Kingdom of God Sermon: Adultery

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Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church/TV/Radio preached a sermon for The Kingdom of God Series. The Church is in the Lord Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and are now entering into the section where Jesus addresses specific laws. This weekend's text was on adultery. For more, go to apologiaradio.com

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If you're new to Apologia Church, you've been in the study for quite some time now, verse by verse through the gospel according to Matthew.
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As you guys get there, just a background that I've announced many times before, this was the most popular of the gospels, of the four gospels in the second century of the church.
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So this has been a book, a letter, a text from God that has been used by God to shape the church for 2 ,000 years.
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And it's exciting to think that our brothers and sisters early on were feasting upon this text from the very beginning of the church and Christ's kingdom breaking into history, his rule into the world.
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So Matthew, the gospel according to Matthew chapter five, we spent a great deal of time on the blessings that Jesus pronounces upon his people, the beatitudes, and then we spent a great deal of time in Matthew chapter five, specifically verses 17 through 19, which are vitally important to understand to understand anything
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Jesus is saying here in the rest of the text in relation to the law. And it's very important to understand in terms of how
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God calls us to live in relation to his law under the new covenant.
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But Matthew chapter five, I'm actually gonna start after Jesus talks about the law, and he talks about not even beginning to think that he's come to abolish the law or the prophets.
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And after he says that you must have a righteousness greater than that, that surpasses that of the scribes and the
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Pharisees, or you will not enter the kingdom of heaven, he then begins to talk about the law in literal quotation.
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So we're gonna read that together, pray, and then begin to unpack the text. We'll probably spend about two weeks on this specific section of scripture.
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Starting in verse 21, hear now the words of the living God. You have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not commit murder, and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the courts.
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But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court, and whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the supreme court, and whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell,
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Gehenna. Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there, remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
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Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison, truly
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I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent. Here's the text for today.
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You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
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If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
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As far as the reading of God's word, let's pray. Father, I wanna pray that you'd bless today,
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God, this time together that we reach into your word,
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God, that we study your word to know you, to worship you,
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Lord, to obey you, to be intimate with you, to bring you glory and praise, God, bless this time as we come before your throne, submitting ourselves to your word.
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Help us, God, to have eyes to see. Help us to have ears that actually open and hear you. God, help us,
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Lord, to be transformed. Conform to the image of your son. Father, I wanna pray right now.
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This text bites all of us. God, there's not a person in this room that isn't gonna come to this text and not see our own condemnation.
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God, I wanna ask for your mercy. I pray, God, for your mercy upon those of us who have been indifferent towards this.
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God, we live in a culture today, God, you know, you're the sovereign, you know we live in a culture today that has just abused the gift that you've given us of our own sexuality.
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God, it's just wreckage out there. We can't even drive down the road, turn on the
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TV, search through our newsfeed. We can't do anything without seeing perversion, without seeing so much that causes us to stumble.
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And Lord, so many of us, God, have just had the secret lurking in our hearts and our minds for so long, a little pet sin that we own and we don't share, a pet sin we've allowed to live,
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Lord, in our home, and we have not ever done what it takes to cut and to throw, to pluck and to throw.
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God, only by your power and your mercy and grace will we ever get free.
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And so Lord, we're pleading with you now as your church, men and women, young and old, we're pleading with you to meet us in this place, to convict us,
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God, to move mightily, Lord, to free us in Jesus' name, amen.
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So this is a powerful section because, and we gotta unpack to get to this point once again,
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Jesus in Matthew chapter five, verses 17 through 19 says very specifically, do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.
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I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.
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May namasete tells them, do not even begin to think, do not even begin to think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.
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I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Jesus tells the religious people of his day that he has not come as a
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Messiah, as a prophet, as a teacher to subvert the law of God. Matthew 5, 17 is a key text to understanding
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Jesus' view of the law. Now why do I bring that up? I bring it up because many times people have approached this text, good,
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God -fearing Christians, people that love Jesus, that serve God, people that I admire and look up to, they have a particular view of Jesus' relation to the law where they actually come to this text and they say,
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Jesus actually gives us a higher view of the law. He creates a new law in the
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Sermon on the Mount. When in reality, what Jesus is doing in this text is explaining the law of God as it was intended to be obeyed from the heart.
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Jesus doesn't come and say, the law of God is done and over and we have nothing to do with that.
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I've come to really set it aside and give you a new way. No, in reality, Jesus is showing you
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God's law condemned murder in the Old Testament, whether it was external and actually actualized in the world or whether it was in the heart in its very genesis and beginnings.
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God called us in Deuteronomy chapter six. It's at the very foundation of our faith.
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Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God, Jesus says, with all your heart and your soul and mind and strength.
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We're to love God with our hearts. All of God's commandments, love God, love neighbor, everything built upon those two foundations.
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And God called us, whether in the old or the new, to love God from the heart. And that means that our obedience towards God comes from the very bottom.
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And this is what I told you last week and I think is what compels me the most about Jesus. It's what I love about Jesus.
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In my quiet moments, beyond the very rigorous philosophical arguments for Jesus and God, beyond the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus, what draws me so much to Jesus, why
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I love Jesus, why I'm enamored with Jesus, is that Jesus is not merely a prophet, a religious leader that comes in history and gives people a bunch of new commands and lists of commands to obey.
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There are plenty of those. Plenty of charlatans and con artists and spiritual manipulators that have come in and said,
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I'm from God, here's my list of rules, obey those things. Jesus comes not as a novelty in history, not as a new thing, but Jesus comes as what was promised in history to bring about the redemption of the whole world.
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And when he comes, he comes as you would expect God to come talking about us and our relationship.
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Now think about this for a second. Human beings, we can only see the outside.
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We can only see the external. That's all I can see in your life is what I observe, what's in front of me, your actions that I see in the world.
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So you would think human religion is always gonna be focused in upon the externals.
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And why is that? It's patently obvious because it's all we can see. If we wanna think somebody is righteous, we can only base that upon what we see.
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And in some sense, that's actually biblical. Faith without works is dead.
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If you wanna see if someone truly has faith, it's gonna be seen in what they actually do in the real world, so amen to that.
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Except there is a possibility that you can have external conformity to some laws and be internally a wreck and a devil.
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But here's the thing, human religion only cares about that because human religion can only see the outside.
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It can only see the moral behavior. But how would you expect God to talk about us and his law when he comes?
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It's only God that can see the inside. It's only God that knows what you're thinking, that sees into your heart, that knows what you were doing on the internet last night.
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It's only God that knows the secret meeting that you had with somebody outside of a relationship with your spouse.
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It's only God that knows these things. It's only God that knows when you're praying, whether that prayer is for the praise of men so that people think you're very spiritual and very erudite, or whether that prayer was because you really wanted to talk to your father.
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Only God knows if your fasting was truly you being hungry for God, or whether your fasting was so that people saw you and gave you praise for being so spiritual.
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Only God knows that your giving is truly for him from the heart in secret, or whether it was really to put money out there so people see it and give you praise and applause.
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Only God knows that. And so what does Jesus do? God comes in the flesh, and it's exactly as you think.
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It's exactly as you would actually put down on paper. If God came, he would look like this, he would say these things, he would act like this, he would treat his law in this way.
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And lo and behold, Jesus comes in, God incarnate, love incarnate,
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God tabernacling among us, as John chapter one says. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was
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God. He was in the beginning with God. All things are made through him, and then it says in John 1 14 what?
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And God became flesh, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And when the word becomes flesh and dwells among us, what does he say about his law?
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Does he say, oh that was all too harsh and too wrong? The God of the Old Testament was a big meanie, he was very focused in upon law and wrath, and I'm really the
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God of the new. I'm into friendship. I'm into loving relationships and meals.
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The God of the Old Testament would have never sat down with you to have a meal. He's not somebody you wanna eat with. I'm that God.
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That's really the perception many people have of Jesus, right, the God of the Old Testament is all wrath, God of the New Testament is all love, right?
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Until you read Revelation and see Jesus coming and stomping people into the ground, so much so that the blood goes up to the horse's bridles.
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Yeah, Jesus is very gracious. And he is, but in reality you begin to see that the
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God of the Old Testament and New Testament are exactly the same, and when that God who gave the law on Sinai came and talked to his people and actually begins to address their criminal mishandling of his word, he acts in exactly the way you'd want him to.
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And, might I add, in exactly the way you don't want him to in your hypocrisy, because what does
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Jesus do? He shows them that though they would say, thou shall not commit murder, okay,
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I'm good, haven't done it, he shows them that you're really actually a killer at heart, because you are satisfied in your heart with being cold and extended and bitter and angry towards your brother, which is the very beginning of murder.
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Murder doesn't take place without first the hostility inside you. And so Jesus shows that if you're the kind of person that's willing to turn somebody into human garbage by saying you good for nothing, you idiot,
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Jesus says that right there is guilty, and that right there is worthy of death.
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Jesus shows you that your obedience to God, your intimacy is wrapped up in your heart and your relationship with God.
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And I love Jesus for this, I love Jesus for this, because he confronts me in my own sin, in my own wickedness, in my own selfishness, in my own pride, he cuts right through me and he shows me who
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I really am. And since he's given me all of his righteousness by faith apart from any work of law,
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I know that I stand before God as righteous and blameless, and I know I can read Jesus here in Matthew five, brothers and sisters, and I can let him open me up.
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I can let him expose all my adulterous thoughts, I can let Jesus expose my hatred for brother,
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I can let Jesus expose my hypocrisy because I'm redeemed. So layering this down real fast before we even get into you should not commit adultery, let me just say this.
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Jesus didn't come to give you a bunch of laws to obey, to say here's these laws in order to get right with God.
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That is false, wicked religion. You cannot climb a moral ladder to get to God.
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George Whitefield said, trying to get right with God by obeying his laws is like trying to build a ladder made out of sand to the moon.
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It's not gonna work, you're never gonna make it. The glory of Jesus is that you do have a righteousness greater than that of the scribes and the
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Pharisees, how? Because you have his righteousness, his perfect law keeping.
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Through faith you have a righteousness before God, you are wrapped in it and you stand with bold and confident access because of Jesus, not because of you.
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But there's something else, listen closely because this is missed. You actually do have a righteousness greater than that of the scribes and the
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Pharisees, actually practically. Proof, Romans chapters five through eight says, those who are in Adam all die, they're condemned.
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Those who are in Christ have the gift of eternal life and righteousness and those who are in the flesh,
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Paul says in Romans eight, cannot please God. He says this, therefore there is no more condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus.
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You are no longer in the flesh, Paul says, but in the spirit and he says this, you can fulfill now in Christ, in the spirits, the righteous requirement of the law.
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Christians actually redeemed by God in Christ and dwelt by his spirit, listen, born from above, born again, do fulfill the righteous requirement of the law from the inside, it happens.
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However imperfectly, it does happen. Why, because of you? No, because of him.
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What's the promise in a new covenant in Ezekiel 36? I'll just say it briefly. Ezekiel 36 is a favorite verse, favorite, okay, it's a favorite verse among Calvinists.
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Reformed folks, love Ezekiel 36, why? Because the new covenant is described there and what
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God's gonna do. God says he's gonna sprinkle clean water on you and you'll be clean. He'll cleanse you from all your, listen closely, idols, which is gonna be very important for today, all your idols, he says he'll put his spirit within you, he'll give you a new heart, heart of stone now, replaced with a heart of flesh, and he says this in Ezekiel 36,
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I will cause you, them, to observe my statutes.
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God does that. That's the righteousness greater than that of the scribes and the Pharisees, not just Christ's perfect righteousness received by faith, but it's the true righteousness and obedience towards God's law that God had intended from the beginning.
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So, murder, listen, this is important, was against God's law in the
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Old Testament, actually, with a knife in your brother, and potentially, from the heart.
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It was both ways in the Old Testament. But these people, these religious people in Jesus' time, and of course before that, had so put a lawyer finesse on the law of God, they would say, well,
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I haven't actually committed murder. And Jesus shows, actually, you have committed murder because you hate your brother from your heart, you're angry with your brother from your heart, and you cast them out as human garbage.
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You're guilty of murder. And then Jesus goes, and he shows what the
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Old Testament intended, and the Old Testament adultery was against God's law, amen?
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But not just actually, it was also from the heart. God in the
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Old Testament wasn't saying, look, have all the adulterous affairs in your heart and mind you please, just don't actualize it.
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That's fallacious. We know that's not God's intention, so what does God do? He takes on flesh, he walks among us and touches people, and he says this, ready?
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Verse 27, you have heard that it was said, you should not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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Jesus quotes there from Exodus 20, 14, Deuteronomy 5, verse 18.
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It's important to note here that adultery in this specific text, sexual immorality is spoken of, fornication, adultery, this text specifically, adultery is in the context of a planned liaison with another person's spouse.
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It's not simply, and this is really important to grasp, a lot of people get concerned here, so, because they get sort of hyper piety, well,
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Jesus says it's adultery if it begins in your heart, so if I see anybody that's remotely attractive and I actually acknowledge that attractiveness, then that's adultery in the heart.
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Well, that's not true. You could actually, in a righteous kind of way, see a beautiful creation by God, something that God creates that's actually pretty awesome, and you could say, good job,
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God, and then move on. Yay, God, awesome.
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It's when that person is walking down the road or walking past you, and you begin to actually prepare and concoct a plan in your heart for an actual adulterous relationship, and the actual text here goes more towards a person planning an adulterous relationship within them.
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So, I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in the heart.
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Now, I gotta stress this once again. Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four, moving on. You are to love the
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Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Obedience was always intended to be from the heart.
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However, in the Old Testament, God had actually, we need to talk about it, it's important to do this,
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God had actually said that there are specific rules of justice in the world for particular crimes, for particular sins.
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Not all sins were crimes. Everyone get that? Not every sin was a crime.
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There were particular sins in Israel. God said that's a sin, but he didn't call it a crime. For example, any kind of using drugs and alcohol in the
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Old Testament for the purposes of drunkenness, for the purposes of pharmakia, for to get into an altered state of consciousness to sort of connect to another
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God, any kind of activity like that was considered sin. However, God never penalized anybody for drunkenness judicially, because that issue was an issue of the heart that he did not say to handle judicially in the
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Old Testament. However, there were sins in the Old Testament that were punished judicially.
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Sin, listen, adultery was sin in the heart in the Old Testament. Everyone see that?
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It was the same. God was concerned with lust in the Old Testament as well. But did God have you brought up on charges for thought crimes like adultery in the
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Old Testament? No. Everybody would have been dead. Amen?
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Hallelujah. Okay, that's the truth. That's the truth of God. Everybody been dead. But God did say in the
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Old Testament, Leviticus 20 verse 10, that if adultery had been committed, that it was the role of God's servant,
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God's deacon in Romans 13, the civil magistrate, the judiciary, it was the role of the civil magistrate to give out as justice the death penalty for that crime.
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Now let that hang there for a second. You gotta let that hang. Because I wanna say this, we as Christians today in the 21st century, modern evangelicals, we look at God's law in the
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Old Testament. We look at the justice system in the Old Testament of what God said was actually just to do. And what do we do?
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We mock God. We say, God, he was really harsh. That seems like that was an inappropriate penalty for God to give.
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And you compare the two. Our modern society that is so flippant about divorce, so flippant about marriage, as though we're not a very special thing, we can make it whatever we want.
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We can call circles squares. We can abolish it. We can destroy it. It's not really meaningful.
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You look at our society where all these marriages end in divorce. You have adulterous relationships, affairs, over and over and over with no penalties from the judicial system.
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You have all these kids today in our orphanages by the tens of thousands because they were in broken homes.
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You see the system today, so broken judicially. And you compare what we have today and how we treat the family and those who break covenant in the family.
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And you look at the Old Testament times where God actually said about the family, it is so special.
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It is such a gift. It is so unique. It is so powerful. It is so essential. It is such a blueprint that if you actually violate it and try to destroy the family by breaking covenant, it's worthy of the actual death penalty.
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You look in the Old Testament, there is absolutely no death penalty for treason against the state.
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None. But you see today, oftentimes we'll see somebody, oh, that was a spy or this person was that.
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That was treason against the state. That's worthy of the death penalty. There is no death penalty in the Old Testament for that sort of a thing.
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What does God do? He sees the family is so special, so foundational, so important. He says this, if somebody actually violates covenant in that way, it is actually worthy of the death penalty.
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You might ask the question, how's God feel about it today? Well, let me just unpack this with the scriptures.
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It's very important to do. It's vitally important to do to understand this subject because there's no way we can talk, brothers and sisters, in a meaningful way, about God saying you should not commit adultery without actually going to the text themselves to say what does
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God say about it. Leviticus 20, verse 10, again, God says that it was the judicial system's role,
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God's servant's role, to actually say that that was the just penalty for that crime. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 13, go there.
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In Romans chapter 13, the Apostle Paul does say that the role of the civil government is to give out justice.
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Go there quickly. Romans 13, every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.
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Therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.
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Now, real quickly, think here for a moment. This is important to do when you read the Bible, right? What do you think about? You think about author, you think about context, you think about audience, you think about biblical context, right?
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Now this, watch. The Apostle Paul is writing this letter to the church in Rome, a church that he didn't necessarily have anything to do with, but he'd heard about.
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Their faith, he says in Romans one, was being proclaimed throughout the entire world, right? But he writes this letter to people that he hasn't actually officially really met yet and he tells them post -cross, post -resurrection, post -ascension.
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In other words, Jesus is done and he is seated now as ruling king. Amen? He tells them then that this today, with Jesus on his throne, is the current role of the civil government.
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Listen. Verse three. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.
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Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same. For it is a minister of God to you for good.
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That's the role of the civil government. What is it? To be a minister of God to you for good.
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But if you do what is evil, be afraid. For it does not bear the sword for nothing.
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For it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
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Okay, so just quickly. What is the civil government's role according to God post -cross, post -resurrection, post -ascension?
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God's, ready, here's the word, deacon. We've got deacons here, right? What do they do here?
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What do they do? They serve you. They serve you. They make sure you have your needs taken care of.
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They serve you. They're your servants. That's what it means. So the civil government in Romans 13 is
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God's servant, God's deacon meant to give out what? Justice. To punish evildoers.
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It's not really for the people who obey, is it? It's for the evildoers. And under the new covenant,
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Paul says in Romans 13 that today, currently, the civil government is God's deacon.
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That's their official role. Now pause for a second. Because if you think about it, that sounds kind of wacky.
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Do we really think that in the first century, Paul was describing Rome really well?
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Like the Roman system was actually doing really good as God's servant. I seem to remember them actually punishing
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Christians, crucifying them, cutting their heads off. Were they acting like God's deacon there?
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No. Does that mean you need to obey every government, no matter what they say, no matter what wicked and righteous decrees they give?
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No, that's the stated role of the government. Now you might be asking, why are we bringing this up? Because I would need to bring you into the context that Jesus is speaking into.
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You should not commit adultery. Well, what if they did? Leviticus 20 verse 10 says that the civil system had the responsibility to give out that as justice.
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But brothers and sisters, you might be asking, under the new covenant, is
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God concerned with the family so much? Does he see adultery in the temporal sense as an actual crime?
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I wanna say God's standards are based upon his own character and God does not change.
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Does that mean, brother, wait, pause. Does that mean that there is no forgiveness, no mercy, no redemption for those who are adulterers?
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Absolutely not. God is a God of mercy and we need to recognize the difference between salvation and the church's call and the role of the government in justice in the world.
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Amen, do you see the difference? There's the church and our call of the gospel for salvation and forgiveness and the washing away of all sins and then there's the role over here of the government that sees these things as actual crimes.
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Now, you might be saying, okay, now how do we move from there into the rest of the sermon? Well, here we go.
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Paul, in Acts chapter 25 verse 11, go there, I want you to see this. In Acts chapter 25 verse 11, the apostle
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Paul is now being brought up on charges. Now watch this,
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I'm gonna bring you from in verse 25, let's start in verse eight. No, verse seven, watch this.
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By the way, I'm reading out of the NASB. Forgive me, I have been changing. Jermaine mentioned to me,
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I don't know what in the world you're doing because you're like ESB. I will either be in the ESB, the
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NASB, or the HCSB. It's your job to catch me, okay? Okay, those three are awesome translations.
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The NIV makes excellent kindling. And the message is no message from God.
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And so yeah, okay, I'm sure we're gonna clear out the room in just a moment here, but verse seven.
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After Paul arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many in serious charges against him, which they could not prove.
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While Paul said on his own defense, I have committed no offense either against the law of the
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Jews or against the temple or against Caesar. What's the context? I have not violated the law of the
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Jews, which is what? The law of God. Verse nine. But Festus, wishing to do the
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Jews a favor, answered Paul and said, are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial before men on these charges?
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But Paul said, I'm standing before Caesar's tribunal where I ought to be tried. I've done no wrong to the
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Jews as you also very well know. Now watch this, here we go, verse 11. Listen, this is important, this is big time.
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This is one of those big verses like wow, I didn't even see that, that changes everything. This is the Apostle Paul standing at trial.
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This is a judicial scene. You already know how Paul feels about the judiciary. What does he feel about their role?
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Their role is God's servant to deal what? Justice. And now the
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Apostle Paul is standing before this trial now and what does he say post -cross, post -resurrection, post -ascension?
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That's where he's at in time, watch. He says, if then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death,
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I do not refuse to die. But if none of these things are true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them,
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I appeal to Caesar. Now watch, bring you into this real fast. Why am I bringing this up? You know the
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Apostle Paul's feeling towards you should not commit adultery? You know the Apostle Paul's feeling about the civil government?
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And in this text, standing before trial, what's he say? He doesn't say, guys,
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Jesus died and rose again. You can't give me the death penalty. Jesus has abolished all that stuff.
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He actually says this, after the resurrection, after Jesus has saved him from his sins, he says this, if I violated
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God's law and I've done anything worthy of death, then I don't object to dying.
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Think about it for a second. Oftentimes, Christians go to the law of God and they say today,
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God is no longer concerned with justice. God is no, again, no, we're redeemed in Jesus. He doesn't care about those.
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But the Apostle Paul, the man who wrote the most of the New Testament, actually says under trial, if I violated
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God's law and I actually am worthy of the death penalty, then I don't object to dying.
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That's New Covenant. As, listen, a saved person. As a redeemed person under the blood of Christ, raised up, forgiven, no more guilt before God, he sees the difference between the two worlds.
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I'm a redeemed Christian before God, washed all my sins, raised up in Jesus, counted righteous.
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However, there's another role over here, your role, the judicial system. If I violated
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God's law, I don't object to dying. Do you see God? In relation to both relationships.
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Now watch this, because you might be saying this. I'm an adulterer. You might be saying that right now.
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So is God out to get me? Is he merciless? Is he only concerned with justice?
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And brothers and sisters, I will tell you this. Yeah, God is very concerned with justice. And if you've turned from sin to trust in Jesus, every ounce of that justice was absorbed into Jesus, the full wrath and penalty of God given for those sins was exhausted in Jesus on your behalf.
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If you are an adulterer and you're looking at one, you are washed, you are forgiven, you are redeemed.
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Somebody might say, oh, that's so harsh, Pastor Jeff. You seem to have such a very rigid view of the law of God.
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I think I have a very biblical view of the law of God. It's in the text. But if somebody says, but that just seems so harsh and so big, and that doesn't seem merciful and loving, brothers and sisters,
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I'm preaching this sermon as an adulterer, but my being an adulterer in my past experience cannot alter the words of the living
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God. I cannot say because I am an adulterer in my past that because of that,
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I need to manipulate and destroy the text of God's word in an attempt to soften the blow.
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God's word is holy, his standards perfect and good. Now watch, not only is there complete washing and forgiveness and mercy because of Jesus and God saying,
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I'll remember your sins no more, I will never count them against you, I will count righteousness,
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Christ's righteousness for you by faith, and it's by grace, and it's a gift. Not only does
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God say that, but God, guess what, in his law, has a much better system. You know why?
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Because you already know this. Although God's law said, you violate the family, break covenant, and destroy the home, it's worthy of the death penalty,
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God always left it up to the victim to give mercy, to give forgiveness.
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Isn't it amazing? God's law, awesome. It's, ready? Here, compare
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God's law to the legislation made in the United States last week. You can't fit
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Obamacare into this room, and God's law affords no mercy.
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I'm sorry, God's law does afford mercy, man's law affords really no mercy. In man's law, if you commit a crime and the state gets involved, now the state's the victim, and they determine whether to give mercy or not.
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In God's law, if you violate me, I have the choice, I have the option to say, you're free to go.
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Proof? Matthew 118, go there quickly. Matthew 118.
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Didn't know we were gonna be in the Christmas text, did ya? Matthew 118, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows, when his mother
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Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, which was essentially a married contract, they were in covenant together, it was considered marriage, legally.
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Before they had come together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. Joseph knows how this happens.
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And so, Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, had planned to send her away secretly.
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Now pause for a second. Under God's law, if Mary had been in an adulterous relationship with somebody else, what was technically the law of God concerning that situation?
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What could Joseph had done? He knew it. He knew it.
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And he didn't say, God, your law is bad, it's wrong, I don't wanna do it. No, all he did was he said, mercy.
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I wanna give her mercy, I'm gonna put her away secretly to not disgrace her. It's my choice.
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It's my choice to determine whether or not I'm actually gonna enforce this contract and I'm gonna bring about sanctions.
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And so what does he do? Joseph wants to give mercy and he says, I'm gonna put her away privately and then the angel comes and says, no, no, no, no, no.
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You don't need to do that. That which is found in her is from the Holy Spirit. Do you see? See the context now?
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God's law has standards for adultery. God's law has mercy. God's law is perfect.
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There is mercy in the law of God. You might be asking the question, what about the woman caught in adultery? Doesn't Jesus there with the woman caught in adultery demonstrate that the law of God is not a concern of Jesus because he simply lets her go?
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I wanna say, stay tuned, come back next week and we'll talk about the account of the adulterous woman.
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Jesus was not subverting the law of God in that text as many people say. But let's go to the heart of the matter, shall we?
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Matthew chapter five, let's get to the meat of this now, brothers and sisters. But I say to you, verse 28, that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
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Jesus says now, look, you guys think that you've gotten away with this. These religious leaders were saying, well,
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I haven't committed adultery because even though I've put my wife away and I'm sleeping with another woman now and I'm in another relationship,
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I gave her a certificate of divorce and so I haven't actually committed adultery. So they had finessed the law on that point, you're gonna see in a moment.
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But they had also thought that they could harbor all this lust, all of this imagination in their hearts and they could get away with it before God.
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And Jesus is saying, God knows what's in your hearts. He knows your imagination.
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He knows what's happening inside you. And if you've done this in your heart, then you're guilty before God as an adulterer.
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You need Christ. Jesus called people to come to him for life, for freedom from their sins.
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And Jesus tells them it starts within you. The heart in Jewish thought was the seat of the passions.
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So it's interesting, just quickly, you guys know this story, right? Where you have the Pharisee and the tax collector, right?
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And you have the Pharisee that is bragging before God, oh God, you know, I pray, I tithe of all that I get,
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I fast, and he says, God, I'm not like other people, I'm not like the adulterer, this unjust tax collector.
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And what is the tax collector doing? He won't even look up to, well, what does he do? He actually starts doing what?
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He starts pounding his chest, beating his chest. What's he doing? It's like he's trying to tear out the very place that all this starts, the place where all this has its origin.
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It's like he's trying to rip it out of his own body. And Jesus is saying, if you've looked with somebody with the intention to commit an adulterous relationship with them, if you've done this within your heart, then you've already committed adultery in your heart.
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It's where it all starts. So how does this look for us today? There's so much to say here.
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This is where we get to the meat of it, guys. This is where we need to start addressing, handling our idols. I mean, this is every single one of us.
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Every single one of us. How do men generally get wrapped up in this?
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Let's talk about guys for a second. Many men today in church are addicted to pornography.
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You know you are. It's a secret that you keep. It's accessible at all times.
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It's on your cell phones. It's on your iPads. It's on your computers. You've figured out ways to hide it from your wife.
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You've protected yourself. You've learned how to secretly get to it without anybody finding out about it.
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We oftentimes, as men, start very early on with an addiction to pornography. We found our parents' stash.
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We went somewhere. We saw something, and so it began very early. As young as four years old, five years old, six years old, this begins.
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It becomes an addiction, a secret addiction that leads to a host of other addictions early on.
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Men generally, and this is how they sell it, men generally get addicted and lost by mere observation, appearance.
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There's nothing going on inside. It's just the appearance, and that's why it sells so well.
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You got hamburger commercials with half -naked women. Why, because it makes you want to eat hamburgers?
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No, because that sells, and men generally, it's at the very beginning of the fall, and I might be reading a little bit into this, but I think it's pretty good observation.
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When Eve was there debating with the devil, there was a lot of internal dialogue going on.
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She's trying to reason through it, and the devil is actually trying to deceive her. See, women are generally trying to think through it, trying to figure it out, trying to capture all the different emotions and figure the whole thing out.
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They're reasoning. Adam's there, and he goes, looks good to eat. Again, I might be reading a lot into that, but I think that kind of shows the complicated nature of the way that men and women think.
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Men go, looks good, I'll take it. Women are trying to figure out, how does this benefit me, and really, is something being kept from me, and there's sort of deception, and so she reasons in that way.
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But men say, looks good, I'll take it. And our lust is very much like that.
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As men, we see, and then we begin to obsess, and we hide, and we receive, and we dwell, and we worship.
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It is idolatry. It is false worship. It is taking this thing that God has made so beautiful, it is perverting it, and it's taking the ugliness and the beastness of it, the animalness of it, the darkness of it, and it's turning it into God.
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It's going to it for joy, it's going to it for pleasure, it's going to it for delight, and it's false.
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It's a lie, it's a lie. All it is is a lie that takes everything from you.
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It does not give you joy. There is no true happiness in that. It is pure idolatry.
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It's a facade. It's just a lie. Women, on the other hand, generally get into these lustful thoughts in a different way, don't you?
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How do they sell this to, how do they sell lust to women? It's in a much different way.
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For men, you just have to give them a picture. For the woman, how do women get into adulterous relationships in their hearts?
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Well, generally, there's not always simply the imagery for women. Not a lot of women are necessarily buying in to play girl, right?
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It wasn't like a hot thing, really big and amazing. However, the industry of the novels is something different.
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It's something more in the imagination. How do men, every woman I've ever counseled that fell into an adulterous relationship and affair, every single one, every single one, got into that adulterous relationship?
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Because some man knew the way to get into her mind and heart was to be the one that was caring.
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He wanted to get to know her. He was the one that wanted to talk to her. She was married to her husband, and her husband ignored her when he came home.
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He didn't spend time with her. He didn't talk to her. He didn't touch her. He didn't make her feel special. He never wanted to actually have a conversation.
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But this guy at work, it started with a little touch. He walked past her. He put his hand on her shoulder.
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How are you doing? Is everything okay? And then he found his way into her heart by pouring into her, asking her, how are you feeling?
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And oh, I can't imagine he would treat you that way. Oh, I would never do that to you myself. Yeah, you're worthy of so much more, and that's exactly how women fall into an adulterous relationship and affair.
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For men, it's just the imagery. For men, it's just the lust. It's just the physical nature and the touch. Many times, there's obviously more complicated relationships and there's more ways you can fall into sin, but that's generally the way men fall into it, and women, in an entirely different way, fall into it because many times, they're seduced.
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Why do I bring that up? Because if Jesus says, look, children, those that I've redeemed, lust begins in your heart, then we need to ask the question, how do
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I get to the root cause of where this lust begins? Because Jesus says what? If your eye causes you to stumble, he says to pluck it out and throw it from you.
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If your hand causes you to stumble, he says cut it and throw it from you. So we know the Lord Jesus tells us, in order to deal with sin like this, you have to go to the very foundation of it, the root of it, you have to terrorize it.
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You have to cut it out and throw it from you. Now, I almost feel bad about having to say this, but I do. This is like one of those little legal disclaimers at the end of a car commercial, the little fast disclaimer, like, don't, like, you know, the end of medicine commercials, like, this is for your heart, and then you find out, like, your leg will fall off, and you'll have, like, teeth rot, and your ears fall off, and you'll have, like, you know, it's just like, wow, this is a disclaimer, ready?
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Jesus is not saying to literally pluck your eyeball out and to throw it.
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He is not telling you to literally cut your hand off and throw it. Why do I mention it?
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Because I actually know of instances where people did that. Showed up at the hospital with their eye removed because they looked at Jesus, and they said, oh,
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I can't stop lusting, so I'm gonna tear out my eye. Brothers and sisters, you can cut off every inch of your body and never go to the heart of your sin.
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You cut your eye out all you want, you're never gonna get to the root cause of your sin. You cut your hand off all you want, you're not gonna stop grasping for sin.
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The problem is much deeper, and you see what Jesus is saying here. It's better for you to lose that thing than for you to be cast into Gehenna, for you to be separated from God forever.
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You find the root cause of it, and you get it as far from you as possible. Jesus is saying this, hang on, please.
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He is saying, if you will not fight lust, if you succumb to it, if you embrace it, and you live now with it in your heart as a present experience and as something you dwell and you live in,
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He is saying, if you will not pluck and throw and cut and throw, if that's your life, you live in it, He says, then your destiny is
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Gehenna, the fire. If you refuse Jesus' teaching here to live in such a way that you remove these things from you, then you will end up in that place.
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Does that mean that Christians can't struggle with these things?
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It means that Christians will, in fact, struggle with these things. Note the word struggle, struggle with these things.
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So let's talk about it. We know, and go ahead and go to the text real fast.
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I want you just to have it before you. Colossians chapter three, Colossians chapter three.
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Colossians chapter three, the Apostle Paul does something here. Watch this, this is where we start talking about the health and healing and life and freedom, okay?
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In Colossians chapter three, after he disses the world's attempts to curb self -indulgence by things like don't touch, don't go here, don't do this, the world is all concerned with externals.
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He says that has no ability, Colossians two, to curb self -indulgence. The problem is much deeper, and the
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Apostle Paul says in Colossians three, therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
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Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Here we go, what does he say?
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The foundation, brothers and sisters, of any of us and any of our change is our union with Jesus.
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Now watch, take that in, because that is awesome. If you're like me and you stink at this, if you're like me and you find yourself as weak and often not any good, and you find yourself with weak knees, no ability to stand, and you find yourself stumbling, here's the joy here, is that it says you have been raised up with Jesus.
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You are seated with him. The apostle Paul puts the foundation of your change and my change in a single place, union with Jesus.
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You know what that means? That your transformation and mine is never based upon your performance, your power, your discipline.
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It is based squarely upon the work of God and Jesus, which means that you will be changed because, ready, you're alive.
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And you're in Jesus. How will you ever get free from sexual immorality and lust and theft and selfishness?
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How? You're united to Christ. You're in Jesus, you're forgiven, and you're raised up and you're alive.
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That old self is dead, and so Paul says here, therefore, verse five, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
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See what he did there? He says this, you've been raised up with Jesus, so now consider yourself as dead and alive, and he says this, put to death, kill sexual immorality, which is idolatry.
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So this is the apostle Paul's version of Jesus' pluck and throw.
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Jesus says if your eye causes you to stumble, causes you to sin, he says you pluck it and you throw it from you.
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Notice that Jesus doesn't say if your eye causes you to sin, rub it, right?
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If your hand causes you to sin, use a butter knife, which is the premier example of typical
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Christian repentance, right? You ever see somebody saying, I can't get free from this, I can't get free from this?
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Like people say that they see the cigarette in their hands, it's not always idolatry,
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I'm gonna go ahead and say that, maybe that'll freak some of you guys out, but if they see the person that's smoking three packs a day and they can't get rid of it, and they're there with a cigarette in their hand, like man,
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I've tried to repent of this so many times, right? And they're just thinking,
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I can't get free of it, and you see there's a pack of cigarettes in their back pocket right there? And they're like,
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I don't know what it is, it's just got me, it's in my life, I can't get rid of it, it's just right there. That's plucking your eye and putting it in your pocket, right?
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You're saying, I'm gonna keep it for later, right? That's what we do, we scratch our eyeballs, we butter knife our wrists, and we go, oh, woe is me,
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God, I feel bad. I'll tell you an example, when I was using drugs many, many years ago, I got to a place where I was like,
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I feel really bad about this, I shouldn't do it, I had a bad night, somebody had given me ecstasy, it was a guy
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I didn't really know, and it was ecstasy that was called Superman. And I, it was a lie,
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I did not feel like Superman. And so, it was a lie.
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And so the next day I felt really bad, mostly physically, and so I had sort of this false repentance moment,
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I remember like it was yesterday, I was in my apartment, Candy was away with Sage, she was my only child at the time, she was away in Kentucky, and I remember
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I was like, I'm gonna hand this over to God, I'm done, I had this whole bag left of Superman right there in my hand,
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I'm done, I'm never gonna do this again, oh, like I had a headache, and I'm like, oh, this feels so bad, and I'm done,
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I'm gonna give this over to God, I'm done. I walked over into my bedroom, and I opened my closet, and I put it in my shoe,
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I said, I'm done. And I was right back at it, that night, using again.
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Why, that's false repentance, that's not plucking and throwing, that's not cutting and throwing. And somebody might say this, when
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Jesus says, you pluck and you throw, you cut and you throw, they might say, but Pastor Jeff, if I do that with those things, it's gonna be so hard, it's gonna be so painful, and that's the point.
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Jesus doesn't tell you some other route of getting rid of the source of your sin, because He knows it's gonna be painful for you to get around this thing that you've called
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God. He knows that it's gonna cut and hurt and wound, you're gonna be sore.
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You tell a person who's addicted to drugs and alcohol, get it all out of your life, get to a place where there's accountability, and there's people around you, and you're guarded, and what's the thing that they're thinking?
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It's gonna hurt, it's gonna hurt. I don't wanna do that, because it'll hurt. Isn't there an easier way?
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Jesus says, it hurts when you find the root cause of your sin, and you cast it from you.
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It's supposed to be painful. And Jesus says, cut and throw. The apostle Paul says this, ready?
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Put it to death. Sexual morality, evil passions, mortify it, kill it.
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And we don't handle our sin, our lust in that way, brothers and sisters. Jesus says, do not commit adultery.
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If you've done it in your heart, you're an adulterer. So how do you deal with it? Pluck and throw, cut and throw.
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And we don't wanna put it to death. We don't want to cut and throw. We wanna rub, we wanna rub that butter knife, and we wanna not put it to death, we like to slap it.
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We don't treat our sin like the enemy that it really is. Sin never comes to you,
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J .C. Ryle said in his book, Holiness, in its truest colors. I am your mortal enemy, and I wanna destroy you in hell forever,
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J .C. Ryle says. He says, no, no, no, he says, sin comes to you like Judas with a kiss, like Joab with an outstretched hand.
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Sin never presents itself to you in its truest colors. And we never treat our lust like the enemy of our souls that it truly is.
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We never do it. We treat it like our good friend, like a pet, like something that's not so bad.
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We don't treat our sin like the enemy trying to destroy us, our homes, our kids, our wives.
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So if somebody broke into your home at two in the morning, you hear the window crash and you hear the boots on the ground.
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You hear the stomping coming running down your hallway. You're in bed, either alone or maybe with your spouse, your kids are in the room next door, and you hear the boots hitting your floor two in the morning, running.
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How do you handle the enemy about to destroy everything you love? Well, if we were to put it in terms of how we generally repent and deal with our enemy,
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I think most of us jump up, and when the enemy comes to the door, we jump and we tackle their ankles.
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We start punching at their kneecaps, pulling their beard, right?
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Start trying to poke eyes. No, think about it in reality. Men, if you heard that enemy breaking into your home, it happened to me last night.
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How awesome is this? No one broke in, okay? My stupid little, what is it?
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Poodle, okay? At like three in the morning, I hear, grrr, and the kids are gone.
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They're in Flagstaff throwing up. I'm in bed with Candy and Stellar, which means
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I'm at the edge of the bed, and Stellar is in the whole bed, okay? And I hear, grrr.
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I jumped up, I squashed Candy. And she goes, grrr, right?
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I used her as a human trampoline, flew off the bed, grabbed my gun, and ran down the hallway.
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You know why? Because if it was truly an enemy in my house, they were just going to die.
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Because that's how you handle enemies who come to destroy you.
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You kill them in that scenario. But we don't treat our sin in that way.
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We welcome the enemy into our home. We welcome the lust. We let it take up a roost in our house and to sit there, and we never try to destroy.
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And that's what Paul says. How do you deal with it? He says, kill it, put it to death. Put the sexual immorality to death.
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You have to kill it. Find the root cause, Jesus says. Pluck and throw. And I want to say this.
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Whatever you're dealing with, you must pluck and throw. But specifically in the area of lust, brothers and sisters, you must pluck and throw and put it to death.
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You have to. Which means there has to be confession of sin. Confession.
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Bible says, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. That you do in community with each other, which means this.
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You should never fight this beast, this enemy called lust on your own. Part of what makes it so strong and such a great enemy is that you're trying to fight it by yourself.
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You're not finding the root cause of it and casting it from you and actually being in community with other believers to help you in this fight against lust.
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However many failures, yes, you can get free in Jesus. If you're alive from the dead in Christ, no matter how many failures,
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God will not end with you until he's finished making you like Jesus. It says, he that began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
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God is not finished with you, no matter how many failures in your lust, God can free you.
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But he tells you, you must put it to death. You must pluck and throw. Which means that you have to find the root cause and put it from you, which means this.
01:02:34
If the lust in your heart is as a result of an inappropriate relationship, how do you deal with that?
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If it's been something you know, you've been in work and there's been a little relationship between you and a coworker, you know it's there, they know it's there, and it's been something that hasn't gone anywhere, but it's been little things, piece by piece, and you both really know, here's what you do, you end it now.
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You end it immediately. You call that person, send something, and you say, don't ever speak to me again.
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You don't talk to me, you don't look at me, you end that relationship immediately. If it's a lust problem you have on the internet, then you end that relationship tomorrow.
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What does it mean? All of your pastors, all of your leadership at Apology at Church, anybody that's in leadership at this church, every one of their devices is monitored.
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All of us. My wife sees everything I look at on my phone and my computers, all my devices, and so does
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Pastor Luke. Everybody in leadership in this church has accountability software on all their devices so that we're free.
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Did you hear me? We're free. Think about this for a second. You just choked it.
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You just ended it when you bring in accountability. Watch, think for a moment about this.
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Let's say, for example, you struggled with pornography. You struggled with lust in that way, okay?
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And then you and I are hanging out. We're at your house, we're hanging out, we're talking.
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Can I ask you a question? Is there any point when we're hanging out together you think you'll go, hey,
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Pastor Jeff, hang on a second, I wanna do something. Are you gonna struggle then in that way?
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Will it even cross your mind? Why? There's freedom in the body of Christ when there's accountability.
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You know what? You're free. People think today that they're free when they can do whatever they please, but in reality, you're actually free when you're a slave of Jesus and not of your sin.
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So what's one of the ways today God has given us a great gift for accountability? Accountability software.
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You can get accountability software like Covenant Eyes. Tonight, put it on every device you have.
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The church, Apologia Church, will pay for your monthly service for your accountability software.
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All you need to do is ask. We'll pay for the accountability software of everybody in this church if necessary.
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If that's what we have to do to put this to death in our own community, then that's what we'll do. You have to find out the root cause, choke it, kill it.
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You have to come out and ask for help and confess, and know this, nobody in this room is gonna condemn you because you struggle with lust.
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And you say, I'm struggling with lust, I need help. All we're gonna say is we love you, we're here for you, we're gonna support you, we're gonna be here for you.
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The only condemnation there is is when you embrace your sin and I embrace my sin and we love it and we live in it.
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That's where the condemnation is, not in the confession. It's in the embracing, amen? There's nothing but freedom in this community.
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If you struggle with lust, you need to say, I'm struggling, I need help. We're gonna say, praise God. That's the work of the
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Holy Spirit in your life. There's no condemnation. We're all a mess, we're all a hot mess, we're all a bunch of rebels, join the club.
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If somebody says, I feel bad, I'm struggling with lust and they need to confess that, we're like, hey, me too.
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Hey, yeah, you sound like me. Let's do this together. Confess your sins to one another, pray for one another so that you might be healed.
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Find the root cause, get accountability, put it to death. If it's a relationship, end it.
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If you struggle with lust in some way and it has something to do with what you drive by, then you need to have accountability so that you never drive by that place again because if you drive by it, if you play with it, then you are going to engage in it.
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It's like, watch this, it's like the Christian young couple, don't you love it? I've heard it so many times, it's amazing.
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The Christian couple, they're like 18 or 19 years old and they're like, we love Jesus, we're sold out for Jesus and we're gonna stay pure till marriage and you're like, praise
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God, praise God. And then you find out that like every night they go to watch a late night movie together at midnight at each other's house and they're like, we're gonna stay pure for Jesus.
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No, some of you guys are laughing because you know exactly what I'm talking about. Amen, amen, that's how babies are made, amen?
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We know. If you put yourself in a position where you're playing with your lust, the
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Bible says, can someone put fire into their bosom and not be burned by it? It's obvious, right?
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If you grab fire and you put it into your chest, right? How's it gonna feel?
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You're like, oh, I'm fine. I'm fine, all is well. Lust will destroy you and overcome you.
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How do you end it? Pluck and throw. So this is something you need to work on before you and God in this very moment.
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You can't walk away later and start working on it. You need to deal with it now before God. Confess, repent, rejoice, and you actually start putting to death.
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What's it gonna look like for you? Is it a relationship? Is it your phone? What is it? What is it, is it your computer?
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Somebody says, but I need my computer. If your computer is sending you to hell because of what you do with it, then maybe you ought not to have that for now or do it with accountability because would you rather enter into eternity without your computer or would you like you and your computer to be cast into Gehenna?
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See what I did there? It makes sense for you to find the root cause and to kill it.
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Can I say one last thing? You okay with that? Okay. Last thing.
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If the Bible calls it idolatry, and it does. If the Bible tells us to put it to death, and it does, we need to ask this question.
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Practically speaking, what has to happen in my heart when I'm faced with the opportunity to engage in false worship?
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And to see this, I want you to go quickly to Daniel chapter three, just so you have a reference point of where to go.
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Daniel chapter three, just go there quickly. Old Testament, it's a smaller prophet book. And the text here in Daniel three, we're not gonna read the whole thing, just go to it later.
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This is the famous story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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Who knows what I'm talking about? Yay, VeggieTales. The series that destroyed the biblical text forever.
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Now I can never even read these names without hearing them in that way. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego can never be heard the same way.
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Okay, so in history,
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego actually were confronted with King Nebuchadnezzar, who built up a false idol, a false god of himself, for everybody to bow down and worship.
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Now watch, if somebody says that is so out there and so obscene, that can't be true.
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First of all, it is true, and it happened often in history. Emperors, I say the emperor cult in the first century.
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Caligula and Nero were big on the worship of the emperor. They demanded worship.
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You had to worship the emperor. You could worship the emperor. Nebuchadnezzar did the same thing. He thought he had all power.
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He creates an idol for himself, and here was the thing. When the herald goes out and they hear, verse five, the horn, the flute, the lyre, the trigon, the psaltery, the bagpipe, and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar, the king, has set up.
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Verse six, but whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire.
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So when they heard all this music, da -da -da -da -da -da, and all the other kinds of music, they were supposed to bow towards the idol.
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Now Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would not bow at the penalty of death.
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They knew, and they wouldn't bow. And so the word gets out, they will not worship.
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In verse eight, for this reason, at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward and brought charges against the
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Jews. They responded and said to Nebuchadnezzar, the king, O king, live forever. You, O king, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, and bagpipe, and all kinds of music is to fall down and worship the golden image, but whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire.
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There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon, namely
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, have disregarded you. They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.
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Then Nebuchadnezzar, in rage and anger, gave orders to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then these men were brought before the king.
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Now here's the scene. Think for a moment. This is important. We always like make it this mystical thing, scriptures, right?
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Read like a story, like a narrative, and it's like mystical. You forget that they're real people, blood and bone, flesh and fears and families and love and hunger and tears that can feel pain.
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We often like take them out of the realm of reality, right? Here are people now that are probably terrifying.
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They're brought before a very powerful king and they know he will kill you. And we can't understand this today.
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Confess, we have to confess that if Obama brought us before himself today because of the blessing of Christianity in this nation, if the president brought us before him and he brought charges and called us names, we'd be like, we can say what we want.
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Now, we might get in trouble for that, people would dislike us, but we're not getting thrown into a fiery furnace. We're allowed to disagree.
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We can throw up our fist and no consequences. That's the blessings, by the way.
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That's that post mill. But in this case, not bowing meant death.
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They're terrified. They had to be shaking. You can almost hear their hearts beating in the text.
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Nebuchadnezzar responded and said to them, is it true Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up?
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Now, if you're ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery and bagpipe and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image that I have made very well.
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But if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire and what
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God is there who can deliver you out of my hands? And you gotta love the scene. It is awesome. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego put before the king.
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You can imagine now standing before him knowing there is certain death ahead of you and he says this. He says, I've heard that you didn't bow.
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And he says, here's what I'll do for you. Second chance. Here's what
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I'm gonna do. I'm gonna play that music again and if you bow down, you live.
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He goes, but I'll tell you what. If you don't bow down, know this. You'll immediately, immediately be cast, from this moment, immediately be cast into a furnace of blazing fire and he says this.
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Puffs his chest, he says, and what God is there who can deliver you from my hands? Now, pause for a second.
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Be honest. We're full of so much piety as Christians. We go, I know what I would've done, right?
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You see Peter walking along the water and you're like, Peter, you crazy. What are you, crazy? That was
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Jesus. You should've walked all the way. Peter, you should've kept your eyes up above your circumstances, Peter, and you should've seen
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Jesus and walked across that water. I never would've said that to Jesus. I never would've done this.
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I never would've abandoned Jesus and in this case, you look at Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and you go, I know what I would've done.
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I would've gone right into that fire. Let's be honest. I think most of us need to recognize that apart from the grace of God and his empowering, which
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I think is what happened here, I think most of us, when the king says, I'll give you a second chance, most of us would've gone, hang on.
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What do you guys think? You like a little meeting, right? Let's have a talk for a second. I've actually had people tell me more than once that under these kind of circumstances, if someone said, deny
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Jesus or die or live or whatever the circumstance,
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I've had people say, well, I think that God would forgive me so I would go ahead and bow and deny and then go home and repent and ask for forgiveness.
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I've had so many people tell that to me. When you bring up texts about Jesus saying not denying him before men, they say, well,
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I think he would just give us mercy if we did that. But in this case, they are gonna be immediately cast into the furnace of fire, all they have to do is bow.
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That's it, just bow. So watch, are you ready? What separates them from life and death?
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The difference between going home with their family and eating a meal and dying in a blazing, fiery furnace.
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Here's the difference, are you ready? This is it, is all it is. I live.
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I live. If you just do this motion, if you just would get down, if you would just do this silly thing, you could say, it's meaningless,
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I could fake it. You could say, Nebuchadnezzar, you're a nutcase. And I could fake it,
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I'll get on my knees, I'll pretend to worship, right? I'll pretend to worship. And here's the thing, they were unwilling to even do the motion of kneeling to bow before this false god.
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It was idolatry, it was false worship, they wouldn't even do the knees. And you gotta catch this too, in the first century, the first century
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Christians, all they had to say to Nero, all they had to say to Rome to be free, ready, here it is, loose your tongue, kaiser kurios, and you live.
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And they wouldn't say it, they wouldn't bow, they wouldn't give ultimate submission to that beast or to that idol, and so watch, ready?
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Last thing, bow or die? Now I love their answer, they don't go and convene, they don't actually wait, they don't talk to each other, as soon as he says, what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?
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I love it, verse 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, oh Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter.
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I love it, he goes, ready, second chance guys, second chance, they go, it's cool, it's cool.
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They were ready when they got there. They didn't get there not knowing how they would respond to the opportunity for false worship.
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They got to him with all of his threats, and he says, second chance, I'll give you a chance, and they say, we don't need to give you an answer, nothing, we already know, they say this, if it be so, our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, now watch,
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I love this, and he will deliver us out of your hand, oh king, that's in your face.
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He's this big king, I'm gonna kill you, and they say, hey, if god wants us to deliver us from the fire, then that's up to him, and he will, by the way, king, and then they say, but even if he does not, let it be known to you, oh king, that we are not going to serve your gods, or worship the golden image that you have set up.
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I don't care if I live or I die, I won't engage in false worship.
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Live or die, I worship one god, one god.
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Holiness is decided ahead of time. You don't get into a combat situation with your sin and begin trying to determine in the midst of it, do
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I want to do this or not, you've decided ahead of time, I only worship one true and living god, and I will not bow to anybody or anything else.
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Holiness is decided ahead of time. They went before this king knowing the consequences, knowing the real pain ahead of them, and they just said this, live or die,
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I will not bow to anything else. That's how believers deal with their sin, they pluck and throw, they consider themselves dead, they put it to death, they decide ahead of time.
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And I gotta ask you this question, do you see, do I see my pursuit of lust or any other idolatrous thing, do
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I see it as false worship? Why are we so quick to get to our knees before these false gods?
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Why are we so quick to engage in false worship? We say proudly,
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I think if I had a Muslim with a sword over my neck today in the Middle East, and he said, say
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Allah is God, deny Jesus, bow to Allah, I think I would say, take my head.
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If someone tried to push me down before a false god, they're gonna take my life because I'm not bowing to a false god,
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I won't get before an altar, I won't get before the wood or the stone or the stubble, I'd never do it,
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I only worship God. And somehow, in our experience with our own sin and lust, we bow with no pressure, we just fall and we worship.
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Paul says in Colossians 3 that sexual morality is idolatry. And he says that if that's it, you need to put it to death, kill it, put it to death in your life.
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It's the brothers and sisters, Jesus says there is freedom and forgiveness in him, he will give you life and freedom from your slavery, he washes your sins away, and he says here it is, you should not commit adultery, you ready?
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Starts in your heart, if you've done it there, you're guilty so how do you deal with it? He says, pluck and throw.
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And so the call is this today, to you and to me. Where is the source?
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Where is it in your life? Where is it in your life and mine? Because if you've trusted in Christ, and in his work and death and resurrection on your behalf, then you're forgiven, so why are you hiding?
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Why are you hiding? Where's the source? In your life, what's destroying you before God?
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What is it? Is it your phone? Is it your path?
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Is it your laptop? Is it in your drawer? Is it that relationship that you haven't told anybody about?
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What is it? Because whatever it is, if you're in Christ, you're redeemed and God commands you, put it to death.
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And I wanna encourage you, if you're part of this body, there is nothing but grace and forgiveness and mercy available because of Christ, and there is nothing but compassion from everybody in this community for whatever you're struggling with.
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And so I wanna encourage you, as you put it to death, come and tell somebody to help walk with you through that.
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As a church, we're committed to everybody here to do whatever it takes to help you be free in whatever way you feel enslaved, to whatever idols, because God says in Ezekiel 36,
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I will cleanse you from all your idols. And there's your power, there's your strength, there's my strength, it's not coming from you.
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So draw near to God, turn to Christ and live. And turn away from all these false gods that brothers and sisters could never satisfy you like Jesus does every single day.
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I promise you there's no sexual relationship, no time on the computer, lost in that idolatry, will ever compare in any way at all to the joy and pleasure you have in Jesus Christ.
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That's not a quip, that's not a bumper sticker, that is the honest to God truth. Jesus, the
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Bible says, in your presence is fullness of joy, in your right hand there are pleasures forever.
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Our problem is, is we've chosen bootleg pleasure and bootleg joy over the real thing all of our lives.
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Here's the call, let them go. Turn away and come to God. Let's pray.
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God, I pray that you'd bless now as we come before your throne, before we take the table. I just pray that we'd come to this table,
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Lord, with hearts that are pure before you, that we have, Lord, come to this table to receive the bread and the cup,
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Lord, as we examine ourselves and we turn away from any idolatry in our hearts and lives.
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God, I pray right now as the message went out about lust that you would convict the men and the women in this church now, the young and old, you'd challenge us even now,
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God, you'd expose us and you would even give us the strength at this very moment to ask for help, to come to you right now and to plead for joy and forgiveness and peace only through what you've done.
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But God, I pray that you'd give us the strength before we walk out those doors to ask somebody to walk through this with us.
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God, give us the strength as a community to give grace and compassion. And I pray that we come to this table whole once again.