Questions & Answers

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and pushing the issue of liberty in Christ. And do we have liberty to do everything except sin?
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The answer is yes. And we don't want to make our brothers stumble, but there's some questions that have come up that I want to explore a little bit more tonight in question and answer type of style.
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Throughout the year, if you have questions about the Bible, make sure you write them down and give me the question, and four or five times a year we'll have times like this where I'll read the question and then
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I'll give you what I think the answer is. But what I like to do on Sunday nights is ask you the question and get your input first, and then
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I'll tell you what I think, and it's the one, a few times a year where I get a little interaction and I kind of think how the congregation is thinking.
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And of course I'll do the typical politically correct, oh, that's very good insight when you say something that I don't exactly want, but I'll say, what
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I'm looking for is this. And so tonight it'll be Q &A, we'll see how far we get. We'll get back to Hosea and Ephesians probably in the fall, and so we'll just be in Romans for a while on Sunday morning, and then we'll be in questions and answers and some other issues, cleaning up liberty issues from Sunday morning.
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It's a very big topic, and it's something that's not preached much, and that's why I wanted to discuss that very thing.
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All right, any other announcements before we start tonight? If you don't have a Bible, you'll need one, because we want to talk about what does the
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Bible say about certain things. I will say, especially for the visitors that are here today, if you have certain thoughts and I teach something that's different,
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I'm not right necessarily and you're not right necessarily. The word of God is our final arbiter.
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It is the one, the word is not only sufficient, but it's right and it's authoritative and it doesn't matter what my traditions might teach.
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Matter of fact, I'll say things tonight that I probably wouldn't have said 10 years ago, but the word of God is what we bow to, right, and we submit to, including what our parents taught, what our friends teach, what our old pastors taught.
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We have to bow to God's word, and if you don't think I'm right, I know I'm not right on everything, so you better be good
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Bereans. I just don't know what I'm not right on. You know, years down the line, I change of view and I think, oh, yes,
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I teach that differently or maybe in a more mature way. So it is your job, it is your duty to study the scriptures.
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True? You need to know the scriptures, and it's my job, of course, to try to divide them rightly, but I want to try to challenge you with some things tonight, and if I'm asking the questions out loud and you hear somebody give an answer that's different than what you like, then just bear with them and let's just come to a conclusion in a loving way.
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All right, here's the first one. We might as well start and make it fairly hot in here. Tattoos.
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Now, remember, this morning we've been looking at liberty in Christ, Romans chapter 14 and 15, 35 verses on Christian liberty, what we can and cannot do.
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I'm not here to promote any kind of vice. I'm not trying to do that at all, but I want you to think through these issues.
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If I say to you, can a Christian get a tattoo, what would you say?
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If someone came to you, let's say you're a mom or a dad and your son comes, can I get a tattoo? What do you tell them?
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Certainly, if you're a parent, you can say no because you have authority in the home and they have to obey or that's sin.
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They're going against their authority, but what would you give for a Christian rationale for why you should or shouldn't get a tattoo?
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And please give me Bible verses if you can, so anyone, what would you say?
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Okay, let's go there, Leviticus 19, 28. Please turn your Bibles there and let's read that and then let's talk about it.
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That's excellent. As a matter of fact, this is the only place in the Bible that talks about what we would call, it's a
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Hebrew word, but what we would call a tattoo or an imprint or a marking. There are other places in the
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Bible, in Jeremiah, in Leviticus, and Isaiah, where there are markings that people would cut themselves and in the old days, these pagan religions and in the
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Middle East and in the East and Egypt, they would be in some kind of trance and some kind of state and they'd be worshiping their
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God and many times, it would be kind of a Bacchanalian drunken feast and they would begin to just cut themselves as they were worshiping.
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And so there's all kinds of cutting things in the Bible about, you know, even
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I'll read Jeremiah 47, 5, how long will you gash yourself? How long are you going to worship false gods and cut yourself?
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So let's read Leviticus chapter 19, verse 28, and then take a look at it a little bit.
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What I'm so pleased with is that the Bible is sufficient, it can teach us everything we need to know. Leviticus 19, 28, you shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves.
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And if you think I'm playing around, I am Yahweh. I am the covenant creating
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God of the universe, capital L -O -R -D, all caps, I am the
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Lord. Almost like an exclamation point. So you say,
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Leviticus 19, 28, that's the only place it talks about tattoos. Now if I were to say to you, but does that say to the
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Christian, we can't have a tattoo? I was hoping we wouldn't go to Leviticus so fast, but Maxine beat me to the punch.
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Oh, I said it this morning. Well, too bad. I was thinking about tonight's
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Q &A. You're honest, good. Thank you. Doug. Okay, that is a great principle for interpretation.
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Let's look at not just the verse, but the close context. In the close context, there's all kinds of other prohibitions as well.
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And look at the closest one, verse 27. And I'll look around to see anybody's hairdos to see if this is in fact the case.
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You shall not round off the side growth of your heads. No bowl cuts with phlobies, in other words.
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Matter of fact, I used to know a pastor and he'd get his haircut with a phloby. Kim knows who that is.
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It wasn't me. Pardon me? A phloby is one of those things on K -Tel and it's on Ronco that you see on, you can't buy in the store, but you can get for $19 .95
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and you hook it up to your vacuum cleaner and it sucks your hair up and out and then cuts it off.
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And so you just give yourself a haircut. It's called a phloby. I never thought in all my years of preaching I would ever be talking about a phloby from the pulpit my entire life.
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Dan's thinking I brought a guest and here we go. So what's he talking about here?
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Can you imagine? You shall not round off the side growth of your heads. Matter of fact, a decade ago, that was a very popular way to cut your hair is you'd shave it if you were a guy here, you'd let your hair grow longer there.
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He just says not to do that, nor harm the edges of your beard. No trimming your beard. You're to let that thing grow.
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And so an excellent principle when you're trying to deal with an issue like this is just does the Bible speak about it at all?
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Maxine says yes, Leviticus 19, and she's right. Doug brings a good point. Let's be careful when we see the
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Bible and is this written to us? All the Bible certainly is for us, isn't it?
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All 66 books, they're inspired by God, they're profitable, and they do everything from teach us to correct us, to rebuke us, to train us in every part of righteous living.
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But we have to ask the question, what if Jesus is saying something to the apostles? Does that mean it's necessarily said to us?
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What about when God is telling Moses to do something, does it necessarily mean something to us?
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Okay, before I keep talking, give me some more comments about this issue of tattooing. What would you tell someone about if they were going to get a tattoo?
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Is it right or wrong? And again, we're not talking about someone who's not saved and they walk into the church with a tattoo.
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I think we should welcome those people. My father's no longer alive, but if my father walked in, you would see a huge tattoo here and another tattoo here, and they were cool.
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This big, huge dragon he got in Korea, and I would just look at those tattoos on this massive guy's forearms and think, man,
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I obeyed my father, believe me. He was bigger and he had dragons on his forearm,
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I mean, come on. We're not talking about that. We better be lovers of people these days who have tattoos who aren't
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Christian, shouldn't we? So many people are getting tattoos, we better make sure our arms are wide open for those that have some kind of obvious marking on their face or their neck or somewhere else.
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I could probably go around the room and find some here that people got before they're saved, so I'm not talking about that, but what about Christians?
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Yes, Romans 12, 1 and 2 are to use our mind and we're not to be transformed by the world and the spirit of the age, to use my words.
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Is that what you would be saying? Okay. Okay, that's good.
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Let's just take a look at that. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, I see where you're going now. You'll slowly start to see that with some issues and some problems in daily living, we can't find a verse that says you should or you shouldn't, so we're going to have to construct some principles out of the
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Bible to give us wisdom, and so that's what we pretty much have to do with tattoos. I don't think you can go to a verse and say, matter of fact, if I was, we'll talk about homosexuality in just a short time, if I was a homosexual and you quoted to me
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Leviticus whatever about that's an abomination to God, I would tell you there's all kinds of other things that you probably do and you're telling me
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I can't do this one verse, and even though they're unregenerate and they're not saved, they still know that you have to be consistent, and if this law is given by God through Moses at Mount Sinai for Israel, then how can you push that on to the church or push it on to a culture?
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So Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, after 11 great chapters, he then says, live like who you are, therefore
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I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, those mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.
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It's no longer church about sacrificing animals year after year after year, you are the sacrifice, acceptable to God, certainly only through Christ, which is your spiritual service of worship.
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Negatively, don't be conformed to the world, don't be shaped by them, you all have different kind of Jell -O molds, don't be like Jell -O shaped to the conforming mold that you're in.
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And we're in the world, we're certainly, that's true, but be transformed rather by the renewing of your mind.
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So maybe we could put a case or a principle that it's our body and we should use our body for God's glory. Or what if someone said,
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I'm going to be like many of your bumper stickers, and you have a bumper sticker and your bumper sticker says,
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Jesus is the only way. When I've seen them in this parking lot, let's see, after you die, smoking or non -smoking or something like that.
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I mean, I see all kinds of different bumper stickers, John 3, 16. What if you're going to get a tattoo on your arm and it's going to say, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, and there it is,
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John 3, 16, and you're going to do tattoo witnessing. I mean, we laugh, but some of you parents with younger kids, you're going to have kids coming up to you and you're going to say, my buddies in youth group or my friends over here,
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I'd like to get a tattoo. Why or why not? Well, let's turn to another passage to help us, and why don't you turn to 1
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Peter 3. This is what I would probably do. If I had, and I do have three daughters and a son, and they were to come to me and said, should
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I, I get a tattoo, dad. The real issue with these things are motives, and the real issues are what does
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God think about the heart, and there is something on the inside that's much more beautiful than on the outside.
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And so this is probably what I would do. I couldn't find a verse. I could say, you're living in my house, thou shalt not, and you can't do that, and if you do, it's going to be sinful because you're to obey your parents in the
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Lord, and certainly this is not a command to make you sin. But I don't think we can use
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Leviticus chapter 19 very well because those things were tied with pagan practices.
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If you worshiped a false god back in those days, let's just pick a god, I mean, you could pick pity for a god if you'd like, and if you worshiped pity, you could have tattoos that would show people you were a pity worshiper.
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I mean, it sounds horrible, but all false god worship is horrible. You could get certain tattoos. People do it almost the same today.
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I mean, when I was young, and I was really stupid, and I was thinking about tattoos, I was saying to myself, oh, you know, what kind of tattoo do
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I want, and I was thinking I'd get a tattoo of the Rolling Stones tongue sign. I mean, come on.
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I'm so glad God prevented me from having that, and that's who I worshiped was the
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Rolling Stones, can you imagine? What a letdown. And so we can't really go to Leviticus.
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We could say God's given us a body, and he's created us without tattoos, and how could we defile his body, and I think that's a very good point from Karen.
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But look at how this internal beauty shines through, if you will, and this is probably the way I would approach it with principles from the
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Scripture and wisdom versus a thou shalt not, and I think we get too carried away with, oh, here it is in Leviticus, therefore you shouldn't.
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I think we have to take one more step to be intellectually and theologically accurate. And here he's describing ladies, and it would be true for a man with hidden beauty, yes, but this context here is ladies.
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And he says, but let it be the hidden person of the heart, and he's talking about ladies that have husbands that aren't obedient to God's word.
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If you want to be beautiful, here's how you act. It's in the hidden person of the heart.
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And just listen to this language, it's so, it's just pretty, it's beautiful. With the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.
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This friendliness, this real beauty is precious in the sight of God. Gentleness means just kind of docile and gentle cooperation and not insistent upon my rights and my way.
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And you imagine, here's a disobedient husband and here's a wife, and if God says through Peter if you really want to be beautiful, you don't have to be pushy and you don't have to be aggressive, you don't have to be assertive and demand your way.
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Somehow trying to coerce your husband to do what you want him to do with external means. There's spiritual ways to get things done.
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And it's on the inside, this submissive, meek, inward nature that's imperishable, isn't that a neat word?
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Free from decay. This is what counts the most, it lasts the longest. And so if you were to ask me, if my daughter were to say,
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I'd like to get a tattoo, I would say not things like Leviticus tells you you cannot, but I would try to go right for the motives and say, why would you want to do this?
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And if she said, I'm doing the John 3 .16 ministry, then I would say there are other ways to evangelize.
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There are better ways than that to evangelize. At the end of the day, if a husband said, my wife would really like me to get a tattoo on the bottom of my foot that says
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I love my wife and I've got a friend who can do it for free and it's going to be healthy and she just wants to see, you know,
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I love Kim on the bottom of my foot. I don't know why she'd put it there, but I'm just trying to think of some kind of innocuous place to put it.
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I could not, or could I, discipline them from this church. They've sinned by getting a tattoo and we are going to evoke discipline.
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It says in Leviticus 19, don't put any marks on your body. So we have to be very careful.
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I could not discipline them and I wouldn't want to discipline them. And so I'd have to be very careful even if I said, man, what a waste of money as I'm drinking my $5
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Starbucks coffee. I mean, you know, please. So the real issue of all these things are what is, and here's a good way to decide, and this is what
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I try to teach my kids too. When they're younger, you have all kinds of rules. When they get older, you keep trying to expand it out and look at motives and why don't you try the good, better, and best approach?
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Certainly it's not a sin to get a tattoo, but there are other issues. What about the money? It's a permanent decision.
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What are you trying to do? Are you trying to be cool on the outside? Are you trying to conform to your friends?
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All those kind of things. But I would probably not say, well,
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Leviticus 19 says it, therefore you can't. Okay, questions about that? Yes, Scott.
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Yeah, and really the theme, of course, the last two Sundays, and you know it if you've been here, I have tried to push your conscience up against these liberty issues so you have to not be legalistic, right?
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So I'm trying to push that. Of course you know I'm not trying to say, Ron Farrar's got the new youth group and we're going to go down to the tattoo parlor and then going to go down and buy a case of cigarettes.
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I mean, I'm not trying to do that. Of course I'm not. And make sure you're here Sunday and you'll hear from me that there are things that people do that are very unwise.
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My main point is this. When people are different and when people even do unwise things, and let me even push it farther, sinful things, we better make sure we love them because I know if I do something stupid or sinful or dumb,
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I still want to be loved by you. We are not always going to make right decisions.
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That's why the unity of the church is so important because we need to love in spite of, and that's what love does at home and in the church.
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We have differences, we're not the same, we're not all clones, and we're going to love people even though they don't look like us and act like us, don't spend our money like us, and don't do what we do, right?
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And so I don't want to get all wild about tattoos when they're just pretty much yanking something out of the
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Torah that's not even for us, and if you're covenant, then maybe you have a better leg to stand on, but even then,
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I think you have a hard time. Jonah. Well, a couple comments.
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If somebody was a brand new Christian and they said, oh, I have the liberty in Christ to get a tattoo and therefore I'm going to, one of the things
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I might tell them is, why don't you just wait a few years and see if you still have that desire because it's going to be a permanent thing unless you want to spend $500 on X, Y, and Z, and again,
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I'm not talking about you've already got a tattoo. I could care less. If you're going to a church picnic and you've got a big tattoo, don't wear a t -shirt to cover it up.
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I mean, I don't care. I don't care what people, I mean, we are to receive people as they are. I have no issues with tattoos.
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My issues are what kind of scripture we use to do, to try to, we all do it. I don't like something, therefore
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I'll find things in the Bible to prove my point. Just go ahead and admit, I can't prove it from the Bible, but I can give some good principles.
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The other point about worldliness, remember, worldliness is not necessarily, the world does tattoos, so we do.
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The world drinks alcohol, so we do. That's not necessarily worldliness. What is worldliness? They're selling systems of thought, humanism, and religiosity, those kind of things, hedonism, they're selling systems of thought, that's worldliness.
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Any other comments? It's the longest half -hour sermon I've ever heard on tattoos. Yes? Well, and when we have other friends, ask yourself the question, as a follow -up to this morning, and I have to be careful, too, because I have a certain way that I think godliness should present itself.
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I don't always live that, but I have a certain way that I think it should present itself. Other people have different ways, and so if I'm not careful,
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I can spend all my time, if I said my goal in life is to teach my son not to get a tattoo, the way
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I would not do that is going around trying to blister him over the head with these anti -tattoo verses.
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I want to teach him, here's who Christ is, here's what he's done. This is why the payment at Calvary has been in full.
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This is why he loves us, and we are to be living ambassadors. We get the pleasure and the privilege of serving our king forever and ever, and we are to think about life and think about the world as stewards, as ambassadors of the king, and we have been enslaved.
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Our slavery from sin has been broken, and now we are slaves of the lord. We are bond servants, and I would rather teach him that, because then he's going to say when he's 18,
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I don't need a tattoo, I don't want a tattoo, versus the thought, well, we've got to make sure we have all these rules, because some
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Christian somewhere might be having fun, and we don't want him to do that. Somebody in this church
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I know is having fun tonight, and I'm going to put a stop to it, and sometimes that's how I live my life, where we can enjoy life.
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You go to the store, and you think, there are 50 different kinds of ice cream that God has given man the wisdom to make, and I can just, well,
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I love that taste. God, thank you. I've got taste buds to eat that, to drink those things. God, you've given me life,
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I mean, Ecclesiastes is the book of the culture to preach. Life is hard.
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Life is difficult. You will die very quickly, so while you are on earth, recognize all of life comes from God and enjoy it.
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Enjoy your wife, enjoy your husband, enjoy your kids, and don't be so wound up you can't enjoy life.
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I mean, I'm preaching to myself, because you know why men live 10 years shorter than women do?
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It's because they have slow strangulation over 40 years with these ties. That's a
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Howard Hendricks thing. Any other comments about tattoos? My real point is this, when people are different, and everyone here is different, including your own spouse and kids, we are to love them.
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What does Paul say to Timothy as a pastor, to give an example to others? 2 Timothy 2, verse 1, be strong in grace, and we'll learn next
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Sunday morning that Jesus was very impartial, and Jesus died for people with scars and marks.
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He died for eunuchs. He died for all kinds of different people, and we want to make sure we're impartial like Jesus when there are different kinds of people.
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Okay, questions before we go to the next one? Boy, let's see what we'll do here.
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I've got so many different things to do. All right, speaking about Christ's death, let's skip over that one, and we'll do that maybe next week.
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Let's turn our Bibles to Titus chapter 2, verse 14, and I want to talk the next little bit about why
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Jesus Christ, his death, was so great, and so complete, and so sufficient, that nothing needs to be done for the
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Christian while they're waiting for their new body. In other words, we don't have anything left in our lives to be purged after we die.
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In other words, is Christ's death sufficient, or do prayers for people who have died need to be added?
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You know what I'm getting at, but I'm not here to bash anyone. I'm here to tell you that if you read the Bible, that if you study the
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Bible, you can rejoice in the fact that you don't have to die and then wait for saints to pray for you and somehow be purged from your sins, right?
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Christ's death was sufficient. Christ's death was excellent, and so this issue of purgatory comes up a lot, and I just want to tell my friends that believe in purgatory, look to the cross.
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You're missing out the wonder of the cross and how Jesus died for my sins past, present, and future.
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He died for my sins of thought, word, and deed. He died for my sins of omission and commission.
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He died for my sins that I never even confessed because I didn't even know I did them, or I can't remember that I did them, and you just think about the greatness of the cross.
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Can you imagine those three hours from noon until three where it became dark in the middle of the day, noon, and it's dark, and it's not because it's raining, and you'll study the
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Old Testament, and you'll see darkness and judgment going together. From noon to three, God takes, as it were, the entire punishment through all the eons of hell and condenses it to three hours and then punishes his son for you, and I want you to know that when
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Jesus Christ died on the cross, there was no semicolon after that.
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There was no colon. There was no comma. There was no and. It was done, and when
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Jesus said, it is finished, and the debt has been paid, it has been finished, and we as Christians should be rejoicing that we can look to the cross and say, we don't have anything left to do in terms of our sin.
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Look at Titus chapter 2, verse 14. This is about the closest you're going to get in the Bible for the word purge or purgatory or purify.
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It's right here, but it's different than you might imagine. Titus 2 .14, wonderful clause here, who gave himself for us.
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That is the gospel on our behalf, in our place, in the place of sinners for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself a people for his own possession zealous for good deeds.
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Now, does anyone here have a study Bible that gives you the Greek word for purify? You can get some master's, not master's seminary, but I think it's called the master's study
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Bible. You can have Greek and English words, which would be good. Isn't that required in the Greek class, Scott? Yes.
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Well, that's a good guess. I was going to try to be funny, you know, if you're in Spanish, you know, what's the Spanish for angel, angela, you know.
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It sounds like that's the Latin word, is what it sounds like. I don't know. Yeah, but that's not the
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Greek word, but that sounds more like the Latin word. And I wasn't trying to bust your chops, so just, I'm just laughing.
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We're laughing with you, Jonah. We're not laughing at you. No, good guess. At least Jonah had a guess.
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Does anybody else know? K -A -T -H -A -R -I -D -Z -O.
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Catharizo is the main root word. And what do you think we get that catharsis, cathartic, where you have this, this cleansing, this cleaning, this purification.
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Now, if I read you the opposing doctrine, the new doctrine, page, section 1032, purgatory is a place where those, quote, who die in God's grace, but still are imperfectly purified, undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
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I'm just telling you, we have such a great savior, we don't have to have that happen. You see Titus chapter two, verse 14, and purify for himself a people after his own possession.
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I'm going to guarantee you that God wants holy people. God is holy and his possession is going to be set apart and holy.
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We don't have to do that. Now, I could read you some passages that people use and I will.
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Let's go there and you tell me why this teaches purgatory or doesn't teach purgatory and why does it even matter?
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First Peter chapter one, verse seven, I've seen this be used. You know, here's the thing.
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If we only study theology and study just kind of the jot and tittle of things, I think that's just part of life, studying theology.
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But I'm here to tell you and remind you that when you study theology, it should always lead to one thing, doxology.
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A study or a word about God should lead to doxology. I challenge you in the next few weeks as you study something, let's say something comes up in the news, and I think
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I'll wait until next week to talk about Toronto and the whole gay marriage thing. So you say, I've got to study, why do people get married?
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What constitutes marriage? Would you just take one step back and say, I'm studying marriage and the doctrine of marriage for what?
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So I theologically know one can debate? So I can stand to approve before God because I know the scriptures?
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Those are good, but those aren't the best. When you study God's word, you should get to know him better and it relates to glorifying him more.
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Theology always influences your methodology, how you do things, and it ultimately influences your ...
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what's the other word? Doxology, glory. The Hebrew word for glory is the word that means heavy, kavod.
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I can just think of the 60s in California. I wasn't there in the 60s, but you can just think of people walking around and somebody says, oh, isn't
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Jesus died in your place and he rose from the dead? You could hear somebody else say, that's what?
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Just kind of like, say la, stop and let that sink in, heavy. So when you study these things, don't say, well,
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I'm studying to prove you wrong, although you might have a family member and you want to tell them. But you study so you can then praise
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God all the more. That's why we study some theological issues. That's why a lot of the Bible's theological.
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Trick question, Romans has how many chapters? That's not the trick question. That's the lead in trick question.
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How many chapters in Romans? How many theological chapters? How many doctrinal chapters?
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16. You know, there's a living about certain kinds of doctrines, so then live, but the living chapters are living a doctrine about what you've learned theologically, so you glorify
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God as you live it out. We've got the kind of congregation, because I know I'm this kind of person,
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I like to study all the doctrines. Just Jesus died for the elect, or just, you know, the non -elect, and what's common grace and efficacious grace, and superlapsarian, and infralapsarian, and I'm not in the age of Aquarius, and you know, all these kind of things.
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But when you study those, make sure, and Lewis is like, that was bad, I know it. But make sure you don't just stop there.
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Why am I studying this? Because I want to get to know the Lord better. In my own life, I talk more about the
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Word than I do understanding the Word, and then talking about the Lord, and I want to do the next step.
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So if I'm talking about purgatory, then we should be talking about why it's so important, and why
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God is so good. First Peter 1 .7, what if someone said to you, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in the praise, and glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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I've heard that used to show there has to be some other payment afterwards. What would you say?
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Everybody looks down. What would you say? Anyone? Okay.
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Very good. Look in the context. This doesn't have anything to do with dying, and then having to go to a place where we're purged from our sins.
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Doesn't have anything to do with that. This is talking about a faith. Can you imagine? What's First Peter about? To whom was
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First Peter written? A suffering church, a church that in 64 to 67 AD, depending on when you think it was written, they were killing
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Christians, and Nero was horrible, and Nero sets Rome on fire, and then blames the Christians. They tar you up, and then stick you on a pale, impaled spike, and then light you for illumination.
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Another one I've heard them use is Luke 12 .59, I say to you, you shall not get out of there until you have paid the very last cent.
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You have to say, well, parables, we just don't take everything and try to make a theological point. Look down at First Peter 2 .24.
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We could do like Margaret did and go back a verse, but we could go forward too. What is Jesus talking about?
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What is Peter talking about? Excuse me. First Peter 2 .24, and he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.
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It's very important. Okay, last one, and this is interesting.
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We've done this before. I think this was a question from Doug a couple years ago, but let's bring it up again. Let's turn to Revelation chapter 13, verse 11, and depending on your theological views of the end times, we might argue this or that, but let's look at Revelation 13 .11,
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and my question tonight that I'd like to quickly answer in the time we have left is, what is the mark of the beast? You'll watch movies, and you'll read left behind series, or whatever you do with end time stuff, and people's minds are fascinated with end times, even the study of Revelation, and I'm not saying any of that as bad, but what really is the mark?
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I don't have time to give you all the different views and everything else. I think maybe next Sunday night or the Sunday night after that, we might take a look at premill versus amill and some other things, but right now, let's just go to Revelation chapter 13, verse 11, and I just want to lead up to verse 18 about what's going to happen in the future, and how people can understand what the mark of the beast is, and how we can't know what it is now.
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Revelation 13, 11, and I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon.
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Matter of fact, the another in the Greek is alas, which is another of the same kind, so this is, here comes the
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Antichrist, now the Antichrist kind of lieutenant is coming, so this isn't the
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Antichrist, this is the false prophet, he's another of the same kind, and so he's coming up out of the earth as a world leader, a world figure, and he is not going to be necessarily politically and militarily a leader, he will be religiously a leader, and that's why he's called the false prophet, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon, and even the simile there, as a dragon, just like his cohort,
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Satan, it's just similar to that mouthpiece, the great dragon. Verse 12, you say where am
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I going, well let's just get there, and he exercises all authority of the first beast in his presence, and he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed, and so something happened, and there was a big to do, and this impression was made, and it goes further, which really can mess up your theology if you're not careful, verse 13, what can
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Satan do, or what he can't do through people, and he performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men, performs by the way is present tense, he can keep on doing them, signs by the way is plural, and he is doing great signs, and he's doing a bunch of great signs, now even if you're not premillennial like I am, you still have to deal with what this is, and who this is, and why is this going about, what are these signs, verse 14, and he deceives those who dwell on the earth, because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast, who had the wound of the sword, and has come to life, and so he is deceiving, he is making people go astray, what is the word we use for Neptune, Pluto, what are those called generally in a larger term, a broader sense, what, planets, the
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Greek word planeo means to wander, and you've got these planets, and they seem like they were all close, and now they've just wandered out there, and he's deceiving, they're wandering, he's causing them to wander away, he's leading them astray, of course if Christ draws his people close, the opposite is true, verse 15, and it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast might even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed,
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I don't think this is any kind of electronic trickery or anything else, this is supernatural, this is satanically supernatural, and he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves to be given a mark on their right hand and on their forehead, a mark means an impression from a stamp, so you have different ways to kind of make impressions and that's exactly what it is, you ever have seen
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Gunsmoke, Ponderosa, Bonanza, what are some other westerns, and you go and you give that cow a big what, a brand, and here comes the brand, that's exactly what this is, and it's a false brand in the sense that God marks out his own, and now satan in a sense is marking out his own, you could mark a slave or you could mark a beast,
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Circle K or whatever it is, and he provides that no one should be able to buy or to sell except those who have the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name, worship or starve, now here's the interesting thing, everybody today wants to run around saying what's the mark of the beast,
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I can't tell you, and I don't think anybody in the world knows, no one that I've ever met can prove to me that they know what the mark of the beast is, why?
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Well, let's find out, verse 18, here is wisdom, I mean can you imagine a bible verse starting off like that, here is wisdom, let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of man and his number is 666, before I give you what
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I'm trying to get to, that word calculate means exactly that, spadidzo, to count, to reckon, to calculate, and it has to do with numerical values, it has to do with what a person who's getting a
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PhD in math would do, he's calculating things and adding and subtracting, resolving to arrive at a value, and he says calculate the number, who has understanding, calculate the number, well who here has that understanding?
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I don't think anyone does, and you can talk about the number 666 and the number of man is 7 and you know as long as man goes he falls one short 666 and repetition and words and all that,
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I'm not even trying to prove that point. Dr. Thomas said this, quote, this will be given, they will be given the ability by God to unravel the mystery, the solution will be reached by counting, end quote.
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In other words, they're in the tribulation, they're trying to figure out the mark of the beast, but when they're in there
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God will give them the ability to figure out what it is and they will have understanding to calculate what that is, what is it?
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I don't know, it's like Jesus will give you a name that no one knows what it is, Revelation, well what's that name? I don't know the name, no one will know the name, so here in the end times
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God in a supernatural way, and this also blows out of the water, the false notion that the spirit of God isn't around during the tribulation, but the spirit of God will give people who will reject the false beast and the false
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Christ enough information that they can calculate, that they can get their HP out, or if it was me in 1978 at the
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University of Nebraska, my TI -30, and you guys, you know, it was about this big, calculator, a small little
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TI -30, you can calculate and you can figure it out, so what's the mark of the beast?
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I don't know, but I know the people during this time, here's wisdom, let them who are in this time are going to figure it out, it's amazing to think about, so the good news is we don't even have to figure it out, if you're wasting all your time at night counting, trying to figure out what the mark of the beast is so you can sleep well, just trust
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God and go to sleep. Those people that are alive, they'll be able to figure it out. Can you imagine the people on earth in those days that had the
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Bible, they could figure it out, and they could count, they could calculate, it's pretty amazing. And if you say, well
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I'm not pre -mill and I don't take that view, so many times the burden is pushed on the pre -mill people, well that's not the right view, well then
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I challenge you as an Amil, then give me a view, give me a view and force the issue to me.
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It's the same thing we'll talk about next Sunday night, Ezekiel 40 -48, sacrifices to God in the
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Millennial Kingdom. People say, well that can't be. Okay, well the
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Amil people still have to figure out what it is, and it's not all spiritual, so anyway, enough of that.
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No tattoos and no counting this week. Be Bereans.
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Discernment is commended, Acts 17, and commanded 1
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Thessalonians chapter 5. Secondly, when you study the Bible, study theology so it relates to doxology.
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So you might realize, God is good and the answers are there. I could not believe it when I first became a Christian and I'd go, everybody's got all these theology questions?
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And I'd go, I can find them out myself. They're right here. I remember I just got saved and I began to listen to the
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Bible answer me, and I'd go, that guy's got an answer for everything. Come to find out later, he waffles on a lot of things and doesn't really tell you where he stands, but I'd go, he has an answer.
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And then what I would do is I would listen to him and before he would give his answer, I would turn off the radio and then try to give my answer.
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Kim knows this too well. Kim's like, well you think you know all this stuff? And I'd go, well then why don't you give me the answer? And I'd go, okay, I'll try.
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And it was just, where were we? We were driving down to 405 or something like that. You try to, and you say, well that's not even, that's not my point.
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I'm on these rabbit trails. The answers can be found out. But when you find the answers, the bad news is, knowledge puffs up.
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And so when you're getting all this information, it's not that you're getting it for yourself, you're getting it so you glorify
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God and glorify Him with your life, and also so that you can tell other people.
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But Dan Rathbun did an excellent job today with his message on Acts 17. Dan is just a ferocious leader and he studies.
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Why do you think he studies? I know why he studies. A, because he wants to, but B, because God wants him to study so he can tell others.
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The people in this congregation, you know enough that you should be out proclaiming the truth to all kinds of people.
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Half of India knows less than this little tiny congregation in West Wilston does. We know plenty.
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We just have to proclaim the good riches. Okay, next Sunday night,
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Cremation, Sacrifices in the Millennium, this whole Toronto gay marriage thing that will be in the neighborhood near you.
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Father, we do thank you for tonight. We're thankful that the answers are found there and we can just reason and dialogue and see what you have to tell us in your word.
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Father, help us to be Bereans. Help us to be men and women that are not tied to some kind of system and we have to worship that or some kind of education and we can't break free from that.
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But Father, help us to just study and love each other in spite of preferences and also,
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Father, in spite of some minor theological differences that you are good and gracious and kind.
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Help us to be reflectors of that kindness towards other people this week. And Father, we acknowledge before you now that honor us, give us grace, give us strength, help us to obey the command that you have given us for your good pleasure.
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And we long for that day in heaven where there will be no more striving, no crying, no attempts of doing something and falling short, no resolutions to be better, no getting tired in the work of the kingdom, but worship.