Confession

And of course, you know the voice of Keith Green, my eyes are dry, a beautiful hymn of repentance and restoration, a great way to start today because I wanna start off with a confession today. Yes, we all obviously have things to make confession for, but I am referring specifically to something that happened last Tuesday.

And it was just a part of my normal morning routine. I have set up, I've been using Google Reader for a very, very long time. And I have a number of blogs and news sites that I monitor and look at first thing in the morning, sort of how I know what's going on in the world.

I don't turn the television on anymore. There's really no reason to do that. I don't need the entertainment or the spin. And so I was reading through all of the news sources and I came across a story.

Cultural Decay, Christian Apathy, and the Speed of Modern News

And I didn't read very deeply into it, I'll be honest with you. But I read enough of it to know what was going on. I'll read you the whole story here, or at least most of it. This is the version from the New York Times from a week ago today, a week ago today.

Geneva, the Obama administration announced on Tuesday that the United States would use all the tools of American diplomacy, including the potent enticement of foreign aid to promote gay rights around the world.

In a memorandum issued by President Obama in Washington and in a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton here, the administration vowed to actively combat efforts by other nations to criminalize homosexual conduct, abuse gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, or transgendered people or ignore abuse against them.

Some have suggested the gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct, Mrs. Clinton said at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. But in fact, they are one and the same. Neither Mr. Obama nor Mrs. Clinton specified how to give the initiative teeth.

Caitlin Hayden, the National Security Council's deputy spokeswoman said the administration was not cutting or tying foreign aid to changes in other nations' practices. Down below it says, with campaigning already underway in the 2012 presidential contest, Mr. Obama's announcement could bolster support among gay voters and donors who have questioned the depth of his commitment.

He chose the Reverend Rick Warren, a pastor who opposes same-sex marriage to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Mr. Obama himself has not come out officially in favor of same-sex marriage, but he successfully pushed for repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that prevented gays from openly serving in the military.

And the Justice Department has said it will no longer defend in court the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. As I read the headline and took in the thought that the United States of America was going to be using its considerable wealth and influence around the world to promote homosexuality and gay rights and homosexual marriage and the like, what I did is I went on to the next news story.

There are many of them like that. And if you, like me, scan through, I don't know how many of you, if I didn't clear my queue a couple times each day, it would probably, during weekdays, I don't know how many things would show up.

I don't know, 700, 800 in a day. I don't know, a lot. And it's the data fog. We're exposed to so much of this stuff and it happens so fast. It used to be, you'd read the newspaper and some of the stuff in there would be a day or two old because it takes time.

It took time back in the olden days for news to travel. It's not the case anymore. And yet, as things change so quickly in our day, and that's one thing, it's just totally changed since I'm old enough now, my birthday's coming up this weekend and I'm gonna be starting my, wow, sixth decade, I guess.

Yeah, 50th year, sixth decade. Yeah, yeehaw. As I, I'm old enough now to recognize things change much faster now. It's not just, oh, well, you older folks, you're just not used to it. No, the way that our society is changing is at an incredibly rapid pace now.

When you, when you think about 25 years ago, could anyone have thought about what would be happening with the utter degradation of marriage, the complete overthrow of centuries of cultural commitment to one understanding of what marriage was?

I mean, 25 years ago, we were talking about the plague of divorce. Now in Washington, D .C., more than 70 of the African-American children are born to unwed mothers. 70 don't have dads. Marriage has been thrown under the proverbial bus and now it's being extended to people that cannot get married.

No matter what you do, you cannot redefine marriage in this way without absolutely destroying the institution. And you see what's happening to the society as a result. And we see this and we know this, and we know what the Bible says about a nation that would do what this nation is doing.

It's in the back of our mind. We know what it is. Even the most liberal person who calls himself a Christian, for whatever reason, a liberal would call themselves Christians, knows, and the liberal may be embarrassed by this, but knows what the Bible says about God's wrath coming upon a nation that would use its wealth and its power to promote that which is simply ungodly.

And the fact of the matter is, when we pray, God deliver us from unrighteous rulers, we have ungodly, evil, unrighteous rulers. Anyone who would promote the destruction of the God-ordained, the God-ordained institution of marriage is an evil person.

Not someone of a different perspective, they are evil. They are promoting ungodliness. And we're afraid to say that. And how long we're gonna have the right to say that is a real question. I read that story and I knew in the back of my mind, I know Romans 1 .32.

And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. Sin loves company.

And the vast majority of people who are promoting the destruction of marriage and a sexual perversion that destroys life, and it does destroy life. The vast majority of these people are not themselves homosexuals.

They're not. And yet they are promoting what is ungodly. They encourage ungodliness amongst others. It's a part of the rebellion of man. And this is what's happening at the highest levels of the government, the United States of America.

And I read that and I rolled my eyes and I moved on to the next story. Maybe it was about Tim Tebow or maybe it was about something in the elections or I don't know. And the reason I talk about confession this morning is I have to confess that I have fallen into the trap that I have a feeling most of my listeners have fallen into.

And that is we are bombarded with this stuff so often that we develop some sort of a defense mechanism and we become jaded, we become insensitive. Our eyes become dry. And unlike the psalmist in Psalm 119, who talked about how his eyes flowed with rivers of water because of the fact that he saw God's law being trampled underfoot and people showing disrespect to God's law.

Unlike that psalmist, my eyes don't weep anymore for that because it's all around us. And I'm not saying that I know exactly how to find the right balance, but I know that if we try to find the balance in ignoring it and not thinking about it, that eventually leads us to apathy about these things.

And we don't communicate to the next generation and that next generation then, well, it's always been this way, hasn't it? No, it hasn't always been this way. I think it's one of the things going on in our nation is that the generation that fought World War II is passing away very, very quickly.

Thousands dying each week as the last of those people pass from the earth. And the generations that have come after that don't know almost anything about sacrifice for the freedoms and all the blessings of liberty that the United States of America possesses.

Same thing in Europe, the generation that fought against totalitarianism and fascism, that generation has passed away. And the next generation took for granted everything that had been given to them and we did not communicate to the next generation, the current generation of young people, the value of the sacrifice of those who went before us.

We had it given to us, we knew the people, we still had some commitment to those things, but we haven't passed that on. And so the ideas of our liberties, the freedoms that we have, and the foundations upon which they are built, the moral foundations upon which they are built, we haven't communicated that to the next generation.

So the next generation thinks on the basis of, well, what I deserve and what I am owed, nothing about self-sacrifice to get those things. It's all connected together. And when we talk to the younger generation about the issue of homosexuality, how do they judge it?

They don't judge it on the basis of viewing ourselves as creatures made in the image of God, and that God has the right to determine what is and what is not appropriate sexual behavior, and there's such things as perversions.

It's all whatever makes you feel good. And if that's what makes you feel good and happy, then that's good. And the result is the utter degradation of our view of humanity. We no longer see that we are creatures made in the image of God, and as a result, we do not view God's law as something that is good and honorable and something that we should meditate upon and present to people.

And let's face it, the vast majority of evangelicals are embarrassed by God's law. It's that stuff in those books back in the Old Testament that I barely made it through when I did my one-time reading through the Bible thing, you know?

And so we don't talk about what the Christian life should be about, and that is a life of repentance. Of course, we have some people amongst us that don't think repentance is even a part of the Christian life, and it's sort of hard to even understand how that's even a part of Christianity.

I don't think that it is. Sometimes people will say, how can I live my life in such a way as to really stand out from the world? Well, it's not by dressing like the world and speaking like the world and acting like the world and everything else.

I would suggest that the way to live your life in a way that is utterly unlike the world would be to live a life of repentance, because that's the one thing the world cannot even begin to understand and cannot begin to do.

Now, we look at this situation and the United States promoting homosexuality around the world. Well, I'll tell you, if you want to, if the Obama administration wants to give something to the Muslims to help them recruit people to be jihadists, do that.

Just brilliant, just brilliant. There's the great Satan over there promoting homosexuality. There you go, woo-hoo. But the reality is it's easy to become angry. It's easy to become angry at something like this.

But that doesn't, our anger accomplishes nothing. And I can't repent for somebody else. I can only repent for myself. I can only repent for my own attitudes. And I can pray for my nation, but what do I pray for?

I pray for a nation whose leaders are absolutely intent and spitting in God's face. Because that's what these people are intent on doing. Why isn't anybody saying this? I guess it's because there are some people who say it and then they do it in such a way that shows they've never really looked all that deeply at it.

And we don't like the wild-eyed King James only guy talking about how evil the United States is. But at the same time, people who should be saying this seem to be frightened, absolutely frightened at saying what needs to be said.

And that is, and this needs to be communicated to the leaders of this nation with clarity. If you promote that which is in direct opposition to God's truth, you are engaging in evil and you must repent.

You will be judged by God, not by me. I don't have the right to judge you. I have the right to vote against you as long as I still have that right, as long as I still have my freedoms. There's a lot of people, a lot of people who would like to see a totalitarian system of government that guarantees free speech for only one side.

We already see this happening in Europe and it's heading our direction, folks. If you're not seeing it, it's coming. But the reality is we need to be proclaiming God's judgment. God will not be mocked.

If you sow these things, you can only reap what you have sown. And if you promote that which is directly in opposition to godliness, you will reap death. Eternal death, separated from God. It seems a lot of Christians have confused the Bible and the Constitution.

Well, actually, not even the Constitution, a post-constitutional concept. Separation of church and state, which in their mind becomes separation of what I do in my culture and God's law and what's right before God.

So that, oh, a politician isn't going to be judged for what they've done? Really? You really think that on the judgment day, those people who made it possible for us to swim in the blood of innocent children murdered in the womb when we know more about the humanity of the pre-born child than we have ever known in the history of mankind?

Folks, if the amount of light determines punishment, then all those people who kill little children in the dark ages, well, they'll be punished. But what about us today? We have all watched videos of the development of that little child in the womb.

We have no excuse at all. We know that's human. We know that if you don't go in there and kill it with salt or rip it apart with a knife, it's gonna be a human being with separate DNA, a separate genetic code, a unique individual.

We know that. We have no excuses, none, zero. And yet we become apathetic. It's, there's just too much. No one could keep up with it all. And so, like I said, I read this story. Sorry about the sermon, but I read the story.

And I moved on. And a few days later, I heard somebody mention, oh, I heard, might have been the next day or the day after, I forget when it was, when Al Mohler mentioned the same thing in the briefing.

That is a, that is a webcast, by the way, that you need to subscribe to. I certainly do. I listen to it every day. Well, I listen to it every day when he's doing it anyways. He mentioned it as well. And I started thinking about it.

I said, you know, I read that story. And I just, I just passed over it. And I did not, you know, in the back of my mind, you know, all the theological truth is there, but I just passed over it. And so maybe you, like I, need to confess that it's become far too easy to find a means of accommodation, a way around having to face the cultural suicide that our nation and Western culture as a whole seems to be absolutely intent on committing.

And I'm not sure where the balance is there, but I know that I would rather continue to be sensitive to God's truth and to God's law than to be comfortable in this present evil age. That's not, it's not that we're the first people to live in an evil age.

How did Jesus describe this age? Is this present evil age? But there does seem to be such a, a present reality of the evil in the sense of the, the access we have to it, that we can see it right in front of us, unlike any time in the past.

Maybe it was a mercy from God that news of evil could only come to us at a certain speed in the past. Now it's instantaneous and it's just all around us. It's just all around us. So I confess, I read that story and it didn't, you know, I mean, I added it to the, you know, I have a bookmark folder in Chrome on my Mac.

I think I called it cultural decay. And I may have even dragged it in there. I don't know. Sometimes I get tired of it, just dragging stuff in there. There's so much. But I confess, I just, I just passed it by and I shouldn't have done that.

I have to say that I've often, more and more lately, considered what must it have been like day-to-day life in Sodom and Gomorrah? Yeah. Would we ever look back and consider that there might've been those who say, God bless Sodom and Gomorrah?

When I hear politicians and others get up these days and say, God bless America, I wonder, is that appropriate any longer? Is that a reasonable request?

Well, obviously, remember September 12th, 2001? We were on the air that day. And what I said was not what most people were saying. And in fact, if I recall correctly, Carla even made a T-shirt from what I said.

And that was, God bless America with a heart-rending, soul-shaking repentance. Because that's, I think that is the only blessing that we can pray for our nation. I don't know how we can look at a nation that will take its money to promote godlessness around the world and say, God bless us with more money.

To do what with?

To continue to spit in your face? Well, you wonder, was Lot even a voice in Sodom anymore?

Or was he just? He was known, he was known. And the way they turned on him so quickly. Who are you, a foreigner, to judge us? I'm sure they had observed his life. And when they observed his life, they felt conviction.

But he had had to have come to a point of accommodation. There's no question his wife had. And in fact, even at that, the angels literally had to drag him out of there. And you would think that someone with a righteous soul would have been so, well, Hebrews says he was vexed.

But did he find a means of accommodation? I don't know. We have to be careful of it. It just, I wanted to raise the issue for folks and to think about it, because I would imagine that almost every person in this audience has seen those stories over the past week.

And like me, just moved on. Because the feeling is, well, what can I do about it? And it's true, I can't, you know, I mean, I can do what I can do as a citizen. I certainly pray. And of course, the way we pray, the way we pray at Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church is not the way that I was taught to pray when I was younger.

And what I mean by that is we pray that God would protect us from evil leaders. And that God would be pleased to either change their hearts or to remove them from office, but protect us from evil leaders.

And I led the pastoral prayer Sunday morning and I prayed about this very issue. Confess, our nation has done this. We cannot ask for your blessing upon our nation unless we repent, unless we are repentant.

That is absolutely all we have to do. Let me close with that text from Psalm 119. Then maybe we'll just go ahead and take a break. And then we'll come back with the Diya Muhammad debate and the Bart Ehrman, we'll continue those series.

But that text is Psalm 119, 136, the 136th verse of the 119th Psalm. My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law.

Well, I don't want to become a person who doesn't understand what the psalmist was saying there. I want to be a person who does have a sensitivity to God's law and holds that as a much higher standard than any accommodation I might seek with this world.

When we come back, Diya Muhammad and subject of Islam, we'll be right back.