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Paul's advice take no wine lest you become what a drunkard
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You're gonna become addicted to wine if you start drinking a little bit of wine for your stomach
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So to guard against the abuse of something that God allows we prohibit it altogether and what is that so You know, it's taking the place of God what
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God has Left us free to decide for ourselves. We must be careful not to just set up rules to Guard against everything.
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I mean if somebody if I want to say for myself, I don't want to drink Well, that's fine, but I can't run around imposing that on everyone else when the
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Word of God doesn't do that. No, it's not legalism It's just fine. I mean, I you know true confession.
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I'll just turn the mic off for a second When I was a young man, I think I I think I well I know for a fact
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I was 20 and I got inebriated one time. It was the worst experience of my life and As I was stumbling across the room,
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I just thought like Lucille only she wasn't stumbling But I just thought I am never doing this again,
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I didn't make a promise to God I just thought I am never doing I didn't like it Was not fun.
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In fact is what's stunning to me is that people can do that and you know wind up getting sick and all that And then do it again.
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I don't understand that it's crazier than childbirth. I I mean At least there there's a positive outcome, you know
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A year or two later the woman will remember or forget about how miserable it was and she'll have another baby and I'm like, okay
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Now I can understand that because it's like, you know a couple years apart But people go out like every week or even some people every night and get drunk and I'm like, it's miserable
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Why would you do that? Anyway, we digress. Yes. All right. Are you gonna confess to?
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Tell tell the truth and shame the devil Okay Hi, Charlie They're very serious complications from from drinking well, and you know again if the microphone were off I'd tell you what
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I wanted to do as you know, if they I Used to say if they may be king of California. Here's my program to get rid of drunk drivers because I hate it
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I mean it is it is dangerous, you know, they talk about a lot of things Opioids guns everything but alcohol kills more people than just about anything else in this country outside of maybe maybe cancer
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But yeah So, I mean you have the liberty to do it, but it's it can be pretty dumb
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You don't have the liberty and we're gonna talk more about it You don't have the liberty to do what to sin and when it comes alcohol that would be to get drunk
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So yeah, we want to avoid the very appearance of evil The question is, you know is having a drink evil and you know
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I used to say the only kind of drink I want is one that comes with an umbrella on it, but Because I'm a real tough guy
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Anyway, let's move on 1689 they who upon pretense of Christian Liberty, in other words as a display of Christian Liberty do practice any sin or cherish any sinful lust as They do thereby pervert the main design of the grace of the gospel to their own destruction
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So they wholly destroy the end of Christian Liberty Which is that being delivered out of the hands of all our enemies we might?
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serve the Lord without fear in Holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our lives.
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That's why we have Christian Liberty Not so that we can abuse it But so that we can serve the
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Lord all the days of our lives in holiness and righteousness before him now
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Christian Liberty When is it abused it's abused let's turn to Romans 14 and we're gonna be in Romans 14 most of Well the rest of our time this morning and probably next week as well talking about Christian Liberty Christian Liberty is abused when it becomes an excuse for Libertinism or licentiousness, which will develop a little bit.
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Would somebody read verses 1 to 3 of Romans? 14 in another place in One of his letters of the
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Corinthians there were disputes Over eating meat that had previously been offered to idols
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After the pagan ceremonies the meat was put on sale in the marketplace at a discount right they would offer to idols and since the idols
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Surprisingly did not consume the food Because they don't breathe or eat or speak or eat
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They Wouldn't consume the food and then you know the I suppose the pagan
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Priests or whoever to make a buck would then sell it out in the marketplace And of course it wasn't may
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I just say it wasn't USDA shrink -wrapped and you know all that kind of stuff They didn't keep it properly refrigerated and then bring it down to the market
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So, you know if somebody thought well, I wouldn't buy that meat because it's been out for hours I wouldn't blame them on that one, but that wasn't why they wouldn't buy it
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But some Christians Took opportunity the opportunity to save money, right?
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They're like, hey, this guy's got this meat It's you know, Al's cut rate meat thing And yes was offered to idols, but we can save some money doing that.
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So we're gonna buy it and Others would look at that and say how could you buy that meat?
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How could you eat that meat? It was offered to idols It was it was basically, you know put on a platter before an idol and offered in the name of whatever
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So -called gods and now you're going to eat it Aren't you then?
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Participating in the worship of these idols. How can you do that? So back to Romans 14
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What Paul's discussing here are matters that are called odd de fora or odd de fora, which means things that are in different What RC is talking about here is things that God has neither forbidden nor commanded
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He's given no instruction about it He hasn't said thou shalt not eat meat offered idols and he hasn't said you shall eat meat
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Offered idols. So here's what we have. We have a system or a situation where Christian Liberty reigns
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Some will say well again, how can you do that? We're to separate ourselves from sin and Clearly, it's sinful to participate in pagan ceremonies, right?
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Would we agree with that? We wouldn't go to I don't know. What's a good pagan ceremony that we could go to a
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Christmas tree lighting. Oh, I'm kidding. No What's it?
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What's a pagan ceremony that you probably wouldn't go to I'll hear that confession later
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He DJ'd a Wiccan wedding, I see I would I mean,
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I think I went to was it a Wiccan wedding something What I was a young man one of my cousins
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Got married in some whacked -out deal in a backyard by some Wiccan priestess or something, you know, yeah
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That was that was crazy But yeah, I mean there are
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Things that we ought not to participate. I mean today I would say you ought not to go to a homosexual so -called marriage because it's not a marriage in fact, it's a
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Repudiation of marriage is what it is So we want to be careful not to be involved in sinful things.
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Let me just we'll just close with this RC When he was, you know way back when when he was ordained a minister
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He was in the United Presbyterian Church which doesn't exist anymore and eventually the
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UPC was It was it had its own symbols get it UPC someone.
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Sorry It was absorbed into the United States Presbyterian Church or the
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United Presbyterian Church of America Or what is it PC USA Presbyterian Church of the
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USA? And when he was ordained the PC USA was ordaining women to be ruling elders and teaching elders in other words ministers pastors and RC thought this was unbiblical.
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He believed it was unbiblical so this is how he sort of Avoided the issue if he was in a session, which is what they call a larger group of elders
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Can in a session will supervise several different congregations, so it's kind of a
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Super Board of Elders like we would have here He would obey their judgments and honor and Recognize the office that they held even though there were women in this even though he clearly saw 1st
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Timothy 2 and 1st Timothy 3 and other passages of Scripture as Explicitly rejecting the idea that women could teach or exercise authority
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However, he would be he would excuse himself when it came to actually ordaining women he just as a matter of conscience, he didn't want to be involved in that and His idea was then
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And this is a quote from him. We will live at peace with the church the US or the
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PC USA as a loyal minority We just won't speak our minds, and we'll just shut up, but we're not going to help what we see as being a sinful practice
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However the day came when the denomination decided to that all teaching and ruling elders must participate in ordination ceremonies
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In order to stay within the denomination he was going to have to violate his conscience So he appeals for an exemption it goes to the denominations ruling body they held a vote after a debate and then there were 713 votes cast and RC got 13 of those so he lost
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And he says had the church dealt with the matter according to the instructions of the New Testament They would have considered me of course
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They would have never done this in the first place if they were really set on the New Testament But they would have considered me a weaker brother.
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That's what Paul's writing about in Romans 14 the weaker brother The one whose conscience is set too high in other words
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They would have considered me a weaker brother and allowed me to stay within my scruple in other words my principle my conscience that wouldn't have
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Commanded me to violate my conscience said he was given three options number one change his mind and submit number two
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Await prosecution where he would be defrocked and drummed down to the denomination or number three exercise his right to peaceably withdraw from the denomination which is what he did so I mean
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I Guess you could say he compromised in the beginning But in a way that he thought protected his conscience
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And then eventually they said no your conscience is gonna have to go and we see so many things coming into denominations
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Where they're appointing not just women But people who practice homosexuality to positions of authority
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So we're gonna see more and more issues like this where you're going to you're gonna see churches closed you're gonna see people leaving denominations
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And that's just the way it is But he eventually withdraws and we need to close
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So what we'll talk about next week what we're going to be talking about is not just our conscience but about this whole idea of being separate being holy and what what do people do sometimes when they're looking to Separate themselves from sin, and we'll just I'll just give you a little preview.
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It's one thing to say I will not participate in in anything that furthers for example the
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Kind of the the issue or the sin of Homosexuality I will not participate anything that is involved in that well it's one thing to say that and it's another thing to say for example,
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I know that Disney has a Homosexual day a pride day down there at Disney World therefore.
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I will not buy anything from Disney I will not watch any Disney programming.
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I will not have anything to do. What is that called? Okay a boycott, but there's a
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Another word for it if I want to separate myself from sin. I I just don't participate in anything.
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That's Okay, but if I want to separate myself from it.
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That's one thing but this idea of Separating myself from people who do the things that I want to be separated from it's called the second degree of separation, right?
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So I not only don't I not only do not want to I don't participate in homosexuality in any way
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Anyone who does I will not associate with anyone who promotes that I will not associate with so that's like the second degree of separation and you know there you if you go if you go into this much you can see all kinds of things well because Such and such a preacher did this or said this
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Therefore I will not associate with him and by the way anybody who associates with him I will not associate with and you know, so you get to like six degrees of separation
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You know on all these issues and aren't you holy? I Mean it gets to a point where it's just kind of crazy.
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So what we're going to talk about again is more Not establishing legalistic standards, but also keeping our
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Consciences clear so we'll do that next week father We thank you for your word.
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We thank you that it gives us everything pertaining to life and godliness We need nothing else Lord. We pray that you would keep us in your word that you would keep us attuned
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To how we ought to think and Lord as we as we look to things
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Amazing things where people just even set aside the Word of God for their own feelings
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Lord for each one here. I pray that you would just remind us again and again that our feelings our hearts our brains our minds are just Afflicted and affected
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By sin and by sinful thoughts and by the world and so many things
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Father help us to tune our consciences to keep them in tune To yield ourselves to the
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Holy Spirit to listen to his word and not to the things that we think
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Our God speaking to us father we thank you for your son the
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Lord Jesus Christ for His sacrifice for the gospel and father.