All Things For Good: Chap. 2 Pt. 5

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The Puritan Thomas Watson's book, All Things For Good, walks through Romans 8:28 showing us how all of God's attributes work for our good. This does not mean that difficulties, trials, and affliction will be avoided, but however will work for our benefit. Join us as we go through the second chapter on God's affliction.

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All Things For Good: Chap. 2 Pt. 6

All Things For Good: Chap. 2 Pt. 6

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As we begin this evening, we are still in Chapter 2 of Thomas Watson's wonderful work,
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All Things for Good. This little book is a full treatise on Romans 8, 828, talking about all things work for good for those who love
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God. And so, Chapter 2 talks about the worst things working for good, and we've talked about three different things that are considered some of the worst that we could face, yet they work for our good, and that is affliction, temptation, and desertion.
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And now the fourth and final part of Chapter 2 is the evil of sin works for good to the godly.
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And so, as we consider that, we'll consider it in two parts, the sin of others, and then probably next week we'll talk about our own sin.
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But it's always easy to talk about the sin of others, right? We'll start there, we'll go gentle. We'll talk about this issue, and as we go,
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I'm going to read a paragraph or so each time, and then I have some thoughts on it, but if you have questions, if you have comments, feel free to raise your hand, interaction is always good, and we can really flesh out these ideas.
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And so, let's begin. Number four, the evil of sin works for good to the godly.
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Sin in its own nature is damnable, but God in his infinite wisdom overrules it and causes good to arise from that which seems most to oppose it.
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Indeed, it is a matter of wonder that any honey should come out of this lion. We may understand it in a double sense.
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One, the sins of others work for good to the godly as they produce holy sorrow. God's people weep for that which they cannot reform.
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Rivers of tears run down my eyes because they do not keep your law. David was a mourner for the sins of the times.
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His heart was turned into a spring and his eyes into rivers. Wicked men make merry with sin.
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When you do evil, then you rejoice. But the godly are weeping doves. They grieve for the oaths and blasphemies of the age.
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The sins of others, like spears, pierce their souls. This grieving for the sins of others is good.
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It shows a childlike heart to resent with sorrow the injuries done to our heavenly Father.
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It also shows a Christlike heart. He was grieved for the hardness of their hearts. The Lord takes special notice of these tears.
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He likes it well that we should weep when his glory suffers. It argues more grace to grieve for the sins of others than for our own.
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We may grieve for our own sins out of fear of hell, but to grieve for the sins of others is from a principle of love to God.
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These tears drop as water from roses. They are sweet and fragrant, and God puts them in his bottle.
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You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.
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List each one. So he says, so sin of its own nature is damnable, but God overrules it and causes good to arise from it.
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I like that line that he uses, honey comes from the lion. Talking about that riddle from Samson, but what a good use of that metaphor.
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Something sweet should be found within something that can devour and does devour, and yet there's sweetness that can be found in it, and this is from the goodness of God.
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So he says it comes in a double sense. No small trouble to a gracious heart to live among the wicked.
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And he quoted, where did he quote? Maybe I just thought of it.
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No, I'm sure I didn't. It's like I was thinking this. But from Psalm 120, it says, woe to me that I sojourn in Meshach, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar.
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Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
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And this is what the Christian finds himself in, the reality. We're surrounded by people who love their sin.
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They're not for peace. Peace comes with being right with God, and then we can be at peace with our neighbors.
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It says that the man who is right with God, even his enemies are made to be at peace with him. People who hate
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God, hate his way, they love death, the Proverbs tells us. They love sin, and so there's always that conflict, and this, it troubles us.
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It produces this godly sorrow that we would weep over the sins of others. He says, people weep over that which they cannot reform, while the wicked make sport of acting wickedly, the righteous mourn.
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But he says it shows that we would have a heart like a child grieved at the injury to the father. It shows conformity to Christ who is grieved by the hardness of heart around him when he's questioning them.
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The person comes for healing, and he asks a question about whether it's right or not to heal on the Sabbath, and they don't want to answer.
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Because, of course, it's this act of mercy. It's this wonderful thing, and yet they really just want to catch him.
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They want to find fault with him. They're looking to bring division and actually be against that which
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God would say is a blessing. And so he looked at them, and it says that his heart was grieved, that he was grieved and that he was angry over their hardness of heart.
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When we have that same sense of grief, mourning over the sin, it comes out of a zeal for the
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Lord, a brokenness when his glory suffers. We see that at times when we're praying over the politics of the day, the circumstances of the day, the current events of the day, praying and weeping at times out at the abortion note, just praying that God would be pleased to save children and to save souls of the moms and dads there.
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And a lot of tears get shed there when we're just most aware of the sin of others and the destructiveness and knowing it doesn't have to be that way.
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And so it's a holy sorrow, and it's something that God does use for good, that we would be like Christ in mourning over sin and seeing that.
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Are there any questions or comments on that part, the producing holy sorrow?
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No? Okay. Number two, the sins of others work for good to the godly as they set them more a praying against sin.
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If there were not such a spirit of wickedness abroad, perhaps there would not be such a spirit of prayer. Crying sins cause crying prayers.
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The people of God pray against the iniquity of the times that God will give a check to sin that he will put sin to the blush.
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If they cannot pray down sin, they pray against it, and this God takes kindly. These prayers shall both be recorded and rewarded.
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Though we do not prevail in prayer, we shall not lose our prayers. My prayer returned into my own bosom, it says in Psalm 35.
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And perhaps I jumped ahead of myself a little bit with the last one, talking about how it would cause us to pray.
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But our hearts, in the first one, talking about godly sorrow, our hearts should be broken over what we see.
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If we are to be Christ -like, if we partake in his sufferings, it also partakes in the fact that he was grieved by those things around us.
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We see him weeping over Jerusalem and wishing that he could gather them, but they were not willing.
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And now, how does the Christian respond? But by prayer, and even travailing in prayer, weeping in prayer, that God would see and that he would cause restraint.
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And sometimes it says, though we do not prevail in prayer, we shall not lose our prayers. God is still honored in the prayer.
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God is still working out his purposes. He's even told the prophets of times, do not pray for these people.
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But he has not given us that command, and so we continue. We continue to pray for those around us, perhaps those close to us, or just those in our nation, in the world, that God, you know, we pray the impregnatory prayers, the impregnatory
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Psalms, asking God that he would fill his enemies' faces with shame, you know, but the purpose is that they would turn to Christ and live, when they would be ashamed of their sins and they would look to him.
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So, you know, we don't desire their destruction, except as far as God would will it, but we ultimately want to see his enemies be put under his feet by a way of salvation, that they would become his servants, and willing that they would volunteer themselves in the day of his power, as Scripture says.
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Any questions or comments about that? No? Am I leaving you guys nothing to say?
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Maybe I'll not share my thoughts, and I'll let you share first, and then I'll go. Okay.
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We're going to fly through this if no one interacts. Everyone's like, okay. All right, number three.
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The sins of others work for good, as they make us more in love with grace. The sins of others are a foil to set off the luster of grace, the more.
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One contrary sets off another. Deformity sets off beauty. The sins of the wicked do much disfigure them.
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Pride is a disfiguring sin. Now the beholding another's pride makes us the more in love with humility.
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Malice is a disfiguring sin. It is the devil's picture. The more of this we see in others, the more we love meekness and charity.
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Drunkenness is a disfiguring sin. It turns men into beasts at the price of the use of reason.
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The more intemperate we see in others, the more we must love sobriety. The black face of sin sets off the beauty of holiness, so much the more.
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Do we have more to add to that? No. Let's go back for a second. Any thoughts on that before I share?
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I thought I saw that hand. I see that hand. Go ahead. No, I think, you know, when you see someone else who's in sinning, and something goes wrong in their life, you know, there's generally two reactions.
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Who could he deserve it? Or, wow, that could be me. So when you recognize both of the mercy and grace of God restraining the sin in our own hearts,
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I could be in the very same position. It causes me to be grateful for what
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I have in Christ. And it causes me to pray for the person so that even in this
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God may use that sin to open their eyes to the fact that things will get worse.
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Right. Much worse than just this. Right. Yeah. In fact, that's something else he already he'll have later on.
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You're probably aware, but it's hard. All these things are connected. So it's easy. Your mind starts going.
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And that can be a source of encouragement to us. Like, oh, I'm thinking like a Puritan, apparently, because he shares these same thoughts.
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But it's true. When we see these things, we should have a thankfulness recognizing the grace that God has, you know, shed abroad in our hearts that we would be the only reason we're different is because of his grace and his mercy.
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But we'll we'll get to that. Here we talk about they make us more in love with grace and we see the power of contrast.
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He talks about how sin is disfiguring. And yet we look at the beauty of virtue in comparison, and it makes it that much more beautiful when we see the the impact of sin, whether the consequences of sin when they do reap what they sow, but also just to see that sin in action.
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And the more and more we see it, the the uglier it is. And the more we look at what
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God has called us to and we see the beauty and the wisdom from that.
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So I've said it often. I'm sure some of you have as well. But the darker it is, the more the gospel shines.
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You know, when we see the madness in our world, you know, just how many of you have said to yourselves or you've heard other people say we have lost our minds when we think of ourselves as a nation, you know, making a four star general out of a doctor who doesn't realize he's a man and not a woman.
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We've we've lost our minds. The things we celebrate, the things that we call virtue now. No rhyme or reason, no logic, no real science behind it.
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We've we've gone astray. But the contrast of the gospel is that much clearer.
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You know, when Moses is giving the law to the people from the Lord, he remarks how the pagan nations around you are going to see the wisdom of your laws that God has given you and say, wow, what a wise
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God they have. What an amazing God. What righteous laws. These were the pagan
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Gentile nations around them, still engaged in human sacrifice and all this awful stuff.
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And like, yeah, that makes sense. You know, we have our work. It's it's so much clearer when you're sharing the gospel with someone compared to what gospel the world is offering.
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There's a stark difference. And even unbelievers can see that they can see that contrast.
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And like, yeah, that makes sense. But no one's speaking up for the truth anymore because it's not in fashion. It's not trending.
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It's it's considered hate speech. But in your right mind, you can understand it.
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So God will use that in our lives, especially to to love that which is holy, that which is right.
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Just make us desire that. And to to be able to share that that beauty with others.
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Any other questions or comments, Steve? Um, also on a micro level, like when you when you you witness sin and it grieves you and you realize, you know.
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In the beginning or before I was saved, I would have said or done the same thing and have a measuring stick and you can praise
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God at your you know, your sanctification, your progress, sanctification in yourself.
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And yeah. And again, that's something we'll be we'll be talking about shortly. But yeah, it sort of tracks along the same thing.
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This is what we're thinking about the sin of others. This is what we're thinking about. And praise God for that. There's a humility of mind recognizing that was me.
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That should still be me. If it wasn't for the grace of God, that's exactly where I'd be. So but we will get to that.
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Number four, the sins of others work for good as they work in us the stronger opposition against sin.
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The wicked have broken your law. Therefore, I love your commandments. David would never have loved
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God's law so much if the wicked had not set themselves so much against it. The more violent others are against the truth, the more valiant the saints are for it.
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Living fish swim against the stream. Just so the more the tide of sin comes in, the more the godly swim against it.
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The impieties of the times provoke holy passions in the saints. That anger is without sin, which is against sin.
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The sins of others are are as a whetstone to set the sharper edge upon us. They wet our zeal and indignation against the sin against sin.
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The more make sure thoughts on that.
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They work in us the stronger opposition against them. The more we see other sinning.
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Go ahead, Maria. Oh, sorry. No, it's all right. Because like reading the city of God talking about paganistic cultures and like addressing
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Rome on the scene points out that like much of the pagan gods were probably demons and just like the significance of their promiscuity.
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And it's like, why would anyone want to worship like these gods who are just as moral?
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And we can observe ways in which morality leads to problems. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely.
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And so we see that we're like, oh, that's that's all wrong. Go ahead. This isn't exactly what's being brought out here, but it's along the same lines.
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But it would be back to the church was the chaos of the world, the corruption of the world, the the unstableness that I saw all around.
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So in a sense, that's what's being said here. But me at that point, being a straight.
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Believer was was my heart was was.
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My eyes were open to see that the the only sensible way of life was the way of the church and not just pragmatically.
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You know, it was it was quite a change. Yeah. In a very quick period of time.
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But because of the sins that I saw all around me and the chaos and the discomfort it brought to me in that sense, not so much that I related it as as being sins against God per se.
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At that given moment. But that came very soon after that. Right. And it definitely brought it brought me back to the church.
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Yeah. Praise God. And that's that goes in line perfectly with what he's saying here. The stronger opposition.
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I mean, the stronger the sin, the stronger opposition to it, even when someone's sort of on the fence like, well, I definitely can't go along with that.
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And so where you might have been comfortable like, ah, things are OK and just settle for the mediocrity to see the sin and the growing and so the chaos pushes more, pushes you back to where you should be.
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And then some, you know, thinking about, you know, the more we see lawlessness abound, we should be growing in our zeal and indignation against sin.
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I think of Apology at church and they're they're out at the abortion mill. But they're also you know, they're speaking out against the murder of the unborn.
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But they're also speaking out against, you know, you know, the the legalization of homosexual unions and and calling it marriage.
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And and they are fighting against the culture. They are going and pushing hard against the stream.
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And we are doing that ourselves. They have a little bit of a bigger platform. They have a little bit more of a worldwide reach.
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But when people ask them, why are you doing that? Why is your fight there? Why aren't you, you know, why aren't you fighting against adultery?
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He goes, well, as soon as they start celebrating adultery, as soon as they start saying this is great and we're going to legalize it, we're going to make it like the virtue of the day, then we'll be fighting against it.
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But here is where the battle lines are. This is where children are being slaughtered. This is where marriage is being profaned.
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And so when we see that, we must fight against it. So why are we fighting? Because we see the lawlessness abound and we push back all the harder.
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Well, the other thing that's interesting about Apology of Church is its origin. Yeah. Its origin was in, you know, a drug rehab center.
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Right. And a lot of a lot of the congregants, you know, and they came out of that that type of a background and they they could they could see the difference.
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Exactly right. Yeah. Talking about the chaos, you had people who it started as that drug church.
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They all came out of a rehab looking to belong to a church. And there is just a whole lot of them that need to be ministered to.
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And so they started there. But there they went from their sin and their brokenness and chaos and and going against everything that even unbelievers would recognize.
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And they're pushing for God. And there was an article coming out that he was sent some questions about and, you know, talking about what you want to see.
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Abortion. Criminalized. You want to see capital punishment for it, and in its due time.
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Yeah. You know, we want to see murder punished as murder, but we recognize our justice system is corrupt and there's a lot of work that needs to be done there.
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But he said, we have lots of women who are in our congregation who have murdered their children and they have found peace and forgiveness in Christ.
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And yet they recognize this is wrong and should not continue. Joe, this the impieties of the times provoke holy passions in the
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States. And to me, the history of Christianity is full of this.
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Yes. Yes. You can look at the big things like Luther and the Reformation. OK. And there was certainly, you know, impieties that the church, the church, people in the church were against at that point.
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Yeah. And you could take all of that all through all through history and even look like you say today.
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Today, we've got people in our own congregation here that are putting jobs to, you know, right or wrong.
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Right. So it's it's not stopped. No, it just keeps going and going.
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The battle is always raging. There's we go to where the we go to the front lines of where the battle is fiercest.
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The battle is hottest and we fight there. And that's what we're called to. And that's God overruling the sins of others for good and using it to get his church to move in the right direction, to know where the fight is.
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Maria. So just you wholeheartedly believe that you should be fighting turmoil or.
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Yeah. No, I just I agree. OK. It's just just gut check there.
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You believe we should fight, right? So, yes, we are. We are called to fight.
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We are in engaged in spiritual warfare. You know, when Jesus says that the gates of hell will not prevail, gates are defensive positions.
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We're not we're not on defense trying to, oh, you know, just hang in there. So, you know, till Christ returns.
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No, we are moving forward. We are the church militant. We are taking we are taking territory, taking ground, taking dominion.
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Just want to take this to another level.
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Even within the church, you have this going on. And that's why fellowship and worship and the means of grace are so vitally important.
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It's it's yes, of course, it's worshiping our holy, holy, holy God. But it's also working within each other.
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Yes. You know, because there's things that we're constantly going to be seeing. We're being sanctified.
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You know, you may think you're at that point. And all of a sudden, man, that's horrible.
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That's me. Yeah. But that's within the church as well. Right. You know, we just finished the book of Jude and we're talking about dangers within the body.
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So when we talk about seeing the sins of others, our first thought kind of goes out there.
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Right. The unbelievers of the world and their sin. But the sins of others can be our own brothers and sisters.
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And we should have a sorrow against that. We should be praying against that. And we should be opposing it the way
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God has called us to, because God tells us to confront when necessary.
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You know, we're to be have a spirit of gentleness and graciousness. But we are told to confront, you know, and it's out of love for those who are part of the body of Christ.
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And we would we should be teachable and correctable and be willing to accept it ourselves when someone else sees the sins of others.
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And we're the other that day. You know, we need each other. We are a body. That's what's pointed out in Jude, and it's throughout scripture.
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But I think we forget about it, particularly here in America, because we're all about that rugged individualism. Right. It's just me and myself and pulling myself up on my bootstraps.
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Scripture says we're a people. There's always been a people of God and we're called as the body.
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We are the temple. We are together. We're joined together. And so we need each other. And so sometimes we need each other in dealing with our own sin and the sins of others that we grow in sanctification.
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You can't it's very hard to be sanctified apart from other people because how would you know you need it?
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Being in the body helps us to see our blind spots because other people can see a lot more clearly than we can.
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Go ahead, Joe. Yes, I have a recommended reading for those who have a strong intestinal fortitude and a strong constitution.
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And that would be Fox's book. Yeah. You read a couple of pages in that and you say to yourself, how in the world could, you know, people be so brave or righteous?
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It's like unbelievable. Do we have that kind of spirit today in the church?
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Or I mean, yes, we were pretty comfortable when you think about it.
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And I speak for myself. But I don't know if I could ever go through some of some of those things.
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And it was almost like, yeah, take that. I'm going right. I'm going straight to God. I remember there was a movie about St.
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Thomas Moore, Paul Scofield was the actor. He won an Academy Award for it with Henry VIII.
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And he just he he actually when he was about to have his head chopped off, he tipped the executioner with the axe and he said, don't don't feel bad.
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You send me to God. Hmm. Hmm. We gave him a tip. He said no more. You sent me to God.
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Well, how much how much I would give to get my head. You did St. Thomas was a guy.
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I said, that's right. Make it clean. Make it swift. Right. That's probably what
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I've been thinking. It's funny. This is the one I had the least amount of notes on. But there's so much to say about it because it really is just this is what we're dealing with.
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And saying, you know, when we think about Fox's book of martyrs and what they endured,
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I mean, and the creativity and the cruelty and the horror that they faced going to their death.
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And I think I'm not scared to die. It's just the whole dying part. How would that be?
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But they had the grace of the Holy Spirit. Well, we need to remind ourselves because we are many of us today, especially in the
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West, here in America, where we're kind of soft because we've had that affluence. We've had that comfortable.
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You know, no one's persecuting like they don't. You know, conversations kind of tense around Thanksgiving time.
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We're we're not facing persecution now. We're starting to see it now. Now we're starting to see things heat up.
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We're we're seeing people put in jail because they want to gather for worship. And we're seeing it in Canada, of all places,
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Canada. But there are brethren are standing up and doing what's right and facing that. One second.
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What we have to be aware of is I forget who said it or where I heard it first.
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But will you die for God if you're not living for him day by day?
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You know, sometimes we we tell ourselves I would die a martyr's death. You won't go to church on Sunday.
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You're you're not sacrificing anything right now. And you think you're going to sacrifice it all? I you know, we find out who we really are when when things turn up.
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But we have an idea in the day to day what we're really about. Janet, when we lose my gang members, you know, the whole family is like eight eight month old members.
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And how would we feel about one of us? I mean, we're majorly blessed here. All right. And sometimes we take it for granted.
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Yeah, we do. I just want to make a note. We're praying for Nicholas, our neighbor I told you about. He's 22 years old.
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The whole family, I think they all have mental illness. But I don't know. Well, he was going from blonde hair to black hair to like no hair.
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And he had a car accident. And he told his mother, I'm God and I'm Jesus. Well, also, he flipped out.
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He ended up with stone broken, brought him back home. Now his mother, she's manic. She shopped so much.
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The whole patio is full of big boxes to the top. I can't give a left because she couldn't deal with it. And that's it.
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And I'm praying. I'm sitting at the window and they don't listen. You know what I mean? And it's just simpleness, the simpleness of sin.
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You see it right in front of you. We're praying. My husband and I were like, you know, like, wow, look how far God took us.
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We couldn't be one of them. You know what I mean? They don't want to hear it. He says, I'm God. Yeah, he goes, I never, I never lost a battle or anybody in this field.
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Like he knows everything. You know what I mean? You don't want to hear it. Yeah. Yeah. So we have to pray all the more, all the more and look for those opportunities to share.
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But we will move on because now I'm like, oh, we'll have plenty of stuff to fly through.
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And then we, but this is good. This is, this is very important to think about now because we are, we are living in it.
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And I think things are going to get more difficult. Number five, the sins of others work for good as they make us more earnest in working out our salvation.
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When we see wicked men take such pains for hell, this makes us more industrious for heaven.
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The wicked have nothing to encourage them, yet they sin. They venture shame and disgrace.
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They break through all opposition. Scripture is against them and conscience is against them.
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There's a flaming sword in the way, yet they sin. Godly hearts seeing the wicked, thus mad for the forbidden fruit and wearing themselves in the devil's, wearing out themselves in the devil's service are the more emboldened and quickened in the ways of God.
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Questions or comments on that? Think about the zeal that unbelievers seem to have wearing themselves out for hell, for Satan's service.
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And what about us? Are we that zealous for the kingdom to bring righteousness, that the
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Lord would be known, that his name would be hallowed, that his kingdom would come? I tell you, it does seem at times that they are.
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We talked about, you know, we have our in -house debates lovingly, I'm sure, here lovingly about eschatology.
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But when we look at the people of today that are not believers in their own right, they're post -millennial.
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They're not waiting for a rapture. They're not waiting for anything. They are seeking to shape the world the way they think it needs to be shaped.
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And they have a long -term plan. They are, you know, taking ground bit by bit.
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We think of the public schools and the compulsory attendance and some of the movers and shakers who are behind that.
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And they were humanists. They were secularists. They had no love for God. And they were starting schools and requiring mandatory attendance, even though the still the primers still had
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A is for Adam and all these different things. And there's Bible reading and there's prayer. But they knew eventually, they knew eventually they'd get all that stuff out.
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And you have quotes from some of these guys saying what's going to separate children from their parents' primitive religion is the school system.
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And they had a long -range plan. And so these people are wearing themselves out and making all sorts of effort to bring about what they see as the kingdom, the world as it ought to be.
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We should be all the more zealous to bring about the true kingdom and to be active in pursuing
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Christ and making him known. Any questions or comments about that? Ralph.
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The phrase, right? Separation of church and state, that's not in the Constitution. No, it's not. No, it's not.
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It's a letter, I think, from Jefferson to someone worried about the different denominations.
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And you can separate the church from the state. And God does have distinctions even in his law, responsibilities of kings and those in authority, the responsibility of the priests, the responsibilities of elders.
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They have their own spheres, their own jurisdiction. But you cannot separate the state from God.
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So that's the thing. You can't separate anyone from God as far as their responsibility and their relationship to him.
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When the Lord is bringing the people into the land of Canaan and he's giving them the law, he says, all of these people, they violated this law, says, don't do this and don't do that because these people did it.
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And that's why they're being spewed out of the land. And if you do it, you'll be spewed out of the land. So here they were nations that weren't in covenant relationship with God the way the
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Israelites were. And yet they were responsible to God's law, God's standard. And they received judgment because they did not meet that standard as all image bearers everywhere are responsible to.
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He's right, point that out, you don't think God's not dead, too? No, I didn't see
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God. I know he's not dead, so I haven't bothered watching it. And the school teacher had a history class, you know, and she talked about Martin Luther King Jr.
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And the student brought it up, what did Jesus say? And she told us history while she got reprimanded in the whole court, he came in, you know, these phrases out there.
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Well, what I'm saying is, you know, I was, they took prayer out of school when I was 63, 64 or something like that.
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I'm not sure of the year, but yeah, when that happened, you know, everything just went down. I mean, they know that, right?
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The agenda they have, like you said, right? The fact that they could take prayer out of school means it wasn't there in a meaningful way in the first place.
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The impact wasn't there. There's a responsibility on parents to educate their children. And they get to that point where they can just say, we're going to do away with that.
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And everyone's like, all right, it's a mess. But you're going to get me off topic.
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And while I appreciate it, I'm not going to go there. Continuing on with what he was saying from that same one, says they will take heaven as it were by storm, the wicker like camels running after sin.
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And do we creep like snails in piety? Shall impure sinners do the devil more service than we do
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Christ? Shall they make more haste to go to the prison of hell than we do to the kingdom of heaven?
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Are they never weary of sinning? And are we weary of praying? Have we not a better master than they?
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Are not the paths of virtue pleasant? Is there not joy in the way of duty in heaven at the end?
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The activity of the sons of Belial in sin, this is a spur to the godly to make them mend their pace and run the faster to heaven.
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So when we see the ungodly here racing for hell, just unbridled, we should be all the more zealous to have the same passion.
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But for Christ, don't we have a better master? Don't we have a better result? Don't we have something that's so much more hopeful for the world?
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And so God can use that for good by helping us see that and compare and be zealous ourselves. Number six, the sins of others work for good as they are looking glasses in which we may see our own hearts.
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Do we see a heinous and pious wretch? Behold, a picture of our own hearts. Such would we be if God left us.
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What is in wicked men's practice is in our nature. Sin in the wicked is like fire, which flames and blazes forth.
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Sin in the godly is like fire in the embers. Christian, though you do not break forth into a flame of scandalous sin, yet you have no cause to boast, for there is as much sin in the embers of your nature.
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You have the root of all sin in you and would bear as hellish fruit as any ungodly wretch if God did not either curb you by his power or change you by his grace.
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I'll tell you what, these Puritans. So, yeah, and this was touched on already.
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We see we see our own ability to sin or we know by our own experience exactly what we're capable of.
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And so we should be seeing that and be humbled by it and recognize
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God and his goodness. The next one we'll talk about, thankfulness. Any comment on this before I move to number seven?
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No? Okay. But this is, as we mentioned already, recognizing what we're capable of if God did not curb it or change us with his grace.
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Number seven, the sins of others work for good as they are the means of making the people of God more thankful. When you see another infected with the plague, how thankful are you that God has preserved you from it?
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It is a good use that may be made of the sins of others to make us more thankful.
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Why might not God have left us to the same excess of wickedness? Think with yourself, O Christian, why should
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God be more merciful to you than to another? Why should he snatch you as a bran plucked out of the fire and not him?
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How may this make you to adore free grace? What the Pharisee said boastingly, we may say thankfully,
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God, I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, etc.
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If we are not as wicked as others, we should adore the riches of free grace. Every time we see men hastening on in sin, we are to thank
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God that we are not such. If we see a crazy person, we thank God that is not so with us.
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Much more than we see others under the power of Satan, how thankful we should be that this is no longer our condition.
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For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, captives of various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.
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I wrote that up just Sunday talking about our condition and why we should be rejoicing, right?
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Because look at what God has done for us. Look at where we were at. And so, you know, he mentions the Pharisee and the
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Pharisee in that parable by Christ is known for his pride and his hubris and thinking he's thanking
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God, but he's really thanking himself. I'm so thankful. I'm not like that. Look at everything I do.
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Where we really should still take more the posture of the tax collector who beat his chest and said, have mercy on me, a sinner.
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We should recognize we are sinful. But God has saved us and he has saved us from being as sinful as we could possibly be and running into that.
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So we should have a humility of mind. We should be thankful to the Lord and we should be using it to pray more for others, sorrow over their sins, but not have that pride that just makes us sinful in a different way.
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Questions or comments about that? Okay. Number eight, the sins of others work for good as they are the means of making
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God's people better. Christian, God can make you a gainer by another sin. The more unholy others are, the more holy you should be.
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The more a wicked man gives himself to sin, the more a godly man gives himself to prayer.
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But I give myself to prayer. Sort of in a similar way when we're thinking of our opposition to sin, we see more people sinful.
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We should be more zealous for the kingdom and for doing what is right, for pushing back against the sin, for fighting, you know, at the abortion mills, you know, fighting as being a presence there and fighting with the word of God, fighting with the love of Christ, showing that we will offer help.
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We will offer hope. We will be the hands and feet of Christ. We'll provide you with whatever you need.
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That is how you fight for Christ in that way, in opposition to that sin of murder of the unborn.
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Here, making people better, the more people give themselves over to sin, we should be giving ourselves over to the Lord. Imbibing all the means of grace that we have, you know, right in front of us to be in his word, to be in prayer, to be in fellowship, to be in worship.
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That's going to be coming up on Sunday. This is what we're supposed to be doing and we should be giving ourselves over to God.
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As we see others being unholy, we should be striving for holiness all the more. Questions or comments about that?
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No? We are almost done here with number nine.
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That'll conclude. The sins of others work for good as they give an occasion to us of doing good.
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Where there are no sinners, we cannot be in such a capacity for service. The godly are often the means of converting the wicked.
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Their prudent advice and pious example is a lure and a bait to draw sinners to the embracing of the gospel.
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The disease of the patient works for the good of the physician. By healing the patient, the physician enriches himself.
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This was... I was going to say something about health care, but... Just so, by converting sinners from the error of their way, our crown comes to be enlarged.
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Those who turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever.
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Not as lamps or candles, but as the stars forever. Thus, we see the sins of others are overruled for our good.
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Okay. It gives us an occasion of doing good. What a strange thing that us former rebels and wretches would have the privilege of being used by God to bring others to be reconciled to Christ, to be able to share the gospel.
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Truly, the disease is sin and it's fatal.
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And we can be used as instruments in the Redeemer's hands. That's a book by Paul David Tripp and referring to counseling.
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But to bring the healing that they need. And we benefit by it.
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Again, providentially how God wraps all this stuff together. Just preached on this on Sunday that our faith and and going through these trials would show to be proven, would show them to be genuine, that we would receive praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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We get rewarded. We deserve damnation. God's grace changes us.
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He uses us to help reach others and then he gives us praise and glory for it.
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That's amazing. That is truly amazing grace. So the sin of others gives us an occasion to do good, to be used by God.
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And to be blessed in being used by God. We receive that crown and reward for our good.
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I don't know what the I see I emboldened the numbers. So maybe the the
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Dandy reference was slightly off. It's 12 .3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above and those who turn many to righteousness like the star is forever and ever.
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And so he says thus we see the sins of others are overruled for our good.
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Questions. Steve. Like the power of contrast, the worse that our culture, the more wicked our culture is and it's more, it's more dramatic.
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It's noticed more that When we do what is right and most people are doing what is wrong and the type of wrong that they're doing is worse wrong than it used to be and but here that you know, if the
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Christian is is living righteously yet and is graceful and forgiving and is faithful It's more powerful than than if it wasn't such a contrast.
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Yeah, yeah, like I said in the darkness, the gospel shines brighter. And so when we see a world that is just going further and further away from the
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Lord the Christian really sets themselves apart. They're set apart by God, right?
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We're sanctified. We're set apart. But it's the contrast is that much clearer.
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I had a thought I flew away Talking about oh grumbling, grumbling and complaining talked about that from Jude as well and what
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Paul talks about grumbling that we would be like, you know, the children of God like what a stark contrast.
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How much we would be set apart if we just didn't grumble and complain like everyone else did. That's so commonplace.
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If you don't take part in that it's noticeable. People can't help but notice like you never complain.
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Why is that? And then you can share with them about the hope that you have within you like well scripture tells us not to complain.
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You know, we have to consider the perspective. What do we have in Christ? We have no reason to complain for anything.
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But the boss, yeah, I know but we still have this job. We still have this God has blessed us, you know and so yeah, there's a contrast there that if we are just faithful to what
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God has called us to if we if we submit ourselves to the word of God you will shine
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You will shine especially in this day and age and so yeah, the further we go the darker it gets you know as a nation from God, but the
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Christians really have an opportunity to share the gospel so Indeed Any other questions?
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Go ahead. I was going to say like what you just said when we don't complain like I've noticed um, like firsthand
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Like I don't know anyone in my workplace if they are complaining and then i'm not or like they're gossiping or whatever and i'm just like I kind of redirect it and i'm like,
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I don't think that's a really nice thing to say this person is such and such They oftentimes feel really silly
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And then they don't do it again Yep Because they're like, oh wow, and they kind of recognize that it was
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Wrong yeah, you know, yeah like when you don't give in To that absolutely.
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Yeah, they kind of recognize that It isn't right Yeah, I mean when everyone's doing it just like yeah, it's just it's just what everyone does you don't even think about it
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Um, I remember hearing a a believer a pastor preacher who's pretty well known talking about Oh, just to come on, you know the camaraderie of like, ah complaining with about the boss.
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We're like see we're just like uh Listen, i've been there i've done that but I wouldn't be bragging on it because that's if we really want to set ourselves apart
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It's not you don't have to be hostile. You don't have to be like, hey, let me drop the hammer on you like I just don't think we should do that and that gentle word is like Oh, you know and it really finds its mark.
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So it's an opportunity for us just just for this week alone All right every other week Don't complain try try not complaining and see especially if like in the workplace or maybe in your family or you know school or whatever
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See how that sets you apart I think you have to think about it though because it just pops out so easily and you can't