The Meaning Of Life (part 3)

I would just ask for your blessing on our time as we look at some really difficult issues, things to work through, think through. Father, we pray that you'd bless us as we look to your word, as we think about your sovereign plan, the way you work things out, and even how you work through sinful men and their choices.

And Father, would you bless each one here, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well, you know, I started this series called The Meaning of Life, and I meant to discuss some difficult issues, and I think we have.

The Image of God, Dominion, and the Breath of Life

And we've been focusing on a couple of big, big points, and then making applications from them. First of all, the idea of being created, every man, woman, and child being created in the image of God, that is, bearing the image of God, such that in his communicable attributes, these things are transmitted to us, that we reflect God.

And in that sense, that we are created in the image of God, we have an inherent and intrinsic value, each and every single life does. We've also talked about the fact that God gave us dominion over the earth, and then we've discussed a little bit about the breath of life and what it means to have God actually breathe his spirit, as it were, into us, his life force into us.

It is by him that we live and move and have our being, or in him that we live and move and have our being. And this morning, what I wanted to talk about was, or begin to talk about, I don't think we'll really get done, is an issue that really is very timely.

One Human Race and the Charge of Biblical Racism

It grabs the headlines very frequently, and it's the matter of race. Now, how many races are there? Thank you, there's one. And I'm frequently reminded of that. And it's important that we just think there is a human race.

Now, when people discuss race these days, they're talking about different ethnicities, different genetic pools, I guess you could say. But ultimately, there is one human race. We're not created, God did not create a series of different atoms, he created one atom, and it's from atom that we all come.

And so in that sense, there is one race. Now, one of the things, and one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this is, what do atheists, they attack the Bible, they attack a lot of different things, but one of the issues they come at us with, with regard to race, is the sins that have been committed in the name of Christianity.

So for example, slavery. For example, segregation. For example, you know, I mean, I've seen it all, the Jim Crow laws, you know, all these kind of things are supposedly the Bible's fault. Now is that true?

No, is the answer, correct. Thank you. But I thought it was interesting because when I started looking at some different things, and I mean, there's no way to fully cover the history of all this, but some things I thought were particularly of interest.

I was reading this in a magazine called The Weekly Standards, a conservative magazine. I read it on January 26th is when the issue came out. Now listen to this. It was an article, or actually a book review about George Whitefield.

It says, although Wesley, John Wesley, had only visited America once when young, Whitefield eagerly moved back and forth from England to America. He crossed the ocean many times. Whitefield saw months at sea, however uncomfortable, as a respite from, as a rest, as a vacation basically, from crowds and ceaseless attention.

His American base was primarily Georgia outside Savannah, where he founded an orphanage for which he endlessly fundraised and which survives as America's oldest charitable institution, something you probably didn't know.

Georgia also showcased Whitefield's lamentable support for slavery. George Whitefield. The colony had banned slavery, which the evangelists urged overturning as a path to prosperity and for exposing Africans to the gospel.

Whitefield even imported slaves to support his orphanage before Georgia outlawed slavery. He preached to and was often well-received by blacks, some of whom he inspired into full-time preaching ministries.

At his death, he was rhapsodized as a friend of Africans in a widely disseminated poem by Phyllis Wheatley, the Massachusetts slave who was America's first black female published poet. Ultimately, difficult, or I wrote this part, but I mean, just think about that.

George Whitefield, we think now, John Wesley, wrong about the Armenian communism debate was an abolitionist. He believed that slavery was inherently wrong. George Whitefield, Calvinist, I think was wrong about slavery.

But his motive wasn't that he viewed blacks, Africans as inferior. His goal was to preach them the gospel. But I just think, okay, knowing what we know about slavery now, we would never say, you know what, it was good because it introduced a lot of black people to the gospel.

We'd never say that because we know all the inhuman things that were done to slaves. We know the conditions by which they were taken, how they were transported, how they were treated when they got here.

It's pretty shocking to think that somebody would see this as good, right? But I want to kind of cushion the blow for those of you thinking, I never want to hear about George Whitefield again. I don't know if anybody's thinking that.

But I think it's hard to somehow take the way we see things now and to go back a few hundred years and impose our knowledge on George Whitefield. I think it's difficult to, I think if we sat down with George Whitefield and we went through it step by step, he would agree with us every bit along the way.

I think what his concern was, listen, if not for this, how would these souls that are being saved now be saved? And I would say, Mr. Whitefield, with all due respect, don't you believe in the sovereignty of God, right?

So you know, I don't want to take any shortcuts to salvation, including slavery, comment? That's right. God uses evil, even sin, for ultimately for his glory and for the good of some people who are afflicted that way.

But would we then commend the means to get to the end? You know, no, we would not. And that's the difficulty I have there. It's kind of ends justifying the means and they don't. You know, nothing can justify those means.

Go ahead. And I think that's a good point. Charlie said, you know, that's for the person who's been enslaved, kind of looking back in retrospect. I mean, that would be like for them to pronounce a good, not for George Whitefield or for anybody else, for that matter.

I mean, look at it this way, you know, if and I, I do say this and I do believe this looking back at my life, there are many things that humanly I would rather not have done and that I would rather have not had in my life.

Right. But God works through all those things. He wasn't surprised by any of those things. He works through the sins of others, my own sins, all the circumstances of my life and brings me to where I ultimately get saved.

I mean, I was even recounting to someone this week about, you know, what ultimately led me to led me to go looking for God. I mean, from the human perspective, that's how it appears. You know, is that 12 step meeting?

Does that mean then that I should commend other people at 12 step meetings because that's how I got saved? You know? No. And in fact, whenever I talk about that 12 step meeting, I sort of mock it a little bit because the things people were saying in that room were pretty dumb.

You know, my higher power that I've surrendered my life to is part of my brain that I've designated to be my higher power. Oh, OK. Well, you're in charge of the universe and you designate your own higher power.

That's good. That's just silly. Come on. So, anyway, you know, do the ends justify the means? No. Now, I found this. I have all these links and stuff to the this is on a place called ushistory .org. Defenders of slavery noted that in the Bible, Abraham had slaves.

They point to the Ten Commandments, noting that thou shalt never not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant. In the New Testament, Paul returned a runaway slave Philemon to his master.

And although slavery was widespread throughout the Roman world, Jesus never spoke out against it. Defenders of slavery talking about in America turned to the courts who had ruled with the Dred Scott decision that all blacks, not just slaves, had no legal standing as persons in our courts.

They were property. And the Constitution protected slaveholders' rights to their property. Defenders of slavery argued that the institution was divine and that it brought Christianity to the heathen from across the ocean.

Slavery was, according to this argument, a good thing for the enslaved. And like Charlie said, that's not for any of these folks to decide. John C. Calhoun said, never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved not only physically, but morally and intellectually.

Defenders of slavery argued that by comparison with the poor of Europe and the workers of the northern states, that slaves were better cared for. They said that their owners would protect and assist them when they were sick and aged, and that those who once fired from their work were left to fend helplessly for themselves.

But the slaves had it better. Listen to what a minister, James Thornwell, said in 1860. The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders. They are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, which is anarchists, on the one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other.

And I'm just like, really? So it's like all the bad and evil forces on one side and the good forces on the other. The violence of Nat Turner's 1831 slave revolt frightened many southern slaveholders. Such unrest was used by many as a reason to continue to uphold slavery.

So, what do you say to an unbeliever who comes to you and says, you know what, the bible commends slavery. You know, it's inherently racist because it says these things. What do you say? And in fact, the history of the United States is one of, you know, up until we can argue about when that ended, but institutionalized racism, legalized racism, the Dred Scott decision, other things, it was legal to discriminate against blacks in this country.

What do you say when somebody says, well, the bible justified all that? Charlie. Okay, so scripture really is focused on redemption of individuals, not necessarily on the reformation of society, especially when we get into the New Testament.

And in fact, I would say this, you know, because they'll talk about, you know, there's even commands in parts of the Old Testament to take slaves. Leviticus 25 sets up rules, you know, saying, listen, you may not take slaves from the nation of Israel.

You may not have your brother and your cousins and your second cousins twice removed, whatever, as slaves, but foreigners, sure. And you know what? Even the foreigners, you can hand them down as property, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, you know, as an inheritance to your children.

Briefly, here's what I would say. First of all, Leviticus 25 applies to Israel, okay? Not to us today. We are not Israel. For those of you who are wondering if we're Israel or not, not in the sense that we're under, that we're in a theocracy.

I started, just as an aside, I started listening to this debate on theonomy the other night and I just couldn't take it. It was just too dopey for me, the idea that we're going to establish the Ten Commandments as the law of the United States and I just thought, I really just can't even handle that.

But anyway, back to this. Leviticus 25 sets up this thing, but this is ancient Israel. There are other places, but here's what I would say. These are, for the most part, even in the New Testament, they're descriptions about the world the way it is.

Not prescriptions or not commands and not instructions. So we're never commanded to own people and this is all wrong, but let me just get back to, well, we'll get to the Bible here in a minute. Let me just read this, talking about Philemon, because Philemon is probably the book, short book, but the book of the New Testament that has the most to do with slavery per se.

Let's start with the introduction of the MacArthur Study Bible on Philemon. Slaves were not legally considered persons, but were the tools of their masters, a wrench, a hammer. As such, they could be bought, sold, inherited, exchanged, or seized to pay their master's debt.

Their masters had virtually unlimited power to punish them and sometimes did so severely for the slightest infractions. By the time of the New Testament, however, slavery was beginning to change. Realizing that contended slaves were more productive, masters tended to treat them more leniently.

And I would notice, or I would note, that this is a good way to think if you're a boss. This is a good way to think about the people who work for you. Contended employees are more productive, right? MacArthur goes on to write, he says, it was not uncommon for a master to teach a slave his own trade, and some masters and slaves became close friends.

While still not recognizing them as persons under the law, the Roman Senate in AD 20 granted slaves accused of crimes the right to a trial. There's a novel concept. It also became more common for slaves to be granted or to purchase their freedom.

Some slaves enjoyed very favorable and profitable service under their masters and were better off than many free men because they were assured of care and provision. Many freed men struggled in poverty.

Now, oh, he's, let's see, this is still him. The New Testament nowhere directly attacks slavery. And this is interesting, had it done so, the resulting slave insurrections, in other words, if Christianity became more pervasive, more widespread, and people knew that Christianity was directly against slavery, he says, the slave insurrections would have been brutally suppressed and the message of the gospel hopelessly confused with that of social reform.

And it still gets confused today with the issue of social reform. We have to change the culture. We have to change the world around us. Instead, Christianity undermined the evils of slavery by changing the hearts of slaves and masters by stressing the spiritual equality of master and slave.

The Bible did away with slavery's abuses. The rich theological theme that alone dominates the letter is forgiveness, a featured theme throughout New Testament scripture, et cetera, et cetera. And what I wanted to do, let's turn to Galatians chapter three.

And I want to read that, and then we'll continue talking about this. And I want to read, or have someone else read, verses 26 to 29. Galatians 3, verses 26 to 29, will somebody read that, please? Okay, Gary.

Now, what's the root truth? What's the base truth that's presented there? We're sons of God, right? Children of God, equal, okay? Regardless of your station in life. Now, it doesn't say, by the way, that your station in life is eliminated.

You may still be poor. You may still be rich. You may still be a slave, whatever. But in Christ, you all are equal. And that's really reflective of this, that we are all, again, image bearers. We're all created in the image of God.

It doesn't do away with slavery, but it does, I mean, it's pretty revolutionary, right? And we talk about, at the time of Jesus, how women were considered to be inferior. Husband really didn't have to much care for his wife.

She was not allowed to have her own life, to have her own friends, to have her own religion. She was, you know, basically his, well, more or less his servant. So the idea of Jesus talking to the woman at the well was radical.

This idea of slaves being equal to their masters spiritually, that is a radical concept. But this idea of slavery being justifiable, first of all, I don't believe it was. Secondly, I don't believe the Bible ever says that slavery is a good thing.

And thirdly, I would just say this, that it was the Christians who ultimately did what? Abolished it. Why? Because they understood the intrinsic, the inherent worth of every human being. But I mean, some of the things that, now, I want to get into this thing on segregation.

Segregation, Acts 17, and the Sin of Separate but Equal

The Bible has also been used to justify segregation. This is a pretty shocking message, and again, I have the link here. This is from 1960, from the founder of Bob Jones University, Bob Jones Sr. Here was the title for his sermon.

Now, this was given on Easter Sunday, 1960. Is segregation scriptural? No. Now, I'm going to go to his proof text, and I'm calling it a proof text up front because it's pretty shocking. Acts 17. Now, as soon as you hear somebody say Acts, here's the proof of what I'm going to say.

It's in the book of Acts. Right away, I think you have to, your antenna should be going up. Why is that? Why would I say that? Acts is a history book. It describes. It doesn't give a series of commands.

Now, there are some great illustrations that we can draw out of the book of Acts. It's all true. It's all inspired, and there are great sermons in the book of Acts. In fact, here we are in Acts 17. This is one of the great sermons by Paul on Mars Hill.

And his text was, or his verse, and you really know you're in trouble when you just kind of rip one verse out of a whole thing. And he, let me see, his text was verse 26, and I'll read that. And he, speaking of God, made from one man, Adam, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.

Now that's all true, right? And so is this, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. Now, from that text, can you justify segregation? Well, you can if you're a segregationist.

Here's what he says. He says of Acts 26 that since God fixed the bounds of habitation for people groups, that settles it. He says it's no accident that most Chinese people live in China. I'm not kidding.

He said the same thing about the people in Japan and, you know, all these other things, and I thought, that's really brilliant. He remarks that the leader of nationalist China, you know, and it still exists today, is Taiwan.

Back then it was Formosa or Nationalist China. Was married, Chiang Kai-shek, the general there, was married to a Chinese woman. Again, shocking. He says that is the way God meant it to be. He says the racial disturbances of his day, you know, the civil rights movement starting, were, quote, not of God.

He goes on in some length in how we are all one in Christ, talking about the Christians, and he talked about, you know, there are a great many blacks who are Christians, and this is great. And, you know, he even goes, now you know you're in trouble, and he, listen, I can't even believe he can get this stuff out of his mouth.

Because he says things like, well, you know, white folks have helped black folks build churches down here in the south. Yeah. He says, and this is a quote, we are one in Christ, but let us remember that the God who made of one blood all nations also fixed the boundaries of their habitations.

He says wherever we have the races mixed up in large numbers, we have trouble. And he talks about, you know, the big cities and how there are, there's upheaval and everything in San Francisco and all these different cities.

Well, it's because the races have mixed. That's really just shameful. It's non-biblical. It's unchristian to look at things that way. It's a sinful view of our fellow image bearers. Separate but equal is not a Christian worldview.

It's not, it's not a biblical worldview. Let's put it another way. Can you imagine heaven being segregated? People of all nations, tribes and tongues, but you know, you people all stay in this area and you people all stay in that area and that's how heaven's going to be.

I don't think so. There's a, an interview with John MacArthur on the occasion of his 40th year in anniversary or in ministry interview with Rick Holland. And he, he's asked a specific question by Rick and he answers, he answered it this way talking about some of the things that he experienced in the 60s.

He says, before I came to Grace Church, when I was a seminary student, I came to know a man named John Perkins. John Perkins came to Christ after a very troubled childhood. He was raised in Mississippi.

Now, again, talking about God works all things for good and he can bring good out of evil. He says this, he says he saw his brother talking about John Perkins killed by Ku Klux Klan Klansmen before his very eyes in the streets.

And John, as a result of that had a lot of bitterness in his heart. But when he came to Christ, all that was swept away and he started attending my dad's church, Jack MacArthur, and I got to know him and grew to love him and his wife, Vera Mae.

Well, the purposes of God, he returned to Mississippi to a little town called Mendenhall and Mendenhall, Mississippi, south of Jackson, where he started a ministry there. He started a school there. He started a church, started a little co-op for people to buy things and really help that little community of Mendenhall.

This was right at the time when the civil rights movement really exploded. And John asked me if I would come to Mississippi and if I would preach, if I would go out to the black high schools, which were totally segregated and always on the other side of town, and if I would preach and do some gospel ministry in those high schools around Mississippi.

So I said, absolutely, I'd love to do that. I got a, he says, I had a few friends and in those days I used to sing a little and we would be doing a little singing together and then I would preach and I had an absolutely wonderful time.

I can't remember how many years. I think I went down there for a period, about five years, going down and spending a prolonged period of time. I lived with John and Vera Mae in their house. Very interesting to live at that time in the home of black people in the south and to be treated the way they were treated, to be refused meals at a restaurant that I would go to because they knew who I was associating with.

So even being associated with black people would cause you to be turned away from restaurants. He says, it was so tense there. There was a friend of John's who was a custodian at the First Baptist Church in Mendenhall, which is a white church.

And just as a footnote, you know, it's often said that the most segregated hour of America is, you know, on Sunday, the church hour. It should not be. This idea of there being a white church and a black church, just all wrong.

I don't even like to see Chinese churches or any of that stuff, but this custodian loved Christ and he built a friendship with the pastor at the church, even though he couldn't attend the church. The pastor started a Bible study with him on a regular basis and the church leaders told him that he had to stop that.

He said, I can't. And the circumstances became so overbearing on him. He had problems in the community, in the town and getting gas and things like that. This pastor had a nervous breakdown. They took him to Jackson, put him in a hospital room and he dove out the window, the third floor and killed himself.

That's how intense it was. He says, well, it was during those times that I was there and I will never forget. I can't tell you the whole story, but I'll never forget one night I was in the middle of Jackson, Mississippi, in the office of a man named Charles Evers.

Charles Evers had a brother named Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers was the first martyr of the civil rights movement. He was the first person killed. Charles became the first black mayor, the first black mayor in the South at Fayetteville, Mississippi.

He was a friend of John's and I had come to know him as we were sitting there and he was trying to explain to me that night in Jackson what was going on. He says, now, remember, I was a very young guy and become immersed in that culture.

I grew to love those people and Charles was talking and a man burst through the door and said, Martin Luther King has been assassinated. That happened that night while I was with Charles and John and some others.

The immediate issue was that there were serious things going on in the street in Jackson and they were trying to get me out of there because I was as pale as a ghost. And here we were worried and here they were worried about what would happen to me.

And so they escorted me and they said, you know, we're going to go to Jackson. We want you to go or we want to go, we're going to go to Memphis. We want to see what happened. So they took me and they went to Memphis.

And in those days, the police weren't nearly as protective. Forensics hadn't developed to what they are now. And they didn't necessarily protect crime scenes. So we went to the motel, up to the landing, saw the blood where Martin Luther King had been shot just hours before by James Earl Ray.

Actually went to the little building opposite the motel, went up to the second floor, stood up on the toilet and looked out the window where James Earl Ray had shot him. And I was there at that very, very crucial time.

To make a long story short, when we went back and endeavored to look or endeavored to continue to do what we were doing, teaching and whatnot, we were driving down a country road headed to one of the high school meetings and we were arrested and taken to jail and accused of fomenting trouble and all that.

So these were very volatile times. I remember when we were taken to the jail, the sheriff said something about how they were going to fine us. And I said, well, how much is the fine? And he said, how much have you got?

I mean, this is like a bad movie, right? And the fine was everything we had. He says, so those were very, very difficult times, but God continued to bless the ministry there. It's going on today. It's called Voice of Calvary.

John took the name from my dad's radio program and he used it there. And the ministry flourishes today. But I just thought this is, you know, it's not just the history of America. This is kind of how the gospel and, I mean, the people who were doing these things down the South would never say they were anything but Christians.

But how did they treat their fellow man? Did they view them as image bearers, as, you know, brothers and sisters in Christ that they were saved? Did they view them as people who needed to be evangelized if they weren't saved?

Or did they see them as virtually like enemies? I was watching this program on the Soviet hockey team the other day. Really interesting because it starts before 1980 and it's told from the Soviet side.

And 1980 was the year the American team beat the Soviets in the Olympics called the Miracle on Ice. Well, this special is called Miracles in Men and I just thought, well, it might be interesting to see it from the Soviet side.

And it was interesting. You know, why? Because I found myself even kind of, you know, in the beginning definitely rooting against the Soviets. They're the evil empire and everything like that. But by the end of this show, because it goes all the way through basically about 1990, right when, or 1989, right when the Soviet Union is getting ready to collapse.

But just before this, before it all collapses, one of the Soviet stars wants to go to the NHL and he gets told that he's going to be granted permission by the government to go to the NHL to sign there.

And you just think, this is a bizarre concept to us. Because the idea that somebody would be restricted in their work because of where they're from, we just don't think of it that way. And so they told him he could, as long as they won the world championship.

So they go to the world championships, they win. He's named the most valuable player. Everything else. And guess what? They say, you're not going. We're not going to, you know, we're not going to give you permission.

So he, he quits, quits the team. And it gets a little bit better because the next year at the world championship, the team says, or before the world championship, the team says, we're not going to play.

We're not going to play without our captain. And I just thought, okay, this is the Soviet Union. I'm going, all of a sudden I'm liking these guys. And the Soviet power structure kind of relents, and you might wonder where I'm going, but they relents and they let him play.

And again, they win. And now they're going to give him finally permission, they say again, to go to the NHL. But he goes, he's summoned into the office of the man who's the second most powerful person in the Soviet Union.

First is Mikhail Gorbachev. He's the premier at this point. And then there's this guy who's in charge of the army and the national defense. He's the guy. And he gets good because the Soviet hockey team, they're amateurs, of course, and they're all enlisted in the army.

So you have to get released from the army in order to do anything. And so he gets summoned into the office of this man. And as soon as he walks in this huge hallway, I mean, it looks like probably is twice as long as the sanctuary, not as wide, but super long.

And he gets called in there. And this great big hulk of a man in this huge army, you know, regalia, all these medals and everything, just starts yelling at him and telling him he's a traitor and all these other things.

Now, this is after they've given him the order of Lenin and, you know, but now he's a traitor because he wants to go play in the NHL. And I just thought, this is, it's not unlike slavery. Because he did not, his life was completely subject to the state.

Whatever they wanted, whatever they determined, he had to do. And I thought it was brave for his team to stick up for him and everything like, because, you know, if you go back in time, maybe 20, 30 years, they all would have been shot and there would have been a new Soviet hockey team, you know?

So I thought it was brave. But he finally is kind of released and gets to go to the NHL and you just kind of, it's like the bonds of slavery in a sense were broken. He set free. But this idea that somehow, because of where somebody's from, because of the color of their skin, that they're less than someone else is unbiblical.

It's wrong. And you know what the real test is? Here's the real test of racism, of segregation. If you have a child and your child is of marriageable age and somebody from another race is interested, another race, sorry, another ethnic group, this is how we talk.

I'm sorry. I apologize for the theological imprecision. Someone from another ethnic group wants to court your daughter, wants to marry your son, or your son is interested in somebody else, you know, how do you react?

And if your first impulse is, well, I don't like the fact that he or she is, you have to think about that. Why is that? Why isn't that I feel that way? Because Scripture's clear. If somebody is in Christ Jesus, they're neither what?

June or Greek. They are fully equal. And again, it's a revolutionary concept 2 ,000 years ago. Now we should just understand that. But sometimes I don't think that fully plays out. But this idea of segregation, that is to say, you know, God has fixed boundaries, separate but equal, all that stuff, that is, not only is it archaic, but it's evil and sinful.

Any comments or questions before we develop Galatians 3 a little bit more? Yes. Well, that's an excellent point. That, well, let me just kind of put it another way. The government, even governments that say they are influenced by Christianity or claim to be Christian or say that they are Judeo-Christian in their ethics, they're still men.

They're still fallen men. And so the rules and the laws that they come out with are not, they're not necessarily reflective of Scripture. And often they're not reflective of Scripture. I mean, how is it possible that, you know, Pastor Mike was saying this morning, 80 of Americans claim to be Christians.

Yet we live in a country where homosexual marriage is becoming acceptable. You know, most polls show that roughly half the population. So think about it this way. Let's say it's 50%. 50 of the people don't believe what the Bible says about marriage.

But they say that they're, you know, at least a lot, a number of those people would still say that they're Christians. It is not possible to believe what the Bible says or to discount what the Bible says, sorry, and yet then claim that I'm a Christian.

I can't say, well, I'm a Christian, but I don't like what it says about homosexuals. Okay. I don't know what to tell you about that. I mean, when I first, the reason I don't like to say that, or the reason I don't know exactly the date that I was saved is because I know the date when I first came to understand who Jesus Christ was.

And some people will say, well, then you must have been saved. Well no, because I really didn't fully, I didn't believe the Trinity. Let's just put it that way. The Bible teaches the Trinity. I didn't believe it.

And it took me a while to kind of study and sort it out and figure it out. And, you know, so I'm not really comfortable saying that at the moment I realized how wonderful Jesus was, that's the moment I got saved.

I'm not really comfortable with that at all. We need to believe what the Bible says. It's one thing to be ignorant of what it says. It's another thing to know what it says and then say, well, I don't like that.

I'm going to set it aside. It's one thing to say that I love Jesus, but I don't so much care for a lot of the things that he said. Well, Jesus never talked about homosexual marriage, right? Because nobody talked about homosexual marriage 2000 years ago.

What he did talk about was the nature of marriage, which was one man and one woman. He didn't leave options open for polygamy and leave a lot of options open, including homosexual marriage. Why? Because that was not God's design.

Again, we need to yield to the scripture in all things, including what it says about people of different ethnicities. So with that, we need to close in prayer unless there are any, well, we'll just close.

Christian Love, Marriage, and Yielding to Scripture

Father, Lord, would you grant us hearts that do not look at the outside, but that understand that inside each and every human body is a soul that will one day stand before you and will have to answer for what they've done with the Lord Jesus Christ.