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Okay, well tonight is going to be a little bit different. I thought about doing Ruth 4, but I think we'll wait because I'll be gone next week and I think
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Ruth 4 is going to be a two -parter. So let me just have a few questions that I want to ask you tonight, and I want you to try to be
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Bereans. Even this week, again, I was reminded of what people think about judgment.
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Judgmentalism is really what they're talking about. You fill in the blanks. Judge not, lest you be judged.
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How many times do people throw that into your face? Don't judge me.
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Who are you? But it is a lot for the Christian to be a discerner, yes?
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Ephesians chapter 4 talks about we need to learn how to discern so we are just not sitting on top of the ocean in a little styrofoam boat and whenever the wind comes up or a big swell, it takes you wherever it wants you to go.
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We are to be stable. Remember when Dan Rathman preached several weeks ago and he was talking about the three levels of maturity in 1
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John? Fathers who are close to the Lord and very, very mature. Children who know who their daddy is, but they don't know much besides that.
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And then young men, and it certainly could be women as well, but young men who know the Word of God well enough that they have overcome the evil one,
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Satan. So Satan can't trick these kind of people because they know the Bible. And so I want you to know the
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Bible. If I'm not standing there, I want you to be able to say, well I know what the Bible teaches and I can judge those thoughts true or false.
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Are you supposed to judge things as true or false? Last night we were at the Ruth play and of course they said at the beginning this doesn't match up exactly with the text.
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It's pretty factual, but there's a few things they had to do for liberty. And so Luke is just sitting next to me. It's just built into him and I'm thankful for that.
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He'd look at me and he'd say, is that in Ruth dad? Is that part there biblical? What about that? And I looked at Luke and I said, judge not lest you be judged.
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No, of course I didn't. I'm glad. If you turn on the TV and there's nothing wrong with a bunch of electrical circuits with the big screen there, and you turn it on, you should be saying this.
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That's right. That's wrong. That's right. That's wrong. That's biblical. That's ungodly. And especially as your kids get older, you can expose them to more things and they can think through issues because you're training your children to think critically.
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We want to think critically. Paul said to the church at Thessalonica, a good church. This wasn't Corinth. This was a wonderful church.
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He said, I want you to examine everything carefully to just say that's right and that's wrong.
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It can even be an evangelism. Someone acts like an unbeliever, are you judging them to hell with your thoughts?
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No, that's Christ's job. But are you judging on the spot? This person is talking like an unbeliever, acting like an unbeliever, reading what unbelievers read, doing what unbelievers do.
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Hence, judge not lest you be judged. No, you need the gospel, so give them the gospel.
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And if they are a Christian, well, they should say, you know, I need to hear the gospel again because I'm caught up in this sin and I need you to restore me.
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And so we are judging all the time. And so we already know that at this church. I'm always preaching that.
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But the good news is you don't need me to do it. You can do it on your own. And Romans 15 -14 says that you are competent to admonish and give counsel.
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You. What a change from the Reformation time where here are the clergy and here are the non -clergy.
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Here are the leaders and the bishops and here are the people who are kind of the serfs and the peasants.
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And we know all the inside information because we know the languages and you have to do whatever we tell you. Where the real church is upside down from that and we want to try to equip you for the work of the ministry.
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So much so that if you come to me and say, Pastor, what are we doing about Katrina and the hurricane relief fund? I want to look at you and say, we're not doing anything and I'm glad God's laid that in your heart because you need to lead that and run with that.
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People say, well, we want to give money. Somebody gave a large amount of money today to that very fund. I don't know where to send it.
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And I don't think you want me to be on the internet for four hours trying to figure out a good evangelical place to send it. So I'd love to have somebody step up and say, oh, even with the sermon,
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I need to figure out where to send that money. Where's a good place? Well, what does this have to do with anything?
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I'm going to ask questions and tonight I want you to give me the answers out loud and I'm going to try to force you to think through biblical things and it should be a good stimulating time of ministry tonight and worship.
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By the way, this morning I forgot to say we have service tonight. I probably should have announced it because we're about half staff tonight, right?
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I'm glad you're here. Let me ask you a question and then somebody raise your hand and give me an answer.
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We'll do it kind of this way tonight. I didn't make up this question, by the way.
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This was a question from the congregation, this congregation. In heaven, if somebody asked you this question, how would you respond?
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In heaven, will people there have free will? We're always bantering around free will questions.
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Do we, don't we, should we, shan't we? Do we have free will in heaven? How about that one?
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Anyone? Somebody walked up to the street and said, oh, yeah, you go to Bethlehem Bible Church, that church that has a couple hundred people and they're all carrying around their
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Bibles and there's Bible institutes and all that other stuff. Will we have free will in heaven? What do you tell them? Repent?
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What would you tell them? If you never know what to say, that's a good one. What would you tell them?
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Doug. Doug. Okay, good, let's keep adding that up and then we'll splice it all together.
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And by the way, if one person says yes and another person says no, we're not going to have our self -esteem damaged or anything like that.
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I'll never forget the story one time. Steve Cooley was telling me he was a manager in the jail with another deputy who was under him.
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He was a lieutenant and the other guy was a sergeant or something, and they never saw eye to eye. They just could not get along.
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They just were battling back and forth. I have this view. I have this view. I have this view.
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I have that view. And they could just never come together on what to do for policy in the jail.
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So Steve said, and I thought this is really good. He called the guy in. He said, listen, I think it should be done this way.
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You think it should be done this way. I'm not going to use my authority over you to make that happen. We need to work together. So here's what we'll do.
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We're going to arm wrestle for it, and whoever loses will have to submit. He said they were almost best friends after that.
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I said, did you win? I don't care about your friendship. I want to know if you won. He said,
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I did win. And then after that, it was fine. So I've been debating with some of my buddies on the
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Internet, and sometimes I just say to them, I'll arm wrestle you for it kind of thing. So it's okay if you disagree with Doug.
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You can arm wrestle Doug outside tonight. Anybody else? Luke? Yes, you have free will in heaven.
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Okay, good. Anybody else? Ajay? Okay, so now the question is not only the will is free, we want to ask about what kind of nature that person has.
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Good, I'll expand on that in a minute. Gladman? Hey, someone was listening this morning.
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Deuteronomy 29 .29. What was that verse again? Good. Okay, good.
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Now, why am I getting into this philosophical speculation? No, I, if I go to some kind of party or some kind of get -together or some kind of gathering,
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I like to know what to do. Don't you? I like protocol. I like etiquette. I want to be able to walk into, if the president is having lunch and I've been invited, what should
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I say? If you meet the queen, do you curtsy? I mean, I don't know what to do. I'd probably be so flabbergasted
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I would curtsy. I want to do the right thing. And sometimes
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I think about heaven, and you start thinking about heaven, and there's less written on heaven than there is even hell.
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I think heaven is going to be so great, it's hard to pin it in human words. We have some, Revelation 21 and Revelation 22, heaven is mainly talked about as being with God.
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But what is heaven like? What will we do? How will we act? And I had this fear when
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I was a younger Christian. When I get to heaven, I want to do the right thing. I don't want to make a stupid decision in heaven.
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I want to bow when I'm supposed to bow, and I don't want to go talk to my friends too soon. Hey, Scott Fair, I haven't seen you for a long, long time.
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Hey, what are you doing? Right on. When I'm supposed to be worshiping
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Christ, so I always ask myself, I want to make sure I do the right thing in heaven. And my question to you is, will you do the right thing in heaven, or won't you?
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Well, let me say a few things about this. Here's the good news. And I think both all are right if I can couch it this way.
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True or false, you will be free from Satan's influence in heaven. Unbelievers are bound to do
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Satan's will. True, they are bound to do Satan's will. And the sad, tragic news is, unbelievers think they're not bound from Satan's will.
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They think they're doing their own thing at their own time, at their own pace, for their own career, according to their own plan of life.
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Yet, 2 Timothy 2, verse 26 says, in the context of pastors being gentle to people, so God will grant them repentance, that they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his,
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Satan's will. Unbelievers, forever and for always, until God saves them and gives them a new mind, a new heart, new emotions, new affections, do
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Satan's will. Sadly, Satan blinds their minds so they think they're doing their will, yet they're doing
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Satan's will. Will Satan have any kind of influence on you in heaven? No.
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So certainly, we will be free, our wills will be freed from the influence of Satan in heaven.
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And aren't you glad? I'd be super glad. Satan disguising himself, is that really
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Satan or not? What's coming down the pike in academia at Harvard and Princeton?
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Where's that coming from? I'm always on guard now. What are they teaching? Is it satanically driven?
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I don't have to worry about that anymore. I'll just have no worries about Satan, because he's going to be cast into the, and dealt with forever.
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Well, let's think about this. If we're free from Satan's influence in heaven, will you be free from your old sin principle dwelling in you in Satan?
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Some might call it a sin nature. I think when you're saved, you have a new nature, no longer a sin nature. You have a new nature, but you still have a sin hangover.
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We call it a harmartological hangover, a sinful hangover that when we're saved, we're redeemed, but there's still something in us that gives us a propensity to sin sometimes, and Paul calls that in Romans 6 and 7, the flesh.
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Not this. If you think this is the problem of your life, then frankly between you and I, between us girls, you're a neoplatonic dualist.
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How about that? Those are fighting words. Neoplatonic dualists think this.
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Spirit good, body bad. Just get rid of the body and everything's okay.
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So in heaven, we'll be free from Satan's influence to the praise of his glory, of his grace, and we'll be free from our own sin problem that we have even as believers.
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Won't that be good? So you're never going to have anything on the inside that drives you to do something ungodly.
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Think about that word ungodly. What's the first two letters of the word ungodly? UN. That's exactly right, and so here's what
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God does. God does things righteously, with justice, with mercy, with grace, with compassion, with long -suffering.
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All the different attributes of God. And ungodly people act what? The opposite.
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Without justice, without mercy, without grace, without forbearance, without patience, without all these other things. So in heaven, you're never going to walk in and say, well,
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I'm going to sin up in heaven. Sin's going to be gone. Romans 7 .15
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says, For that which I am doing, Paul said, I do not understand, for I am not practicing what
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I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. I hate what
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I'm doing. Remember last week, I said sometimes I hate myself because I know what to do and I don't do it, and I go, oh, wretched man that I am.
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Can you imagine? I don't think in heaven you're ever going to say, I am a wretched man. You may say when I look at Christ, I remember how wretched
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I used to be, but to the praise of the glory of his grace, I'm not wretched anymore. I am perfect. Well, how about this?
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We'll be free from Satan's influence. We'll be free from our own sin issue.
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Will we be free from God's influence in heaven?
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You think God could influence you in heaven? You have a will. That will makes choices, and I agree with Doug in respect that we will have our own cognitive thoughts and feelings and emotions, and we will decide to lay down those crowns.
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It will not be forced with some kind of authority. You get down on your knees. We can stand in his presence with great joy and be blameless, or you could bow down and worship the king.
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You could do whatever you like, but I still think there'll be an influence by God on us.
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Maybe he's teaching us. Maybe we're understanding how to love him more. Do you think you'll learn anything in heaven?
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Or do you think you'll know everything once you get there and you won't have any added information? There's all kinds of things that we could speculate, but we won't be free from God's control and aren't too glad because other people who have been perfect, not other people, but other beings that have been perfect, have fallen from grace.
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Will you be able to fall once you're in heaven? Are you sure? Angels did. Well, I'm positive because if God has redeemed you, he's redeemed you to the very end.
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It's good to think about natures and wills. The nature controls the will.
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So if you have the nature of a tiger, guess what you like to eat for breakfast? Frosted flakes, of course.
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They're terrific. No. You have a nature to eat meat, Mr. Tiger, and so tigers eat meat.
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And you could coax them. You could starve them. You could have all kinds of other things done to them, and tigers eat meat. Similarly, for people who have
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Superman comic books, and you think, what kind of nature does
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Superman have? Superman has a nature where he can leap tall buildings in a single bound and all these kind of other things and speeding bullets, and you think, where is this guy going?
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I have no idea. But Superman has a nature of Superman. That's why I can't run down to Honey Farms and back in five minutes with a big gulp and fly down there.
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Sometimes I wish I could. But as long as there's no lotto fever people down there, then I wouldn't like that. When people have a sinful nature as unbelievers, every choice they make freely, and they make free choices, is dominated and influenced by that sin.
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And so they think they have a free will, but that will is not free from sin, from Satan, or anyone else, and they make choices freely out of their nature.
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So if their nature is sinful, they make free sinful choices. And in heaven you'll have a nature that's holy and righteous and redeemed, glorified.
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Remember salvation? When were you saved? When was I saved? What's saving?
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Well, I think of five salvations, can't you? In eternity past, before the world began,
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God saved me. At Calvary, God saved me when
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Jesus died for me. When the Holy Spirit made me a new person, 1989,
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God saved me. 2005, September, God is saving me.
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He's sanctifying me. He's making me more like Christ. He's teaching me in a better way to deny ungodliness and instructing me to live righteously in this present age.
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And then, lastly, God will ultimately save me, and we call that salvation what?
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Glorification. And once we're glorified, we're glorified. And guess what glorified people do? They have a glorified nature, so all the decisions they make with their own will are what?
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Are good. They're right. They do the right thing. Here's the good news. When you're in heaven, you're going to know exactly what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and all for the glory of Christ.
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And you'll be focused upon Him. And I think since all the deity of God dwells in bodily form,
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I think you're going to get to heaven, and you're going to see Christ with His hands and His feet, and you're just going to say, I can't believe it.
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We did it! And you're going to high -five God. No. You're going to say,
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God, I am a recipient of Your good grace. And now, for the first time ever,
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I can really think about grace perfectly, because I thought I could understand it a little bit in earth, but now
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I can understand it perfectly. And to realize the glory that Your Son had, and then
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He condescended Philippians chapter 2 to this earth, and added human flesh,
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I think it's going to add to our praises when we really understand like we should, and then we realize how far He came down to save people like us.
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I'm longing to get to heaven. I'm glad I didn't go last week, because, you know, all this electrical stuff.
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I want to see my kids grow up. I want to be a grandpa. I want to see you mature. I want to see some of our kids come through the ministry, and then all of a sudden we're shipping them off to Taiwan.
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But there's something in me, like Paul, that says, absent from the body, present with the Lord. I want to live for Christ, but also it would be kind of nice to die, because that would be gain.
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Perfect, glorified body and nature in heaven. And every choice you make in heaven will be perfectly in tune with your nature, which will be perfectly in tune with what
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God requires. Won't that be good? Questions about that before we go to the next one?
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What happens to you, by the way, when you think of heaven often? What happens to you when you think of the Second Coming often?
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What happens when you desire to be like Christ? How about this? 1
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John 3 How great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God, and such we are.
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For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.
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We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
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And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself just as He is pure.
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Now that'll preach. That's good for the soul. Okay, well let's come down to earth a little bit.
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This should prove interesting. Someone asked you this question. Well, I know your church teaches the
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Bible and all that kind of stuff, that expository preaching and everything, but half the people don't even know what expository preaching is.
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But I like drama in church. I like stage stuff and skits.
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People, when they learn, they learn better if they not only read it and hear it, but they also see it kind of lived out a little bit.
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So drama would be really good. And if your church had drama, I'd go. What would you say to them? Shouldn't be coming for that?
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Okay, that's a good one. How about, let's expand it, dancing too.
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I like dancing. So I want churches to have dancing, because what I like, I get. I'm a consumer.
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I prefer this kind of music, I prefer this kind of dancing, I prefer this kind of drama, and I like that.
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What about dancing? Can't dance your way to heaven? Dance the night away?
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Why don't we dance at the church service? First of all, is there anything wrong with dancing? Well, there's different kinds of dancing.
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But dancing in and of itself, is there anything wrong with people dancing? Square dancing. What's this sound?
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I don't know the sound. Maybe there's something wrong with dancing. I don't know. Is there anything wrong?
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What if we had square dancing here in the fall? Anybody who wants to come can come and grab your wife and do -si -do, and off we go.
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If you don't want to come, you don't have to come. Valentine's.
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Dance. Is there anything wrong with dancing? Why don't we do it at a worship service? That's my point. Why do we do what we do, would be a bigger question, at the church.
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Why do we do scripture reading? Why do we preach? Why do we pray? Why do we have baptisms? The Lord's table.
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Why not dancing? Why not drama? Are you sure?
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Well, last time I checked, Mr. Skiparis, it says right here in 2 Samuel 6, 14,
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David was dancing before the Lord. Of course,
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I love Mark, and he's a good student. He knows I'm just playing around with him. Yes, Cindy?
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Okay. I always wanted to know, by the way, with this whole dancing thing, what are the qualifications for the dance team ministry?
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Above approach? One -step man? I mean, I don't know what the things are, but it's very strange to me.
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I went into a vineyard church service years and years ago, where John Wimber was pastoring, and so I brought my whole cadre of guys.
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We had about 12 guys, and we do these things called discernment field trips. So we all go out together, and we're all going to bring our little pocket
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Bibles because we don't really want to let people know we're kind of in the in -club. And so we went there, and I said, you watch what's going to happen here tonight, and it will be focused on emotions.
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It won't be focused on the objective word. So we walked in, and the service starts. We're in the very back of the church.
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I didn't want to cause any trouble or anything. I just wanted to see what they do. And so off we go with about 20 dance team ministry people through the aisles.
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And most people were probably 15 to 19. They were all girls, and they had kind of little streamers.
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And I'm tempted to show you what they did. They were kind of just jumping and going down through the aisles and how you can make cool things with streamers.
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There was kind of some music in the background, and my eyes were like that. I just thought, hello, dance ministry.
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And I thought, well, okay. Maybe their motives are good. Certainly the tight dresses,
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I could prefer to do without those. But what about this dancing stuff? Running all around dance ministry.
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It doesn't say, beloved, thou shall not dance in a church, so why don't you dance? God doesn't condemn that.
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God doesn't say you may not. God doesn't say you must not. By the way, the end of that story, other weird things happened.
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And so a guy came up to me, and he was an associate pastor, and he said, people are up on the front, and they were growling and barking and laying there with their hands up and everything, making all these noises.
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And then a guy came up to me, and he said, by the way, could you keep your guys quiet a little bit? I thought, quiet?
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You guys got barking up there and doing all kinds of the dead fly dance and everything else, and you're telling my guys to be quiet, and all we're doing is saying, what are these people doing?
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Guy said, what church do you go to? I said, well, we go to Grace Church, and we're 90 miles from Grace Church, John MacArthur.
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Author. Okay, just tone it down. After the service, the guy came up to me and gave me a big slap on the back, and it was a little too hard.
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It was one of those, you know, I bet you're going to go home and tell John MacArthur about this, aren't you?
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John didn't send me down here. I'm not John's emissary or anything. I wanted to get out of there. I thought,
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I'm the kind of guy that walks in to see some concert at some place where they serve alcohol, and four bruisers want to fight me for no reason except I look like I'm righteous or something.
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I don't know. You know me. I just kind of lead gently and nicely, and I just don't tell people what really
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I'm thinking. Long story short, I said, you know, is there a bookstore around here? I just wanted to get out of there.
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I didn't want a confrontation. And the man said, yeah, it's right over there, but you won't find any John MacArthur books here.
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I said, I've got to get out of here. So I went down to the bookstore, and I found three John MacArthur books. Why don't we dance?
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Well, let me have you turn your Bibles to Psalm 149, and let's find dancing in the Bible. So far, no one's given me an answer, so let me just talk about this a little bit.
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I think it's important, especially when you're asking yourself the question, it wouldn't be nice, as they did down in Houston, to have the pastor come out on the stage to introduce the spiritual warfare series on Ephesians 6, 10 and following, as he came out with his
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Bible with jeans on, sitting on a real army tank.
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Now, would you pay attention to a sermon like that? Can you imagine? I come out on a tank and preach spiritual warfare.
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Can you imagine the eyes of the children? Wow. I've only got one question for that kind of preaching, though. What's that question?
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What do you do next week? Because you keep people with what you win them with. That is to say, if people say,
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I get Bible teaching there, so I'll come back. But if you get the hoops and the thrills and all the emotions and all this stuff, if I don't deliver it next week, then you won't keep coming back.
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There is this in the Bible, though, dancing. Look at Psalm 149. Just a great psalm.
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Praise the Lord, and when you see caps with LORD, it's Yahweh, this covenant -keeping, personal name of God.
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He's to be praised. He's to be spoken well of. Sing to the Lord a new song.
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And His praise in the congregation of the godly ones. It's as if there are so many new mercies that God gives every day,
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Allah Lamentations 3, that if He gives new mercies to you every day, you should be writing new songs about those new mercies all the time.
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Let Israel be glad in His Maker. Let the sons of Zion rejoice in their King. Let them praise
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His name with... There it is. When you see let in the English, by the way, typically that flags your mind to think that's a command in the original language.
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Praise His name with dancing. Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre.
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Go to chapter 150. Go to the next psalm. Verse 4.
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Praise Him with timbrel and... dancing. Why don't we dance?
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It's right there in the Bible. In the context of a worship service to Yahweh, people dance.
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Why don't we dance? Gladman. Okay, that could be a consideration.
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Is it a cultural issue? And remember when you have the Bible studies, you say to yourself, what are the questions that might be involved?
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There's a language gap. There's a history gap. There's a culture gap. There's all kinds of other issues. Let's ask those questions.
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So I think that's fair to ask and good. Peter, do you know the answer why we don't dance? No. Okay, then put your hand down, buddy.
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But I'm glad you're listening. What about square dancing?
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Well, we'll talk about dancing just a little bit. You keep listening, pal. I'm glad Peter is in the congregation, by the way.
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And I think, Peter, you've come a long way. You should have seen Peter this morning. I was talking to an adult, and he came up to me, just put his hand right on me.
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That's kind of the interrupt rule. And when I'm done talking to the adult, I'll look down at you and deal with you.
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And so I just talked for a little bit more. He just kept waiting, waiting, waiting. Hi, Peter, how are you? How can I help you? I just want to say goodbye.
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Okay, buddy, bye. Off he goes. You're growing. As Paul said to the church at Thessalonica, you've done a good job, but you've got a ways to go.
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So keep going. All right. And by the way, some of you men who have come alongside of Peter and helped and been a manly, godly influence for Peter, that's exactly what the church is supposed to do, isn't it?
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Exactly. And so I'm very thankful for that. And it is hard to be a single mom and be godly.
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And I've been proud of Becky, too. Okay, what am I talking about? Dancing.
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All right, what are we going to say about dancing, then? Why don't we dance? If it says right there, we're commanded to dance.
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Yes. Okay. I think that's a good question.
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It could take our focus off. But did it take the focus off for Psalm 149 and 150?
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Depends how they dance. Yeah, well, it's a righteous dance. How about that? Okay. What is a righteous dance, by the way?
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Okay, keep going. Okay, good.
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One of the questions is Old Testament, New Testament, which would also let us ask the question, it would beg the question, is the church different than Israel?
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What God commands the covenant people, Israel, to do as He gave them commands at Mount Sinai to do this morally, ceremonially, civically, if you'd like, are just all the commands lumped together.
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Do we do what Israel does? If the church is different and the church has been commanded to say, this is what you do at a worship service and dancing isn't included, here's how we look at it theologically.
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There's two camps. One camp is the Bible regulates church worship. If it says to do it, we do it.
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The Lutheran position, this is more Presbyterian, the Lutheran position is if it's not ixnayed in Scripture, if it's not there saying, thou shall not dance in the
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New Testament church, then it's okay to do. And which one do you think we follow? We follow that the
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Bible regulates what we do. If the Bible says preach, we preach. Pray, we pray. It doesn't say dance in the
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New Testament Scripture. He's talking about Israel. Do you look back at Psalm 149, verse 2? Let Israel be glad in His maker.
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This is talking about what they do. By the way, when David danced in 2 Samuel 6, I looked up the
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Hebrew word today, and you know how it's translated in almost every one of the Bible dictionary tools we have called a lexicon?
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You know what that word is? It's to whirl. It's a whirl.
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And you can just see David coming back from his victories, or David in front of his people, and David there.
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And what kind of dancing do you think it would be? Disco? No. It's a whirl.
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And you could get so excited about something. Have you ever done the whirl? I don't mean formal, the whirl, the dance, but you just get so excited.
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I remember Don Whitney once said, and he may have said it here, if somehow the church had been praying for a new building and money for the old, and this and that, by the way, we are praying for those things on Wednesday mornings.
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And if you're praying at home, thank you. If you can have time to come and pray, we've had about 10 to 14 people.
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Every Wednesday, 6 -15, we just come and say, God, do great things in our midst. But if we were praying for some of those things, and we get a phone call, by the way, this church building and all the assets has been given to you free and clear, and you're not underneath our doctrinal statement, you do whatever you want, what do you think you might do if you were all standing, waiting to be dismissed, and I announce it to you that we've got this new, a $3 million building and money?
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What would you do? Well, if you weren't here praying on Wednesday morning, or at home praying on Wednesday morning, you might just go, wow, that's pretty great.
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But if you were praying week in and week out, and it's 90 weeks of prayer, oh God, let us get out of this debt, give us these buildings, let us do that, let us send and plant churches, and we got that,
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I'm almost so wound up now, I'm about ready to whirl. I wouldn't doubt it if I saw even Scott Farah in the back row, where those good
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Baptists sit, do a little whirl. Scott, though, is much too
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New England sophisticated, he would probably just go like this, he wouldn't do it with his body. But it means to whirl, it doesn't mean any kind of suggestive things, when the lights are down low, and somehow this dancing, where it should only be between a husband and a wife, at home kind of thing.
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Israel is not the church, and the prescriptions, the commands for Israel, do not apply to church, in terms of how we worship.
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Certainly you would believe that, the church is not under obligation to celebrate Passover, or other feasts, are they?
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Are we? Here's what's been given to the New Testament church, here's the Lord's Supper, and when Jesus took that third cup, he instituted the new covenant, because that's what we're involved with.
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The best way to look at scripture is this way, what does the Bible prescribe, to tell us what to do, and what does the
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Bible what? Describe, and prescribe and describe, should have a chasm in between the two of them,
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Grand Canyon like chasm, so we don't go around saying, they did it in the Old Testament, therefore we should do it today.
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There is prescription, and there is description, and so when I read, these kind of dances,
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I always say to myself, you know, I need to make sure I realize, is it for the church, or is it for Israel?
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I did find some dancing, that was good elsewhere in the Bible, Exodus 15, 20, Miriam the prophetess,
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Aaron's sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and with dancing, and they were praising
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God, after Exodus chapter 14, when the Red Sea parted, mountain, mountain, army, sea, walked through the sea,
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Pharaoh's armies destroyed, and when you got on the other side, what do you think you'd do? I think you'd whirl,
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I think you'd be like a top, and they'd spin you up, and you'd start whirling around, but I'll tell you what you wouldn't do, you wouldn't put, quick put up, all right, well maybe we could get a couple of helpers, over there with the cake please, and we can have some good fellowship, around that as well,
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God bless you, thanks for coming, and you got in the
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Holy of Holies, there'd be a thud whirl, and that would be the end of your whirlwind, sometimes, that he saw the calf, and the dancing, this was very wicked kind of dancing, similar to the kind of dancing,
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I found in the New Testament, Mark chapter six, and when the daughter of Herodias herself, came in and danced, she pleased
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Herod, and his dinner gifts, if you think, that dancing should be for today, and that description, and prescription are the same thing, and you want a wife, then
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I'm going to teach you right now, how to get a wife, through dancing in the Bible, Judges 21, they commanded the sons of Benjamin saying, go and lie in wait in the vineyards, and watch and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out, to take part in the dances, then you shall come out of the vineyards, and each of you shall catch his wife, from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin, it's in the
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Bible, so you wait there in the vineyards, and when you see those ladies out there dancing, you quick run up to the ladies, and you grab them, and you high tail it off to,
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Ben Loman, I don't know, something that sounds like Benjamin, but kind of in the United States, it shall come about, when their fathers or their brothers, come to complain to us, we shall say to them, give them to us voluntarily, because we did not take each man, a wife of Benjamin in battle, nor do we give them to them, else you would now be guilty, the sons of Benjamin did so, and took wives according to their number, from those who danced, whom they carried away, and they went and returned to their inheritance, and rebuilt the cities, and lived in them, see the difference, prescription, do it, description, they did it, and now we have to think, was it right, or was it wrong, how to get a wife in the
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Bible, go watch them dance, see, it just doesn't make sense, what do you think this, says, and means to us,
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Ecclesiastes 3 ,4, there's a time to weep, and a time to laugh, and there's a time to mourn, and there's a time to what, dance, to me, turn to Matthew 11, and then we'll be done with dancing, this is one of the most amazing discussions of dancing in the
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Bible, tonight we've been looking at danceology, and what does the Bible teach about dancing, and by the way, after I finish
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Ruth, I'm going to do a couple part series on gluttony, because I've never heard personally, a sermon delivered on gluttony, and I think
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I'm going to do one or two parts on gluttony, because there's all these whacked out diets for Christians, slim for him, less of me, and more of him, and all these things,
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I'm just thinking, what is that, and you can be overweight, and not be a glutton, or you can be skinny, and be a glutton, so it's not a matter of what we look like on the outside, there's all kinds of other issues, but gluttony is a seven deadly sin, according to the old generation, and we never preach it, so we want to see what the
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Bible teaches about eating too, but this is one of the most amazing dances in all the Bible, Matthew chapter 11, and I love the way
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God does this, he has different styles, and approaches to different people, and even as he preaches, he's got different styles for the people, and this particular style is contrasting
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Jesus himself, and John the Baptist, did they have similar evangelistic styles by the way, did they both preach repentance, so they talked about the same issues, and the kingdom of God is at hand, and righteousness, and judgment, but they had different styles, what were the different styles, and I think we see this as it talks about dancing, not that either of them danced, but Matthew 11, 15, one of the sayings, it's obviously one of Jesus' sayings, and he's not talking about just the audible ears, if you have ears to hear, you let them hear, verse 16, to what shall
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I compare this generation, and down in verse 21, he's going to give woes to some of these places, it's like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call out to other children, and say we played the flute for you, and you did not dance, we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn, what did kids do back in those days, what do kids do these days, you get a bunch of kids together, and what do they do, the little ones, they play, today
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I was sitting on the couch, and there's a big chalkboard in there, Gracie came running through, and she said daddy, we're playing teacher, she and Matty were playing teacher, chalkboards and stuff, you just play these games,
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I used to play that I was Batman, and all my buddies had to be Robin, there's a pecking order to this,
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I'm Batman, sometimes I was Tarzan, because I liked Tarzan a lot, my buddies were
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Cheetah, we played games, back in those days, guess what one of the games that they played was, wedding, they could also play funeral, because weddings and funerals, stuck out in the minds of those children, they knew it was a big deal for a wedding, and it was a big deal for a funeral, and all of a sudden, what happened, we played the flute for you, we didn't dance, we sang a dirge, you didn't mourn, playing all these kind of games, as for John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, unbelievers watch this and say,
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John's style is more of mourning, and he's austere, he's out in the wilderness, he's eating, what?
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He's wearing, and he's not one of these guys that you think, wow, look at the way
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John does it, here's John the Baptist style, repent you brood of vipers, who has warned you from the wrath to come, is that how
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Jesus always talked with people, for the ones that realized they weren't self -righteous, he didn't talk to them like that, here's
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God in his goodness, he's got the austere, Spartan like ministry of John the
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Baptist, and then he's got another style, for those that won't hear that kind of style, and it's Christ style, verse 19, son of man came eating and drinking, they say behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, yet wisdom is vindicated by our deeds, then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles were done, because they did not repent, when it comes to God style, there's the austere,
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Spartan like ministry of John the Baptist, denouncing sin forthrightly, and there's another style where Jesus says,
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I know you're a prostitute, I know you're a sinner, I know you're a tax gatherer, I know you're all these things, the worst kind of people, and I'll just sit and eat with you, and eating with somebody back in those days, was a pretty big deal, it wasn't just come over, and we'll have food together, it was almost like accepting them, and certainly
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Jesus didn't accept their sin, but he knew that they needed to be redeemed, and he knew, they knew, they didn't have any righteousness, should we do one more, this is kind of a cool one, let's just do one more, it's
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Sunday night, if you want to go, you can go, Bob, mark it down, who leaves, all right, how about this one, it's appointed for man once to die, and then the judgment, so someone asked you, once to die, and then judgment,
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Lazarus died twice, so how can that verse be true, Lazarus died twice,
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Enoch didn't die at all, Elijah didn't die either, maybe he died in the world, went on the way up, but I don't think he died, it's appointed for man once to die, and then the judgment, the
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Bible must not be true, because you're supposed to die once, what would you say, okay,
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God can make exceptions, yeah, the other day we were talking, and Jesus said, I'm the Lord of the
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Sabbath, and we were doing the study of Luke, with the children, and I said to Luke and the kids,
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God makes up the rules, Jesus is saying, and Jesus doesn't have to be under the rules, that he's made, he's the
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Lord of the Sabbath, he's not under the Sabbath, I could tell, Luke looked at me with those eyes, like, Jesus is cool, he makes the rules, well, let me take you to one passage, and let me show you more people dying,
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Matthew chapter 27, this is one of those wild verses, and it'll keep you awake, before we stop, there's some extra cake, and so we're going to have a little cake, right after this, as well,
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Matthew 27 .50, and this is going to show us, how God gave some extra witnesses, to the fact that Jesus Christ, was raised from the dead, and all these people had to die twice too, the overall rule, with 99 .9999999
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% of all the people, who were ever born, is that they will die, if you believe in pre -tribulational rapture, like I do, the people who are raptured, won't have to die either, but the percentages are going to be so small, what happens, is most of the people die, it's appointed for men once to die, that's just the general truth, and then judgment, there are biblical exceptions,
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I don't want you to make an exception, but can God make an exception, in the revelation that he has penned, absolutely, but look at what happens here,
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Matthew 27 .50, and Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yield up his spirit, in one sense
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Jesus was killed, in another sense he wasn't killed, right, and behold the veil of the temple, was torn in two, from the top to the bottom, any significance to that,
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God did it, here's this 70 foot curtain, that's thick, and all of a sudden, it's torn from the top to the bottom, not the bottom to the top, it's not like some guys got together, who were good at ripping yellow pages, my father could always rip yellow pages in half, because he was so strong, and he knew the trick, here's this thick curtain, that somebody could rip at the bottom, and have it all planned, from the top to the bottom, no person could do it, it was an act of God, and the earth shook,
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I wonder why the earth shook, and I wonder what happened when the earth shook, what do you think happens in a graveyard, when the earth shakes, what do you think happens to crypts and tombs, when the earth is shaking all around, they crack open, what's in there to come out
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I wonder, well you say the odor, well that could be true, the earth shook, and the rocks were split, and the tombs were open, and many bodies of the saints, who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs, after his resurrection, they entered the holy city, and appeared to many, how about that, and it's not like this either, why did
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God do it, here's the power of the resurrection, you can't keep Jesus dead, and Jesus is alive, and it's as if he's the first fruits of the resurrection, and the first seismic wave, that kind of comes out, affects all these other people, and God says, by the mouth of two or three witnesses,
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I confirm my truth, and I'm also going to be sending out people, who have been raised from the dead, can you imagine these poor people, up in heaven worshipping
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God, they don't have their new bodies yet, but they're worshipping God, and God says, I've got an assignment for you, and those people say,
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I have free will God, no, no, I'm sending you back down there, we tie that together, in preaching that's called an inclusio, what happens here, can you imagine, back down they go, broke open at Christ's death, listen to Bible knowledge commentary, it says, thus
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Matthew obviously believed, that this was a real resurrection, and for him the appearances, of these people to others, simply provide witnesses, to the fact that the bodies were raised, the crucial thing for him, is the resurrection of holy people itself, it is as if the death of Jesus, lets loose a wave of resurrection power, that begins to ripple out, starting at Jerusalem, final obvious question is, what happened to these holy people, after they appeared to many, the answer is, we do not know, there's a couple of good verses for that, one in particular, and it's what, there you go, all right, since this appears to be the first fruits, the hard sayings of the
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Bible says, of the eventual general resurrection, of the righteous, it is unlikely that Matthew, thought for a minute, that they later returned to their tombs, so here's this group of people, we're not told what they do afterwards, but it seems strange, that they would be raised from the dead, and tell other people, and then all of a sudden, just climb back into their tombs, and die, that's one of my favorite passages, in all the
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Bible, I sing the mighty power of God, and when there's something happening, like the resurrection, it affects other people, and God, even though these people died once, and they'll die twice, it's still appointed for man, once to die, and then the judgment, all right, that's enough tonight,
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I was going to get to the next question is, is there any biblical support, for or against a woman president, stay tuned, all right, well let's just pray, we went a little long tonight, we won't sing, and then we'll just have some fellowship, over there with the cake, that sound good, all right, let's pray,
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Lord, we do want to say, that you're a great God, and that you're omnipotent, I think about this morning, someone would have the audacity, to say you don't show yourself, as all powerful in the
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Old Testament, when you even have names, some of those names, show how powerful you are, and what a great
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God you are, and yet you can create things, with the word of your power, and so Lord, we would ask, that you would give that man repentance, and thinking differently about that, and then
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Lord, you would help us too, to not be prideful, because somehow we know, but we'd ask Lord, that you'd give us situations this week, where we could live out what we know, and that we could show other people, who you are by the way we act, and then we would love to tell them, the story about Jesus, and his love at Calvary for them, we ask that you protect our church, keep it unified, that you'd keep us focused, on the good news of Jesus Christ, and him crucified, for it's in his name we pray,