Loving Homosexuals (part 1) - [1 Corinthians 6:9-11]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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It reminds me of when I got saved. The response in the heart of a man or a woman when God saves you, the response is what?

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I surrender all. If you can make something out of this mess, Lord, you have everything.

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I surrender everything. It actually reminds me of Mark chapter 8. The response to the gospel is, deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow

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Christ Jesus. I surrender all. Well, when God saved me in 1989 and then called me to be a preacher, probably in 93 or 94,

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I said, Lord, I'll preach everything in the Bible. And if I live long enough, I want to teach you every single verse.

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Whether those verses are encouraging, uplifting, warming, controversial, politically incorrect, or will send me to jail,

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Lord, I will preach through the entire Bible by your Spirit's grace. And so let's continue our series in 1

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Corinthians chapter 6. Please open your Bibles today. And we want to examine a topic that is in the news.

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You've got people from Westboro Baptist Church on one extreme. You've got other people who say homosexuality is righteous on another.

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And my question this morning is, what does God say about the sin, the forgivable sin of homosexuality?

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What does He want us to think about this particular sin? Is it a unique sin? Is it a forgivable sin?

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How do we deal with people who are enslaved to the sin of homosexuality? How should we love them?

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How can we love them? What does God say? So that's my purpose this morning, jumping off from 1

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Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 and 11, thinking biblically with proper discernment about the topic of homosexuality.

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I want you to be Bereans. I want you to study the Bible to make sure you know what it says.

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And we, when we were fallen, could see God's handiwork in creation.

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And we could know that He was wise and powerful and that He was a great creator. But we couldn't know specific things because we were fallen creatures.

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And so then God gave us specific revelation, revelation found in Genesis through Revelation.

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So that we could think God's thoughts after Him. That's the real issue. If you're a Christian today,

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I want you to think about this topic the way God thinks about it, right? That's what we're called to do.

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No less or no more. God has clearly spoken. How should we think about the topic? And remember in 1

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Corinthians chapter 6, there was a lawsuit going on. And Paul said, don't sue another Christian.

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It's better to suffer now and inherit later, right? It's better to suffer now, in time, in space, while you're on the earth, in your body.

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And then for all eternity, there's a great inheritance of righteousness for those who follow that paradigm.

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He says, I don't want to be the other way around. Inherit now, get now, and then what?

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Suffer later. And so Paul says, suffer now, inherit later. And he gives this warning found in verses 9 through 11 of 1

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Corinthians 6. And he says something that everyone at Corinth should know because Paul had been there for a year and a half.

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And he says in verse 9, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Do not be deceived. And then he gives a list of many common sins that were going on at Corinth.

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Common sins today as well. There are other sins, all sins damning. But these are particular damning here in context because they were being exercised, they were being done.

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Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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And he gives just great news after that, verse 11. And such were some of you.

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You're not that way anymore. Why? But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Here's the outline for this morning.

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Thinking biblically about homosexuality with a series of questions and then a series of answers from the

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Bible. Questions and answers to get you to think properly, to calibrate our minds or maybe recalibrate our minds about this important topic that's certainly not going away anytime soon.

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So let's do questions and answers about the topic of this forgivable sin, homosexuality.

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Number one. Why would we focus on this sin when there are nine others in the list?

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Why are we as a church, why am I as a pastor taking time today and maybe next week to talk about this issue when there's all kinds of other sins on the list?

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Why isolate this one? After all, we could isolate drunkenness, or sexually immoral, fornicators, adulterers, idolaters.

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Why spend time on this? Answer, because the culture is trying to normalize this sin.

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The culture now is attacking this particular sin, calling what God calls unrighteous, they're trying to call righteous.

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They're not just trying to say we need to be in a permissive state, we permit it. The culture is now trying to say to us, aren't they, we aren't just to permit it, we are to celebrate it.

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And so when this is attacked, then pastors stand up and talk about the part of the fort that's being attacked.

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If the fort is being attacked about idolatry in the world, and they're trying to say, you know what, you can be a gay

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Christian, we stand up for that. If you can be a gay, excuse me, a drunk

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Christian, well then we'll stand up and address those things. Listen to what John Calvin said. A dog barks when his master is attacked.

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I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked, and yet would be silent.

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So where the battering ram is trying to knock down the gate of the fort, that's where we stand up as Christians and as a pastor as well.

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It's not that I'm trying to isolate this and say it's so much worse, I'm saying to you that the culture is trying to make you celebrate what

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God says is unrighteous. Do we want to celebrate any sin? Is any sin laudable, praiseworthy?

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Wow, that's just wonderful. No, because it denigrates the spirit of God. No one is trying to legislatively justify reviling drunkenness or adultery, but they are in fact trying to do that with homosexuality.

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Within the Christian community you will have people like Philip Yancey going to conferences called

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Gay Christian Conferences and then not saying, by the way, you can be free from this sin.

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Like adulterers can be free and revilers can be free, but no affirming that there is such thing as a person who practices homosexuality and that they are going to receive the inheritance of God.

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Contrary to 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9 and following. If you haven't seen the push from the community inside the church and outside, you're going to see it soon, and so we have to stand up and ask ourselves the question, let's think biblically about this topic.

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Roy Clements was a pastor for a long time in England, still calls himself a pastor, expositor, verse by verse, kind of like one of your favorite radio preachers on the radio, very, very well known.

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Chuck Swindoll and John MacArthur, known that well in England, and now he's left his wife and he now has a male lover, and he's writing

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Why Evangelicals Should Rethink Homosexuality. Because, he says,

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Christian hostility towards homophile relationships rests on an interpretation of the

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Bible which is in many respects open to question. Roy said, because there is a diversity of opinion among Christians about the issue which will cause division within the churches unless an attitude of greater tolerance and mutual respect prevails.

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He also said, because current pastoral practice is damaging homosexual Christians and so alienating the gay community, generally that evangelism is impossible.

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And so what Roy is saying is, if you talk about this as sin, it splits the church.

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As a matter of fact, truth does split, doesn't it? It separates truth from error. He says, you know what, if you keep saying

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Christianity declares that the Bible teaches homosexuality is sin, the gay community is not going to like it and you won't be able to evangelize as well.

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All sin, including homosexuality, is unrighteous, ungodly, perverse, and not pleasing to God.

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Society is attacking this and we need to know how to think through it. Number two, are

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Bible teachers and Christians homophobic? Are Bible teachers and Christians homophobic?

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Well, maybe some are. I think you have to define homophobic, don't you?

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The Kinsey Institute defined homophobia as the fear, dislike, or hatred of homosexuals.

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Are you afraid of homosexuals? Do you hate them or do you dislike them? Well, I guess if that's true, then you're homophobic.

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But we as Christians, especially those who have been redeemed by Christ, ought we not to love people who are sinful?

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What did Jesus do? What did the Pharisees say Jesus did? I'll read you the passage. Now all the tax gatherers and the sinners were coming near Jesus to listen to him.

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And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble saying, This man, Jesus, they can't even say his name.

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We won't even lift him up to the elevation of saying his name. This man receives sinners and eats with them.

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I don't hate homosexuals. I have friends who are homosexuals. This is going to somehow come across as a boast or something.

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I don't mean this at all. This is the grace of God working in my life. I've had a homosexual man ask me to do his partner's funeral.

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And he knew I was an evangelical. And I knew they lived together for 30 years. I don't hate homosexuals.

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Are they image bearers? Do they have a soul? Does Jesus kindly address sinful people and surround them?

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Of course. But that's easy to just throw out. You're homophobic. Homophobia is an irrational fear of someone.

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We're not afraid of homosexuals. We don't hate them. We love them. And by the way, shouldn't we love them enough to say,

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What you're doing is a sin against God. And here's how Christ Jesus, the great Savior's blood, is sufficient to atone for sins like homosexuality.

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Shouldn't we say that? You want hate speech? Here's hate speech. Say nothing to a homosexual about his sin.

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Or say God loves you just the way you are, and you're fine. Or say you call yourself a

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Christian, and you're living with somebody of the same sex, and everything's good. That's hate speech.

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We can live next to homosexuals. But we as Christians cannot endorse sinful behavior, heterosexual or homosexual.

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Number three. Why do people insist that homosexuals are born this way?

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Why do people insist that homosexuals are born this way? Answer? It alleviates guilt.

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Or at least it tries to. Let's turn our Bibles to James chapter 1, please, and discuss this.

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And by the way, if you're not a homosexual today, and you're just a person that struggles with sin, and you're like everyone else trying to blame, this is going to be good for you.

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This is not just for people who struggle with the sin. This is not just for people who know about this. This is for all of us today.

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And God's Word does such a great job through His Spirit's work that we can look at a problem like this, but it can still minister to our own hearts.

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More and more and more you'll see studies that will come out to try to prove the gay gene. For instance, 1991,

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Simon LeVay of the Salk Institute did autopsies of homosexual men and women and tried to say that the small part of the anterior hypothalamus was different in gay men versus heterosexual men.

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1992, Laura Allen and Richard Gorski of University of California did studies on the corpus callosum in the brain saying that it was larger in gay men than in straight men.

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1991, Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, same kind of thing. 1995,

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Dean Hammer of the National Cancer Institute of Maryland studied the rate of homosexuality in relatives and twins.

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You're going to see a lot of this data come to try to justify homosexuality. What does the

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Bible say? Before I read

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James 1, let's just put it this way. I don't think there's a gay gene. But everybody we're going to see in James is born with a propensity to sin.

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And you're either a born homosexual or a born fornicator or adulterer.

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But you are born bent with propensities because of Adam's fall. Yes? But you can't use that as an excuse to stand before God and then say, see,

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I was born this way and therefore I have illicit, lustful thoughts about a woman.

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That's just who I am. Ecclesiastes makes it very clear. We are born, God created us rather, created

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Adam upright. God didn't make Adam broken. He created him upright. And then Adam fell.

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We and Adam fell. And now we're born with propensities. But we can't blame these propensities on God.

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God, you made us that way. Hey, I'm only human. So if people say, I'm born a homosexual and here's the data to prove it, well,

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I don't believe it, but even if I concede that, then I'm a born fornicator and still I'm not going to call my fornication righteousness before God.

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So look at James 1. This is good for all of us to make sure we think properly about sin.

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Maybe you're a heterosexual, but you like to blame your sin on diseases, syndromes, and disorders. This is good medicine for all of us because Proverbs 28 is true.

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After you confess sin is sin, God gives you mercy. Don't you want the mercy of God? If you don't want the mercy of God, then just blame your sin on everybody else.

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Blame it on your mother. Blame it on your father. Blame it because you got spanked. Blame it on your spouse. Blame it on your heritage.

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Blame it on your Italian temper. Whatever people do. People do that. I've got the Italian temper.

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Blame it on Twinkies. Twinkie defense for those of you old enough to know that. James 1.

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This is a book. Talk to us about saving faith. Do you have saving faith?

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It talks about this great inheritance in verse 12 and then he says in verse 14, But each person is tempted when he is lured or enticed and enticed by his own desire.

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You make yourself sin. Nobody else makes you sin. You make yourself sin.

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James is saying this is an individual matter. Each and every time you're tempted and you sin, it's because of your own sinful lust.

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What I struggle with, my own, might be different than what you struggle with, your own. Heterosexual, homosexual, but it's our own lust.

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It comes from the inside. You say, well, I like to sleep, but when

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I sleep too much, it's laziness. I like to eat. I eat too much. It's gluttony. I like to have,

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I have a desire for marital relations in a marriage. It goes outside of that. What's good turns into something bad because of our own hearts.

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Listen to Mark 7. Don't turn there, but listen to what Jesus said. Then you are also without understanding.

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Do you not see whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him? Sin enters not his heart, but his stomach, and is expelled.

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Thus he declared all foods clean. What comes out of a person is what defiles him. From within, out of the heart of man, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

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All these evil things come from where? Within, and they defile a person.

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Now James could have said, Satan's tempting you, but he says you made you do it. The responsibility is personal.

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And by the way, doesn't society hate that today? I'm going to take ownership for my own sin. I'll take my own responsibility.

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I made me do it. By the way, if you ever get pulled over by a policeman, why don't you do what

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I do? If I'm not paying attention, I'm driving too fast, and I get pulled over, I just do what society never does.

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Here's what I do. Hands at 10 and 2 positions, so they don't think I'm trying to find my Uzi or anything in the car.

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By the way, when you're in Israel, and you cross into the Palestinian -controlled West Bank, and an officer, an

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Israeli soldier who's about 18 and a half, and a young lady walks onto the bus with an

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Uzi, checking everything out. You get religion really fast.

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I have no idea. What am I talking about? What was the sentence I said just before that? 10 and 2. 10 and 2, that's right.

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I just wanted to see if you're paying attention, Dan. Sir, did you know you're speeding?

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Yes, officer. I have no excuse. I was speeding, and I could give you a lot of excuses, a busy day, but I was speeding.

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I'm guilty. They look at you like, what are you doing? Why are you saying guilty?

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They usually run my plate and say, have a good day. The compassion in Proverbs 28, 13 comes, the mercy comes after you confess sin and say,

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I agree with you. God, I agree with you that I make myself sin. It doesn't mean the circumstances don't lend themselves more easily.

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It doesn't mean that since I've been sleeping not as much, or I have a headache, or this or that, that I'm not more susceptible.

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It doesn't mean that Satan doesn't tempt. But at the end of the day, I made myself sin.

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Listen to Proverbs 19, 3. A man's own folly ruins his life. A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the

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Lord. And look at James, the master illustrator. He's got a half -brother named

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Jesus who is a wonderful illustrator, too. I think he learned it from his brother. Look at verse 14 again.

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Dragged away and enticed. ESV says lured and enticed, but lured is really enticement.

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It's dragged away and enticed. Lust forcefully dragging someone away.

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Carried away. The lion carrying the prey away. And then enticed.

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Enticed comes from the word where we get the fishing word, bait. What does the fish see?

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The fish sees a big, ugly, barbed hook. The fish sees something good, succulent, sweet.

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It entices him. Listen to what Hebert said. This word depicts the juicy worm being dangled in front of the fish.

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His inner craving to appropriate it for himself prompts him to bite. But he is deceived and caught.

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Instead of enjoying the anticipated pleasure, he is caught on the hook concealed within. When a person is confronted with a luring temptation, he sees only the attractiveness of the desired object.

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Only when his will has sanctioned the performance of the sinful act do the tragic consequences come into operation.

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Sin entices. Sin lures. But James says you have to take ownership.

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And look at how he changes the metaphor now to a woman who is impregnated with child. Verse 15.

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Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

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What a contrast from verse 12 with the crown of life. Now this brings forth death.

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The craving. The action. Death. Separation.

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We know the verse. The wages of sin is what? Death. We don't want to excuse sin.

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I also don't want my friends who are homosexual to excuse sin either. Because if you excuse sin, who needs a savior?

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You need medicine. You need therapy. You need applause. You need confirmation. No. We recognize our sin because there is a great savior who sins.

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Why in Titus? Why in 1 Timothy? Why in 2 Timothy? Is God called God our savior all the time?

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Because pastors need to know. Churches need to know that there is a God who saves. He could just be a creator.

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He could just be the judge. But He is a God who creates, judges, and then judges His Son in our place.

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This goes way back, blaming sin. Can you imagine Adam? God, the woman you gave me.

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I went to bed single and I woke up married. Basically, that's what happened. And then she made me sin.

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You made me sin by giving me her. Whatever the excuse, homosexuals, along with every other sinner, sins willfully against the

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God that they will answer to. Number four. Is it easy to be tricked or deceived when thinking about this topic?

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The answer is yes. You've got the constant media barrage.

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You've got your own heart. You probably know people who are homosexual. You work with them. You go to school with them.

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They seem kind and nice. And certainly, they're image bearers. And they can be kind and nice. Family members.

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People on TV. And look at what verse 16 says. This is an echo of 1

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Corinthians chapter 6, isn't it? Don't be what? Deceived. If you weren't going to be deceived,

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He wouldn't say it. But this is a thing that you could easily be deceived on. Don't be deceived.

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There's kind of a sharpness. And then He gives some tenderness, too. My dear brothers. You can't blame

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God. You can't blame Satan. Man is responsible. Don't make any mistake,

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James is saying, about the origin of sin and evil. Proverbs 5.

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For a man's ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all His paths. The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare

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Him. The cords of his sin hold him fast. The French have a little proverb, and here's the proverb.

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Sin makes ugly. Sin makes ugly. And if I could add to that proverb, it would be, sin deceives the naive.

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Sin deceives. I'd rather be with David, who after committing adultery, a forgivable sin, says, then

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I acknowledge my sin to you. I didn't hide. I didn't run. I didn't blame. I didn't say, God, by your providence, you could have had

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Bathsheba laying inside, being inside, clothed, and I walked outside, and you put her right there before my view.

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You could have got me redirected someplace else. But in your providence, I went outside. There she was. Then I sinned.

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No, David says in Psalm 32, a wonderful psalm. And if you've sinned, this is good medicine for you.

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Then I acknowledge my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgression to the

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Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. And then he says with five little letters,

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S -E -L -A -H. What's that mean? S -E -L -A -H. Selah. It means just stop and let that sink in.

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How good it is of God. Could have killed David. Should have killed

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David. But God is merciful and gracious. David confessed his sin, and God forgave

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David. 1 Corinthians says the same thing. Do not be deceived.

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It's possible to go astray. You've got the church. You've got the media. You've got all kinds of people saying it's normal.

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It's regular. It's natural. Born that way. You can be a Christian. No, don't be deceived.

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Next question. Question number five. What if the government says calling homosexuality is a hate crime?

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Then what do we do? What if the government says I can't preach this sermon? Then what do we do?

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Sadly, I think your generation will see pastors in America jailed for these kinds of sermons.

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It's coming to you. It's coming to us. First, they'll take away our tax exemption.

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Then they'll fine us, and then they'll put us in jail. Canada already.

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Criminal Code of Canada, 1990. Two to 14 years. Any section of the public distinguished by color, race, religion, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation.

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It's a crime. Denmark. Making statements that threaten, ridicule, or hold in contempt a group due to race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, faith, or sexual orientation.

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France. Origin, ethnicity, or lack thereof, nationality, race, specific religion, sex, sexual orientation, or handicap.

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Iceland, Article 233. Same thing. Ridiculing, slanderous, insulting, threatening, or any other manner publicly assaults a person or a group of people on the basis of their nationality, skin color, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

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I won't read the rest, but I could read you Ireland's, the Netherlands', Norway's, Sweden's.

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And not too long ago, President Obama signs into legislation, along with the $680 billion for the spending bill, the

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Hate Crimes Law, against the law to assault someone based on their sexual orientation.

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And guess what's coming next? Not physical assault, but verbal language against a group is going to require jail time.

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If I was flippant about it, I'd probably have to ask you, will you visit me in jail? But then, next in line,

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Pastor Steve or Pastor Dave, and then Pradeep, and then the next, will just keep preaching the same message.

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Let's turn to Acts, Chapter 5, so we can think through this a little bit. And again, we aren't going to run around like the idiotic, asinine, sinful people at Westboro Baptist Church who pickets the funerals of people.

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That is shameful, repugnant, and I can't stand it. We want to be kind to people.

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And kindness doesn't just say, you're okay, I accept you, we're good to go.

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You should say, I love you, serve you, we're friends, we're neighbors, we're comrades.

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But real love will tell them the truth about how God died for sinners just like them.

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Acts, Chapter 5, gives us a great little picture into what happens when the government tells us to do something that God's word says we ought not to do, or vice versa.

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If they say pay taxes, Romans 13, do we pay taxes? They say, if you keep talking about homosexuality as a sin, you have to pay extra taxes, we pay the taxes.

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But once they say you've got to do something that is against God's word, then we fall on the floor and make it hard for them to arrest us.

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Operation Rescue. No. We say, I'll go. Acts 5, 17.

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Ananias and Sapphira have just gotten killed. Lots of healings, lots of things going on here. And then 17, we pick it up, but the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, that is the party of the

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Sadducees, and filled with jealousy, they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.

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No more headlines of these apostles healing people and casting out demons and everything else.

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We've got ourselves a problem, and the problem is these Jesus followers. The apostles have gone far enough, and we've got to stop it.

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We're tired of these disturbances. Let's throw them in the jail with murderers, thieves, and rapists, and everybody else.

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Now this is great here. This may be the best. But during the night, an angel of the

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Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said. Now by the way, remember a little bit of Bible knowledge.

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What does the Bible say in Acts chapter 23 about the Sadducees who don't believe in supernatural things, nor do they believe in angels?

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Sadducees, you're out there preaching, throw them in jail, and what they don't believe in lets the apostles out of jail.

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How about that? An angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said.

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This is a couple miracles here. First letting them out and then blinding the eyes of the prisoners so they wouldn't see what was going on.

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Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. I want you to go right back to the heart of everything.

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Go to the steps of the White House and begin your message again. The words of life, salvation, forgiveness, atonement, redemption, forgiveness of sins.

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God adding human flesh and dying in the place of sinners, being raised from the dead. Eternal God.

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Go preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The resurrected Messiah. Words of life.

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Not words of death and words of anger, but words of eternal life. Here God supernaturally intervenes.

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And when they heard this verse 21, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.

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This is almost funny. It's almost got some kind of humor in here. Now when the high priest came, those who were with him, they called together the council and all the senate of the people of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought.

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Get the Sanhedrin here. But interestingly, they're not around.

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Let's have a quick hasty trial and get this over with. Verse 22, but when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison.

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And so they returned and reported. We found the prison securely locked. The guards standing at the doors.

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But when we opened them, we found no one inside. Egg on the face, embarrassment.

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Verse 25, it gets better. And someone came and told them, Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and what?

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Doing exactly the opposite of what you told them to do. They're teaching the people. Don't you love what the

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Spirit of God does in the heart of a human man? Human men, human women. Here we have the apostles.

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Peter is shrinking from denying Jesus in front of a girl. I don't even know the man.

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And then all of a sudden, Pentecost comes. The Spirit of God indwells. And then now Peter, bold, confident.

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This is not some minor thing. This is death is at stake. And so what happens?

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Verse 27, look at the accusation. Acts 5, 27. And when they brought them, they set them before the council.

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And the high priest questioned them. I'll be in a semi -circle. The apostles in the middle.

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Now watch what happens. This guy can't even say the name of Jesus. Contemptuously, he says,

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We strictly charge you not to teach in this name. Yet here you have filled

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Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us. And here we come to our passage.

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Verse 29, our text. But Peter and the apostles answered, We must obey God rather than men.

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The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

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How about that? We are going to do whatever God says. And even back in Exodus, when the midwives were supposed to take the baby boys out of the womb as they would come out, what were they to do?

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They were to kill those boys. And then Shephra and Puah said, You know what? We're not going to do it. We're going to obey God rather than men.

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Even if it costs us our life. And he starts just talking about the one in whom the other man wouldn't name, the high priest wouldn't name.

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Here, verse 31, God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

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It's almost Pentecost kind of sermon. It's gifts of God. Repentance is a gift of God. Forgiveness is a gift of God.

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Salvation is from God. Later, John Knox, in the 16th century, the

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Scottish reformer said, With God, man is always in the majority. I like that.

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Verse 33. What's the response in Acts 5? When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a

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Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, the man who trained Paul, teacher of the law, held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

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We're going to have our little powwow here. And he said, The men of Israel, take care of what you're about to do with these men. For before these days,

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Thutis rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about 400, joined him.

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He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. Hey, if this is really nothing, it's going to die out.

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It's going to die a quick death. For before these days, he said, this happened, and now we don't hear from this guy at all.

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And he gives another illustration, verse 37. After him, Judas the Galilean, this is a different Judas, rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him.

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He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case,

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I tell you, keep away from these men. Let them alone. For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail.

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But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God. So they took his advice.

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It just gets better. By the way, I was telling the discipleship group this morning, talk about the drama of redemption in this book.

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Talk about the unfolding of the nature of God, how he deals with people, how he saves them.

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The drama found in this book. If you don't read your Bibles, you're missing it. And then to think right about now, some churches would say, now bring down the screen and let me give you a little video clip of Braveheart to really make that point hit home.

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Who needs Braveheart when you have the Spirit of God and the Word of God in your hot little hands?

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Our electronic version. Dave Copper. The iPads, I see them all around. Don't alt -tab to check your messages.

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Ushers are watching you. By the way, in the old days of Puritan days in New England, they would have ushers walking and if you ever slept, they had this kind of long stick that could go right down the aisle and just give you a little whack.

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If you're sleeping during this sermon, I don't know how to keep you awake. A, the topic, and B, here, Acts 5.

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Spirit of God. It's not the acts of the apostles. This is the acts of the Spirit of God working. And when they call in the apostles, what do they do?

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They beat them and charge them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. Triple strip of calves hide.

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Two blows on the back, one on the chest. Why 39 lashes short of 40? Because three goes into 39 and not 40.

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Lie down and flog the guy. Judge, put him down there, flog the guy in his presence.

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Listen to what one man said about the flogging. Floggings were administered with a whip made of calfskin on the bare upper body of the offender.

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One third of the lashes being given on the breast and the other two thirds on the back. The offender stood in a bowed position with the one administering the beating of a stone above him and the blows were accompanied by the recital of admonitions and consolatory verses from Scripture.

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For those parents who want to discipline their kids that way, this is not a good thing. This is not a proscription, this is a description.

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Verse 41, then they left the presence of the council sad, downcast.

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They just got a beating. It's like when your father said I'm going to give you a beating you're never going to forget.

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This is the beating. And what did they do? This is conjuring up 1 Peter chapter 4 about suffering for the name of Jesus.

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This is conjuring up Matthew chapter 5 about rejoice when you suffer for the name of Jesus. And that's exactly what they did.

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They left the presence of the council rejoicing. The day they put me in jail for speaking about this forgivable sin is the day you pray for me that I respond this exact way.

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Well, how did they respond? They were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

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Verse 42, and every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching

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Jesus as the Christ. We have a mission and that mission is to teach the full counsel of God and to exalt

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Christ's great saving work for all unrighteous sins. Yes? Every week doesn't have to be against homosexuality.

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It rarely is. But when the text has it, we preach it. We'll follow

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Isaac Watt's words by the grace of God. Am I a soldier of the cross and a follower of the

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Lamb and shall I fear to own His cause or blush to speak His name?

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Then the final question, we have to go quickly, but I want to make sure I say this in this particular message and we'll get to the rest next week.

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Can homosexuals ever change? Can they be forgiven? Back to 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

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I've already alluded to it last week and this week but I want to just make sure you know. This is not the unforgivable sin and for people who are enslaved to sin, they can be changed.

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That's what we want. We want the heavens to rejoice, the angels to proclaim the greatness of Jesus as He saves another sinner.

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1 Corinthians 6, verse 11. I read it again. And such were some of you. When you become a

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Christian and have the Spirit of God living in you, you don't act the way you used to. You're different. It doesn't mean you don't struggle, but look at what

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God does to all sinners whom He saves. Washed. Cleansed.

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Complete forgiveness because of Christ's perfect atonement. Thorough. Scrubbing.

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Can you imagine? I've talked to the kids before and you go to the sink in the garage and you've got some bike grease or something on your hands and you ever have that special soap that's got kind of grain in it?

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Kind of like sand. What's it called? Lava soap. And you just rub and you rub and you think, how am

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I going to get this all off of me? Sometimes I remember my father would put some kind of kerosene on his hands or some kind of turpentine or something and you've got to rub that thing off and to just get it.

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Matter of fact, I've got some bike grease on my hand right now. I could use that. But you know what?

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Your conscience. How do you scrub your conscience with lava soap? How do you get on the inside?

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Years later, you look back at your life and your sin and you think, that's haunting. The skeletons are killing me.

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But then you say, no, I'm looking in the wrong direction. I'm looking to the Lord who has forgiven me of these sins.

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Complete, full remission of sins. And I have to take Him at His word that He died for those sins and will never bring them up in the

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Trinity, never to the Father, never to the Spirit. I'm washed. I'm clean on the inside.

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People who are slaves to sin, mark this. They might come across on the outside boisterously, confidently, speaking for these kind of advocate groups, but on the inside, they know there's a

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God and their consciences are killing them. Some may be so seared they don't experience it anymore like they used to, but the conscience given by God will haunt and haunt and haunt.

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And we get to offer them someone who cleanses and washes. If you think homosexuality is a dirty, filthy sin, you're right.

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Just like every sin you commit is dirty and filthy because it's against the thrice -holy

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God. We're probably worse than homosexuals, especially if we know saving grace and then look down our noses at people who are enslaved to sin like they're horrible, like they're nasty, like they're the enemy.

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If you think that, then you're worse than a homosexual. But if you think, but for the grace of God, there go

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I. But for the grace of God, there went I. You could fill in all the blanks of your own sin and you just think, if God had mercy upon me, the sign of a

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Christian is you want God to have mercy on other people, don't you? Do you want one person to go to hell?

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Friends, if you saw how bad hell was, you wouldn't wish Hitler and Judas to be in there right now.

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Sanctified. Justified. Standing before God as righteous because of Christ's perfect work.

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Pardoned. Forgiven. Well, we'll look at some more questions next week.

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Why don't we pray? Father, we ask today that you would give us an extra measure of grace as we in society have to walk circumspectly regarding this topic, regarding the issue.

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I pray for the whole congregation that you would give them someone this week to evangelize, to tell them the good news.

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Jesus Christ saves sinners, bad sinners, enslaved sinners. Because he saved people like us as trophies of his grace to show how great he is by saving the worst.

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I pray that those who know homosexuals this week would have a wide open door to talk to them about the truth.

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Kindly, compassionately, not hypocritically, and with love. The kind of discussion that Jesus would have with those tax gatherers and sinners.

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Help us to love people and help us to love them enough to tell them the truth. Help our church,

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Father. I pray that there would be many, many homosexuals who would be saved from their sins, baptized, and become members of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Bethlehem Bible Church.