Defying Tyrants is Obedience to God - Sermon - Jeff Durbin #KimDavis

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You can open your Bibles to Matthew, Matthew's Gospel, Matthew chapter 5.

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Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' most popular sermon. We've been in it for a while. There's so much to say, and I know we've missed a lot.

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But we're in two sections. Jesus talking about salt and light, and then the next talking about the law.

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And these two sections are so weighty for us, and I think in many respects either ignored in their context or denied in doctrine and practice.

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So let's pray together after the reading of God's Word and ask for the help of God's Spirit.

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Matthew 5, verse 13. And it would be appropriate to read this in light of our current circumstances.

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For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

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For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

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Let's pray. Father, I pray, God, oh God, for help. God, I pray for your power, your

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Spirit. Lord, I pray for your words. God, I pray, Lord, in the time that we live that you would rise up.

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And God, I know we have so much to confess as a people. We have so much to confess.

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We've disregarded you, your standards. We've disregarded, Lord, our role as salt and light in the world.

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God, we've mocked your law as redeemed people. God, we don't have enough courage to love our neighbors, to say and do anything.

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And God, we need you. Lord, we need you now. We need you to bring our hearts to a place where we repent.

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And Lord, we're emboldened with love for neighbor. And God, I pray that you would give us a vision of a heavenly city and not an earthly one.

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That you'd give us the ability to see what's closest to your heart, what your desires are.

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God, I pray that you would have us put away childish things. I pray,

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God, that you would allow us as a church at large to rise up. We pray, God, for the persecuted.

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We pray for our nation that has turned aside to wickedness. We pray for a nation that disregards you, your law, and your

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Messiah. God, we confess that our nation has broken covenant with you. And we ask you,

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God, to be merciful. Lord, when Abraham asked you, if you should find so many righteous, would you relent from disaster?

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You said, yes. And so, God, we hang on to that as mercy. Lord, would you relent from disaster upon this nation for those righteous in it?

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And God, would you cause your church to be stirred? Would you cause us to rise up?

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Would you cause us to preach a gospel once again that's full of truth, boldness, and clarity that calls people to come to life and to turn once and for all to the living

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God? God, grant to this nation eternal life, and you'll get all the glory for it.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Matthew chapter 5 is significant because, again, it comes in the context of Jesus' most famous sermon.

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It's the most famous sermon in the history of planet Earth. That says a lot, right? Because there's a lot of famous sermons.

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People have favorite, you know, people. My favorites, personally, Dr. James White. I like John Piper. I like Sinclair Ferguson, mostly because of the accent.

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But anybody that speaks with a Scottish accent is automatically a better preacher, just by default, okay?

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But we all have favorite preachers and favorite sermons. Say, hey, did you ever hear this guy's sermon? It's an awesome sermon. So, you know, there's

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Paul Washer's sermon. It's like the most downloaded sermon in the history of, like, mankind. The shocking youth sermon.

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You know, everyone's heard that sermon. And it kicks you in the teeth and gets you in a high gear once again. So people have some famous sermons.

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But nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever taught Jesus' sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. It's the most popular sermon ever.

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And it starts off with Jesus sitting down on this mountain and teaching his people. And he starts with blessing them first.

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It's the Beatitudes. It's divine happiness. Hear that again. Ready? It's God's happiness.

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God's happiness. Not your happiness, my happiness, which is fleeting, which comes and goes with the waves of our emotions and our feelings.

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You know, our days are good and bad. We have high days of great strength and other days, most days, of a lot of weakness.

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But Jesus says, divine happiness upon you. And when he does so, he does so in a way that flips the world on its head.

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He pronounces divine happiness not on the haughty, not on the prideful. He says it upon those who are poor in spirit.

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They recognize their spiritual condition, that they're bankrupt before God. And he says, you are divinely happy because you're bankrupt.

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You've got nothing to offer. So divine happiness upon you. Upon the meek. And he says, you'll inherit the earth.

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That God's people inherit the earth, hearkening back to the Book of Psalms, where the theme always is, get this, now.

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The theme always is in Scripture, always and every single time.

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It never goes away. Capture it. Ever. That is, the wicked who are uprooted from the land, and that it's the righteous who dwell in it.

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And Jesus takes that promise from the Old Testament about the land, the wicked being uprooted and the righteous being left in it.

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And Jesus says to his people, blessed are you. And he says this, the meek shall inherit not the land, the earth.

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Jesus has plans for the world. And when he tells us to live in it, he says to us, you will inherit the earth.

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It's yours. God ordained. God's given it to you. He's already given you the deed to it.

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It doesn't belong to the unrighteous, the unbelievers. They're just visiting. And he says to us, his people, that the meek shall inherit the earth.

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And while you're here, he says, you be the salt of the earth. You be the light of the earth.

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Salt, in Jesus' day, does two primary things. One, it preserves things from what?

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Spoiling, decay. Salt was something you used. You don't have refrigeration. And so if you want to keep something from decay and stinking and spoiling and rotting, you would actually salt it to preserve it.

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And Jesus says, you, your identity is actual salt. And you salt the earth.

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You stop it from spoiling. You stop it from decay. And you, your identity is light.

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Your image of God, your light bearers, your embassaries, your ambassadors of the king.

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He's the light of the world, that men love darkness rather than the light. And God places you here as his light bearers to spring out into the world, to dispel the darkness.

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Jesus says, that's your role. And so you don't hide it. And you don't become the kind of salt that loses its savor and literally, that says, becomes foolish.

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Jesus says, salt that becomes foolish is worth less.

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What is the result according to this text? Of God's people who are ordained, identified as salt preservatives in the world.

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What's the path for them if they become foolish in the world?

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Jesus says, it's good for nothing except to be trampled under feet by men.

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Talk about a prophecy. You look at our culture today in the West, a nation like ours, make no mistake about it.

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I'll say it boldly. Our nation was started by Christians, pure and simple.

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This nation began, Christians came over from England. They planted communities.

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They were Christians, Calvinists, actually. Reformed theology was the norm.

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Reformed theology is an all -encompassing, full -orbed view of life. These Puritans viewed

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Jesus as the king, having all authority in heaven and on earth. And they established Jesus' kingly rule over their own personal lives, in their families, over their church, in their civil magistrate.

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And when they would ask a question about, how do we do this? What should we do? They look to the law word of God to say, we should do this and not that.

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When they would make treaties with other nations, they would actually announce the divine name of God in the name of the

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Trinitarian God of the Bible. That's where we came from. That's a salty kind of Christian.

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And when those Christians were salting the earth and lighting the earth up, there was prosperity. Was it perfect?

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Absolutely not. They were sinners. Puritans are kind of weird sometimes. What are you going to do? They didn't like the theater.

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Phooey on that, right? They have a right to be wrong, you know.

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But the point is, they were Christians living like Christians obeying Jesus' commands.

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And we've gotten to a place in our culture today where our nation started by Christians under God in covenant with Jesus Christ.

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Abandoned Jesus Christ. In reality, at the formation of our nation, after it was a nation, at the formation of our nation, took the titles of Jesus Christ out of our federal documents.

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And as a result of taking Jesus' name out of our federal documents, made way for the world to squeeze their position in.

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And now we eat the fruit of its labor. This is not merely a political sermon, although it very much is.

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You see, Christianity is inescapably political. If you pretend otherwise, you are deluding yourself.

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Because let me just tell you this. Ready? Jesus is the king. That's a political statement.

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And in the early church, the world around the Christians understood the message. They knew

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Christians are being brought up on charges. Being brought up on charges. And what was the charge?

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These guys, Caesar, king, Mr. President. These guys say that there's another king, one

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Jesus. The world around the early Christian church understood our message.

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And listen to this. In Rome, early on, at the beginning of the Christian church, Christians were not killed because they worshiped

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Jesus. Rome doesn't care what you worship. Worship a rock, a stone, stubble.

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You could go pay money to walk into a temple, and you can have all kinds of crazy, disgusting, physical, sexual things going on with pagan priests and prophetess.

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It didn't matter to Rome. What they cared about is if you said somebody had higher authority, a higher law than Caesar, you were punished.

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Ready? Kaiser Curios. Say that in Rome. Live.

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Christians in Rome would not say Kaiser Curios. They say, we'll be good citizens,

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Caesar. We'll obey the law. We'll pay rightful taxes. We'll do what we're supposed to do. We're not going to do evil things in Rome.

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We just want to love people. We want to care for the poor. We want to rescue these orphans. We want to love Jesus and tell the world about his good news.

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We don't want to cause problems. And Caesar says, just a little pinch of incense. That's all you need.

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Kaiser Curios. Say it. And Christians were rounded up in the streets by Nero. Nero found

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Christians, and he would tie him up to poles in his garden parties at night. And he would ride his chariot through these

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Christians while they wrapped them in pitch and lit them on fire. And they used their bodies as Roman candles to light his garden parties.

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Caesar Nero would capture Christians, tie them to a stake, and he would cover himself naked in the skins of a lion or a bear.

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And then he would attack them while they were tied to a stake and eat them. Why? Because they worship

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Jesus? It's because they would not say Kaiser Curios. Caesar is

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Lord. This is an issue of ultimates. You either have man as ultimate or God as ultimate.

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There is no middle ground. And the early Christians understood what it meant to be salty to the world, light to the world.

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They understood that this kingdom of the Messiah was going to expand throughout the entire earth, that the message of Christianity is inescapably, unavoidably political in its ramifications.

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Because what do we say? That Jesus is the ultimate. His word counts. His law counts.

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Come against him and he will judge you. Psalm chapter 2 is a premier text of the

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Messiah. The father says to the son in Psalm 2, he says this to the son. He says, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.

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Ask the question. Do you think Jesus forgot to ask the father? He ascended and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Go therefore and make disciples of what? All the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, teaching them to obey.

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Brothers and sisters, we have an obligation when we bring the message of Jesus into our culture to call them to faith, to call them to salvation and to teach them obedience to the king.

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God says in Psalm 2 to the kings, after he promises the nations to the son, he says very, very clearly, be wise.

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O king, obey the son or you'll perish when his wrath is kindled.

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My fear is this. In Matthew chapter 5, Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his people, be salt and be light.

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But that comes in a context. It comes wrapped around a whole story. It's not by itself. It's not just a thing thrown in there for good measure.

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Be salt, be light to the earth is because the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

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Jesus says you will inherit the earth and that he is the king. Brothers and sisters, our message is inescapably political.

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Not for political sake. Jesus is not a guy in a $5 ,000 suit hanging out in Washington, bickering with guys on Capitol Hill.

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No, Jesus is on a heavenly throne demanding people repent and obey.

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Our message is a message that is full orb, contains the entire world. And it comes, brothers and sisters, with something vitally important.

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Absolute, complete allegiance to Jesus or nothing. Jesus comes into the world and he says this to thousands of followers.

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I love it. They're all following. Everyone's coming around. They're getting like the meat and cookies. And they're like, yeah, this is great. It's awesome. Hang out with Jesus.

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You get food. Hey, he's feeding us free food. Jesus turns around, looks at the crowds, and does something that would fail him in every seminary course in America.

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He says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate father, mother, brother, sister, wife, even your own life, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

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What happens? They walk away. What is

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Jesus' response? Wait, wait, wait. Just kidding. Just kidding.

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Okay, you can have this. You can have that. How about to the rich young ruler?

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The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, Master, what must I do to gain an eternal life? And Jesus knows the man.

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He knows what's in his heart. So he goes right to the core of what's wrong with the guy, how he's oppressed the poor. He has not obeyed the law of God.

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He cuts the guy in his heart. He says, here's what you lack. Sell everything you own. And what does every charlatan do?

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Sell everything you own and then give it to me for the ministry. He says, sell everything you own.

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Give it to the poor. And you come follow me naked. Amazingly, this guy walks away bitter.

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And Jesus doesn't go chasing after him saying, okay, okay, okay. Half? Just a skosh?

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A little? Jesus demands complete allegiance. He says this, whoever's not with me is what?

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Against me. There's no neutrality with Jesus. And in every conversation we have in the world, believe me, it's a question about ultimates.

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How you view science in the classroom is a question of ultimates. Either Jesus is Lord there or he's not.

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In the art class, either Jesus is recognized as Lord there and can provide a foundation for beauty, truth, goodness, and everything else.

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Or he's not. And in our current context, in the world around us, when you see such gross hostility against Christianity, believe me, it's a question about ultimates.

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Brothers and sisters, what we are witnessing today in our culture is a revolt against the king.

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Nothing less than a revolt against the king. It is a revolution, brothers and sisters, because our nation was started, founded upon the rock, the word of God.

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And what we have been working towards all this time in our nation, as we failed to be salt to it, as we failed to be light to it, as we've checked out of culture, what we've been working towards is a nation that finally turns against its

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God, its covenant Lord, and we're in that final stage now. We are in the final stages of where a nation rises up against a

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God and says, no, you cannot rule over us. And now we experience the effects.

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So salt and light, salt does two things. One, preserves. Two, it makes things taste better, right?

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I mentioned to you guys that my wife is going to die at a young age because of what she does with salt, and she's probably damaging the life and health of my children, okay?

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So pray for my family. It's a serious thing, okay? But salt, we all know, makes things taste better.

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But salt in a Jewish context, understand this, in wisdom literature for Jews, salt was often used to describe wisdom.

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So it's not so much just that, like, you make life, like, very exciting and fun, right? Like, coming to a

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Christian church is like, it's such a fun thing. And by the way, I think it's particularly awesome, in my opinion, right?

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But it's not about just making things taste better. Salt is about wisdom. So Jesus is at least saying this, you're the salt, you are to preserve things from decay, and you are to bring wisdom into the world.

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That's your responsibility, godly wisdom. And Jesus is saying this, if salt loses its savor, it becomes foolish.

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What's the opposite of wisdom? Foolishness. So Jesus is saying this, you are to be

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God's wisdom to the world. You are to be God's preservation to the world. As the world slips into decay, your job is to speak the truth of God, the gospel of God into the world, so that the world can turn to Christ, be redeemed, and be transformed.

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We have such a false dichotomy. We think heaven's where we're going, and God doesn't even care about the earth.

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Nothing can be farther from the biblical worldview. Let me say it to you again, in case you didn't catch it.

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The modern evangelical notion that heaven is our home one day, that you escape to, and God's just going to throw away the earth, is not the biblical worldview.

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It's dualism. It's platonic worldview. It's not Christian. In the beginning,

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God created the heavens and the earth, and he called it bad? He called it good.

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And where was God? He was walking with his people. He was with us. Heaven and earth were kissed together.

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And when the fall enters, the curse enters, and God has sin and the curse fall into the world, and he curses even the ground.

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And all the rest of the Bible is God doing what he does to bring redemption, to finally do away with the works of the devil, so that Jesus brings this desert now back to a garden again, in final victory, where he resurrects his saints, and we live victoriously, reigning with God on the earth forever.

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Do you know what Revelation doesn't mention? Unbelievers living on earth forever.

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It's you! It's me! I might sound a little passionate about this, and there's a reason, because we have, through bad eschatologies, cut the throat of the

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Christian church and our mission. What does Jesus say happens to salt when it becomes foolish?

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It gets trampled under feet by men. And we cry out today, why is this happening?

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Why is it happening? Why is the Christian church seen as just a bunch of dummies and irrelevant, and really have nothing to say to the world?

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How come we're being stepped on? How come federal judges are kidnapping Christian adherents and putting them into a cage, and no one says or does anything about it?

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How do we get to this point? Because we have become nothing but fools to the world.

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Because we are too afraid to give up our own comfort for the sake of other.

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When someone says to me, don't get involved in those sorts of things, that's not the mission, that's not the call. You know what

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I say? You're a coward. You're a coward. Because it's being a coward that leads somebody to doing absolutely nothing.

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Love for neighbor says something. Love for neighbor does something. Love for neighbor sacrifices everything.

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What do you think it looks like, brothers and sisters, when Jesus says to you, greater love has no man than this, than a man lay his life down for his friends.

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We look at that and all of its glory, and we say, oh, that is beautiful because it is. It's majestic because that's

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Jesus. That's my savior. That's what he does for me. And Jesus says this, look, I'm the defining picture of what love is.

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If you want to love your neighbor, it looks like laying your life down for them. And salt and light does something.

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God does have concern for the world. Ephesians 1, verse 10, Colossians 1, 20, 1

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Corinthians 15, 20. The world is a concern for God. And God says this in Psalm 110, 1.

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The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, our current position in that prophecy is that Jesus is already there and he is currently putting every enemy under his feet.

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He will finally, after all these are done, be putting death under his feet.

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And then when he comes back, he's going to take that kingdom, that rule, everything he's accomplished, and he's going to present it back to the father saying, here father, it's done.

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It's finished. Everything's in subjection to me. That's where we're at. That's the story of history.

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God, all in all. God is victorious. God is conqueror. And you ask the question, how in God's name are we going to get there?

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Let me say this. It's the gospel, but it's the gospel of the kingdom. It's the good news of his kingdom, that Jesus reigns, that he is

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Lord of lords, king of kings, that his gospel is peace and salvation, and he commands men everywhere to repent.

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Jesus isn't asking anybody to try him out. He's not asking anybody to come and give him a chance, give him a sample, right?

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Like Rick Warren was on Fox News, charlatan that he is, and told people, give Jesus a 60 day trial.

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That's just a false gospel. Call it as it is. Give Jesus a trial.

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Jesus was only punished and brutalized and put in a place of weakness once.

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And it was for a reason. It was because of his love for you and his love for me.

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But when Jesus now returns, he comes trampling people under his feet in a wine press.

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So the blood in Revelation reaches up to the bridles of the horses. He is a consuming fire.

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And God says to the world, obey him or you will perish. And brothers and sisters,

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I'm not a prophet, but I can see which way the wind is blowing. If our nation keeps going the way that it is, all we have ahead of us is judgment from God, and it's rightly deserved.

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It is rightly deserved, brothers and sisters. Our job as a church is to repent. We have to repent before God as a church, nationally, over our sins as Christians, not for the sins of the unbelievers, our sins as Christians, that we have been so indifferent, that we have cared so little about being salt to the world, that we've abandoned the world to the evil one.

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It's our responsibility. Brothers and sisters, someone said before that the culture is the church's report card.

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How are we doing? How do we get to this place? How do we get to a place where our first Supreme Court justice,

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John Jay, is writing out case law, and he's actually pointing to the word of God in his case law, and now we have judges actually saying that circles are squares.

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That men can marry men, and women can marry women, and that's called marriage. How do we get to this place?

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I'll tell you how we got to this place. We got to this place when Christians decided to check out of culture. We got to this place when

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Christians decided to say, hey, heaven is my real home. We got to this place when you have the sorts of things happen around you that are total chaos, everything's disrupted, and Christians say,

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Maranatha. When in reality, what we should be doing is paying attention to Jesus' prayer in John 17, 17, where he says this to the father.

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Father, I do not pray. I do not pray. I do not pray that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

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Abraham's descendants will inherit the earth. What kind of world do we leave to our children? I want to know what our grandkids are going to say.

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What are our grandkids going to say if we don't rise up with the gospel and the proclamation of the king

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What will our grandkids say two generations from now when they've inherited a worse mess than us?

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What will they say to us? What would they say to you and me? Why didn't you do something?

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Why didn't you say something? Why were you so indifferent? Why did you not care?

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Why were you so short -sighted? Do you know what you've gave us? Do you know the kind of oppression that we have now?

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Brothers and sisters, that's us, a godly, righteous, wise person stores up treasures for an inheritance to their children.

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And as a Christian church, we are guilty in this generation. We are so guilty. The Messiah has a purpose in the world.

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He's the ruler. Revelation 11, 15. Revelation 1, 5. He's the ruler over the kings of the earth today.

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Can I say it one more time? He's the ruler over the kings of the earth today. That means that our nation's president,

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President Obama, is under the authority and rule of Jesus Christ. Whether he acknowledges it or not, he must obey.

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That's the scriptural context. And you might say as a Christian, man, they're getting away with a lot and it doesn't look like God is acting.

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Brothers and sisters, he is merciful. He is so merciful. He is good.

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But let me tell you right now, I do not believe that our God, a holy God who is a consuming fire is ever going to turn a blind eye to the millions of babies murdered in the last 40 years.

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He will rise up and God will act. And when he acts, we cannot say to God, but God, why didn't you or shouldn't you have?

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Couldn't you have been more merciful? God has been merciful and patient for so long with us as a nation.

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This week we experienced something really tremendous. Tremendous.

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I really want to say up front, I know very little about Kim Davis. People question her beliefs, whether she's apostolic and she denies the

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Trinity. For the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter if she denies the Trinity. I'm not calling her a

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Christian. But the world is persecuting her for Christian beliefs.

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The world sees her as a Christian. So ready? It could and might as well be you.

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And brothers and sisters, Kim Davis goes to jail. For what?

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She goes to jail as a lesser magistrate under the laws of Kentucky.

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The law of Kentucky. Let me read it to you. Seventy -five percent.

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One more time. Seventy -five percent of the citizens in the sovereign state of Kentucky voted for a definition of marriage.

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Here's what it says. Kentucky Constitution, Section 233a. Valid or recognized marriage.

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Legal status of unmarried individuals. Only a marriage between one man and one woman should be valid or recognized as a marriage in Kentucky.

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I'll go ahead and read that again in case you didn't hear it. Only a marriage between one man and one woman should be valid or recognized as a marriage in Kentucky.

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A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage or unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.

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So brothers and sisters, this righteous acting lesser magistrate stood up against the opinion of the

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Supreme Court activists. These activist judges decided to call circles squares.

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I would point you to the fact that our United States Constitution states plainly one.

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There is freedom of religion and there is no jurisdiction around that. It is freedom of religion, period.

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No qualifications. Next, I would point you to the fact that our Constitution dictates that all legislation, all legislative powers are given to a

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Congress, not to a Supreme Court. That means that hack jobs wearing black robes with fancy pins do not make legislation.

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And when they decide to call circles squares, this lesser magistrate under God has the responsibility, ready, to keep herself from sinning against God and to protect the people of Kentucky behind her from sin as well.

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And so she stands. And when someone asked her, when activists came to her and said, by what authority are you doing this?

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It was like music to my sweet little ears. She said, by God's authority. Amen. You know what that is?

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Salt. That is light. By what authority? She just went right for it.

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She said, by God's authority. She was respectful. She was patient.

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She was gracious. And she said, by God's authority. That's whose authority. I'd go a step further.

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I'd say, by God's authority and the authority of the state invested in me as a lesser magistrate to protect my people from tyrannical judges.

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Early on in our nation, praise God for Christians that didn't think like we do today.

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Hallelujah. You know what I'm saying? What a bunch of cowards we have in our culture.

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People that bicker and gripe about calling out about these social issues that do actually connect to the gospel.

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Brothers and sisters, it's homosexuality sin. Is gay marriage a sin? Then that's a gospel issue.

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So when someone says to me, you shouldn't get involved in that. You should just love them and preach the gospel to them. You're out of your minds.

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That's the gospel issue. How else are you going to preach the gospel? Here's what's wrong.

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You're too afraid to lay your life down for the cause of love for the other. That's what's wrong.

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And here we have a context where we have people who are running headlong into sin. And you have a person standing in the gap.

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You have a person who's fulfilling the biblical role of interposition. That is a biblically defined role for a lesser magistrate in the

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Bible. And early on in our American history, thank God for Christians that actually read their

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Bibles and understood the Bible gives you a full orbed worldview. Thank God for the

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Black Robe Regiment. All these people today boasting in their freedom, boasting in their government.

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You can thank Calvin and Geneva and then the Black Robe Regiment for your freedom. You're welcome.

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The Black Robe Regiment were Presbyterian and Baptist pastors who when they preached wore their black

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Geneva robes. And then after they preached about the tyranny of England and how they broke covenant with God and how they were stealing from people, these pastors,

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Baptists and Presbyterians took off their black robes, picked up their rifles, and went to fight.

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And they said this. This was their mantra. This was their motto.

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Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

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This judge, this federal judge, let me read to you a bit about him and then unpack the scriptures for you.

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How do we be salt in this with the Word of God? This is from christiannews .net.

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Judge who jailed Kim Davis ordered students who opposed homosexuality to be re -educated.

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Isn't that interesting? Judge who jailed Kim Davis ordered students who opposed homosexuality to be re -educated.

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Following yesterday's jailing of a county clerk for stating that it is not possible for her to obey an order or issue marriage licenses to homosexuals against God's law, it is now being noted that the same federal judge also once noted that the same federal judge also once ordered

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Kentucky students to be re -educated about homosexuality despite their objections.

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Well, I wonder, is there any connection between his activism in one place to his activism now?

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Exodus 21 .16. Go to your Bibles. Exodus 21 .16.

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As a minister of the gospel, it's my charge before the people of God to say the hard things sometimes.

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And if we're to ask the question, what is godly wisdom to our judiciary? What is godly wisdom?

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What is God's standard in this case? Kim Davis has violated no law.

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The law of God trumps the law of man always. And the laws of the state of Kentucky tell her that man and woman is the only context for marriage.

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She is obeying the law. There has been no law made by the

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Supreme Court because they have not been given powers of legislation that's given to the Congress.

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So Kim Davis is an innocent victim here. And let me say, a star.

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Let me point you to God's standards. Exodus 21 .16.

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Whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death.

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What is God's standard for anybody who steals another human being?

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God's standard is the death penalty. This judge, according to God, woe to him.

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He kidnapped an innocent victim, a person who was righteous and kept covenant.

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She was doing her job and he kidnapped her. And she remains at this very moment in a cell as an image bearer of God caged like an animal.

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God's standard to this judge, woe to you. You deserve to die. Romans 13 might come up.

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Oh boy, here we go. This is one of the most amazing things in our time.

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Christians will say, hey, here's a Christian in government. She should just obey and do her job because Romans 13 says to submit to the governing authorities.

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I want you guys to go to your Bibles and I want you to read Romans 13. Romans chapter 13.

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Romans chapter 13. How do we be salt and light in this context? And before you get to Romans 13 or as you get there, put one finger in 13 and then make sure you can also see chapter 12.

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Let's start in chapter 12. This is first to God's church. Ready? Chapter 12 verse 9.

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Let love be genuine. Some of your translations say without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil.

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Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

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Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation.

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Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

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Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them.

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Rejoice with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.

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Never be wise in your own sight. Repay, watch. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

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If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably. As it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

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Beloved, watch. Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.

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For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. So what's the call for us as Christians, according to Romans 12?

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You don't give personal vengeance. You love, you outdo with honor, you give mercy, you give grace, you give compassion.

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If somebody offends you, turn the other cheek. That's the call for us as Christians. Vengeance isn't in our hands to deliver.

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And by the way, that's also the Old Testament standard of justice. But wait a minute. Does that mean in the

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New Covenant that vengeance and the justice that God calls for is never delivered?

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Well, you just have to read one more chapter over. Revelation, sorry, Romans 13. After saying,

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Christians, you don't take vengeance into your own hands, not your job.

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That's not your jurisdiction. He then says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities.

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For there is no authority except for God, from God. And those that exist have been instituted by God.

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Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment.

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For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?

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Then do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is God's servant.

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The word there in the Greek is deacon. We've got our own deacons here. They're awesome. The word here is deacon.

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He is God's deacon, God's servant for. Are you ready? Are you ready?

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You're good. For you're good. But if you do wrong, be afraid.

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For he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of who?

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God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoers.

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Now, brothers and sisters, people have often gone to this text to say Christians are to offer complete and total obedience to the government because God's word says submit to those who are in authority over you.

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I want to say we need to start getting classes on biblical hermeneutics because the text actually says

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Romans 12, Christians, not your responsibility to deliver vengeance to anybody. Don't you dare. It's not your job.

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Vengeance belongs to God. And then Romans 13, he says, be in subjection to those who are in authority.

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That's God's servant who wields a sword of justice to bring vengeance on wrongdoers.

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So quick question, according to Romans 13, is Paul being prescriptive or descriptive?

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Well, let me go backwards. I'd say it's not descriptive because I happen to remember that they cut off his head and killed

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Peter and the other apostles. So I don't think he's describing Rome. What do you think? So what does he say about the role of civil magistrates?

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He says this, the civil magistrate under God is to take the responsibility away from the people of God of vengeance, give it to the role of civil government so they can punish evildoers.

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And the civil magistrate is God's servant. And he bears the sword of justice question.

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Whose servant is he? God's. Whose standard of justice does

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God want his servant to employ? His own. So far from being a text that calls

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Christians to unlimited, unquestioned obedience to the state, this text does not teach it.

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Proof that it does not teach it is in Paul's own application of it.

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We need to ask the question, does Paul really intend for Christians to offer blind, unquestioned obedience to the state always and forever?

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Well, let's check him out. Open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. In 2

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Corinthians chapter 11, the apostle Paul relays the story of how he was in trouble with the civil magistrate.

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And in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 30, he tells you the story. Here it is.

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If I must boast, verse 30, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

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The God and father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.

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At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus.

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Watch. In order to seize me. So here is a civil magistrate and they want

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Paul arrested. Now, for all those who think Paul is teaching in Romans 13, absolute complete submission to the government, what should

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Paul have done? He should have turned himself in. So does

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Paul agree with our Christian brothers and sisters that teach unquestioned and blind obedience to the state?

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Read the next verse. It says, But I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.

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How crafty was that? Right. You sly dog.

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The apostle Paul submit to those in authority. It's God's servant. He bears a sword and not in vain.

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It's against wrongdoers. Question. Was Paul a wrongdoer in this case? No. And that's why he fled.

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Paul does not agree with the interpretation of total unquestioned, blind obedience to the state.

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When the state, and I borrowed this from a friend, friend, Matthew Truella.

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His website is excellent. It's called defytyrants .com. I highly recommend it. He says,

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When the state forbids that which God commands. Or commands that which

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God forbids. Resist them. Example, Exodus chapter one.

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The handmaids are told, kill the babies. Who told them to do it?

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The state. Kill the babies. Exodus one. Go read it.

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What did they not do? They didn't kill the babies. And when they were confronted on it, guess what they did?

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They lied. Lying Christians. They lied.

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They not only didn't kill the babies and then they lied. And it said, watch. God dealt well with them.

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God commends people who disobey a tyrannical and wicked state.

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That's why the early Christians in this nation said, resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

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How about Daniel? How about Daniel's experience? King says to him, you are not to pray.

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So what was that? That was forbidding what

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God commands. God commands you to pray. Don't pray. So what's Daniel do? I love it.

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He goes to his window in his house. Make sure everyone can see.

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And he bows up, bows up, bows and walks away.

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And you ask the question, ooh, that's a bad Christian, Daniel. You are to obey the state.

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He said, stop praying. What Daniel do? He defied the authority.

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Let me tell you something. That's salt. Because if you don't salt the earth with righteousness and godly wisdom and God's law, the earth plummets into darkness.

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What's the call of the church? You're the light of the world. Men love darkness rather than light.

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Let me tell you something, brothers and sisters. When you are light to the world, expect something from the world. Resistance.

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Jesus already said it. Light came into the world and men love darkness rather than the light.

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So what is causing us in our generation to think that we should preach the gospel of nice to the world?

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That we're actually going to affect people for the gospel if we're just really, really nice to them and passive.

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And Jesus is cool, right? Come to our church. It's fun. Let me say something to you.

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If you're not a believer, I'm pretty sure you won't be here very much. When you proclaim the truths of God, expect something.

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Fruit, resistance. Fruit, resistance. Fruit, maybe death.

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We talk such a good game as Christians. We're like, oh, the martyrs. I got

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Fox's Book of Martyrs in my library. Read the whole thing. Basically makes me a martyr. Read it several times.

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I know the stories. They're horrific. And then we go along our comfortable, happy way while we live in a context of absolute hostility to the

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Christian message and God's law. And we say and we do nothing.

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And we criticize a woman like Kim Davis, who was obeying God's law and the law of the states.

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And she's been kidnapped now by the state, held in a jail. And you actually have

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Christians saying, and it makes me sick. She should have just obeyed.

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I had somebody write me the other day and they said, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. You see, the thing is,

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Jeff, is that Jesus, he wants us. He wants us to turn the other cheek.

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He wants us to go the extra mile. And so, Jeff, what she really should have done is she should have said, you know,

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I love you, but I can't do that for you. And so what I need to do is I need to find somebody else who will.

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And so what I said is, well, that surprises me. I couldn't imagine actually having someone say to me that we should actually, as Christians, get other people to do the sinning for us.

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If your theology is that it's bootleg and not Christian. When are we going to rise up as a church and take seriously

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Jesus called for salt and light? When are we going to rise up and understand that when you speak the truth into a culture, people actually resist and they fight back and you're in battle with it.

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I'm not asking you to be mean spirited. I'm not asking you to be unkind.

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Jesus says, the Bible says, always being ready to give a reasoned defense to everyone who asks of you a reason for the hope that's within you.

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Yet do it with gentleness and reverence. But sometimes, brothers and sisters, sometimes there is a call for fire.

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And in a context we live in today, brothers and sisters, if we don't start standing up with the truth of God and the law of God and the message of the gospel in our culture, we have nothing but dark days ahead.

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And we can't live so short -sighted that we say, well, some other generation is going to eat the fruits of this labor.

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Shame on us. Shame on us. Shame on us. Because let me say something. What we store up for our kids, our kids will eat.

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And if we have a long -term vision of the future, we'll care enough about the world to salt it and be light to it. And let me remind you once again, light is always something that dispels the darkness.

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And tell you what, men love the darkness rather than the light. So when you go to preach to them, expect resistance.

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Expect people to fight back. Last thing I'll say here and then we're all done for today. Regarding absolute, complete submission to the state, and I want to confess to you much of what

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I'm preaching to you today, I've learned over the years, specifically recently from Matt Truella.

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Again, I recommend the website defytyrants .com to you guys. I don't think it'll be very helpful for you.

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But to prove that God does not want us to have unquestioned, blind obedience to any authority.

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Here we go, quickly. There are several realms of authority that God has set up in the world.

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First is individual. The second is the what? Family. The third is the church.

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And the fourth is the state, the civil magistrates. God does have within those realms specific authority, sovereign authority that he delegates to that realm.

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So for me as an individual, I am accountable to God for my life.

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He calls me to account. I'm accountable to God. Over in the family, who's the head of the home?

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Oh, you say it loud. Come on now. You're not at Hillary's rally right now. You can say it as loud as you want.

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Okay. The husband is the head of the house. It doesn't mean the husband's the dominating one. He doesn't put people under his feet.

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You submit to one another in love. There just happens to be an order of function in the family and roles.

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Believe it or not, guess what? It's amazing. Men and women are different. They're different.

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They're actually different. They do different things. They have different giftings. They have different mechanical packages.

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They're different. Believe it or not. And God says,

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Jesus, head of all, husband, head of house, husband, wife, submit to one another.

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Husband, love your wife like Jesus loves the church. Wife, respect your husband. And then it says to the children in Ephesians 6, 1, children, obey your parents and the

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Lord. Now watch. To show you that God, we all know. We just know it.

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It's so natural for us. We all know God doesn't mean complete and total obedience always, no matter what.

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So when a kid comes home and he sees his dad as a drunk on the floor, he says, dad,

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I think you need help. You're drunk all the time. You're not working. You're spending all of our money. Like we're losing our house.

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Dad, you got to stop this. It would be intellectually inept of the father and sinful for the dad to say, obey your parents and the

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Lord. Obey your parents and the Lord. So God says, don't say another word.

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Those children and that wife have a responsibility to get out of that house and bring the church in to call that man to repentance.

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We all recognize it's not always complete submission under every circumstance.

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And when it comes to the church, the Bible says, Hebrews 13, 7, submit to those who are in authority over you.

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Well, what if one day you came to church and you found one of your leaders stealing, stealing?

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You caught him. And then the leader says to you, submit to those in authority.

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Are you to submit? No, you bring the entire church and you expose that charlatan and that fraud in front of everybody.

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We all recognize it in every context, because what are we recognizing each and every single time? God's law trumps man's law.

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And so when it comes to the state, all of a sudden, American Christians go, but in that realm, obey.

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I want to say this. God's law always trumps man's law. And if God's law is ever spurned by men, then we have a responsibility as Christians to call out to it and to call the nation to repentance.

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Brothers and sisters, I'm not asking you just to become political activists. I'm not. I'm asking you to be

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Christians. I'm asking you to be Christians with the gospel on your lips. I'm asking you to be

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Christians that call people to repentance and faith. I'm asking you to be Christians that actually speak to every realm with the gospel.

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We all get it. My mom needs the gospel. Repent and believe the gospel. My friend over here needs the gospel.

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Repent and believe the gospel. The abortion clinic over here, they need the gospel. Repent and believe the gospel. And all of a sudden, we come over here to Obama and we go, no, every single realm, no matter what it is, judiciary, anything else is under the feet of Jesus.

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Brothers and sisters, the claim of Jesus, all authority in heaven and on earth has meaning or it doesn't.

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Let's be real with that. Be real with that. Either Jesus legitimately has all authority, all on earth, or he doesn't.

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Don't kid yourself. Either Jesus gets to tell people what to do in every realm, or he doesn't.

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And the question really here, like what actually happens here, is just really this. Do you and I believe what we say we believe?

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Are we hypocrites? Is that what it is? Is all of this just a club we enjoy coming to?

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Is it just a thing? We really love it. We love each other. Is it just a thing? We have these sort of ideas that we like, we're comfortable with.

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It's sort of a good club we live in. Or do we actually believe this message? Do we believe the extent of this message?

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How far that it goes? Are we willing to actually do what it takes to take the message of Christ's forgiveness and salvation, his goodness and law, and bring it into the world?

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It takes a lot. I promise it will. It's going to take your time. It's going to take your money.

01:00:12

It's going to take your talent. It may take your life. And Jesus says this, whoever comes after me and does not take up his cross and come and follow me is not worthy to be my disciple.

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Think about it for one moment. Every single person under the hearing of Jesus right there at that moment, they could put it together.

01:00:36

They saw it. Because they could be at the market one day picking up some fruit and some bread. And they could hear some noise in the background.

01:00:44

And they look over and they would see somebody being whipped, carrying a cross down a road.

01:00:49

And they knew something. They knew that right there only ends in one place.

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Death. That's it. And so Jesus comes into that culture where they understand what that means. That it's death.

01:01:00

You're dying. You're over. The old Jew is dead on the cross. He says, if you come after me and you don't take up your cross to come and die, don't come.

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Don't fool yourself. Jesus says this, I'll give you life and I'll give it to you abundantly.

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I'll wash you of all your sins. I'll forgive you of everything. You stand in my grace forever. I'll never lose you ever.

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But don't delude yourself about what it means to be a Christian. Being a Christian means recognizing your sin before a holy

01:01:32

God. That he's holy and you're not. That you're foul and he's good. That everything you have to put before his throne is filthy rags.

01:01:40

Everything you think you've done in your life that's even remotely good is nothing but garbage before the feet of God. Actually, it's tampons.

01:01:47

It's used rags before a holy God. That's what good we have to offer

01:01:52

God. We're none righteous, not even good, none who seeks for God. That's what we have to offer

01:01:57

God. And God in his love and his mercy for sinners, he condescends. He takes on flesh.

01:02:03

He walks among us to live sinlessly and righteously. He perfectly obeys God's law and he goes to a cross to die a death that you deserve so that when you're called to come to Jesus and he says, take up your cross to come and die.

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He's asking you to come join him in that death so that his crucifixion, his death becomes your death and his resurrection you're joined to him in so you, the old you is dead and gone and the new you is alive in God, washed clean, covered in righteous robes, credited righteous, no longer guilty.

01:02:38

That's the message of the gospel. But the call goes out, ready? Not give

01:02:43

Jesus a chance. The call goes out, come and die. And brothers and sisters, when you come to die, know this.

01:02:51

You come to die in a particular context and a particular time God puts you in and we live in a time that so desperately needs the message of the king.

01:03:01

Brothers and sisters, pray for the persecuted. Do you ever think you'd say it? Remember like in the 90s, pray for the persecuted church in China.

01:03:12

Pray for the persecuted church in India. Remember that? I remember. Pray for the persecuted church.

01:03:19

Pray for the persecuted church. Pray for the persecuted church here. Because our message, while many of us haven't been beaten and put in trial, our message right now is the central focus, right now.

01:03:35

And it's a revolt against God. That's a gospel conversation.

01:03:42

And the question is this, will you be in it? Let's pray. Father, I pray that you bless this message,

01:03:48

God. I know that in myself I'm unworthy to preach such a message. I ask

01:03:53

God that you would bring my heart to further repentance. Embolden me, embolden us, and send us in Jesus' name.