Questions And Answers

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Well, as much as I wanted to do Isaiah 6 tonight, it was such a powerful message in Isaiah 6.
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And one of those messages is that when you hear it, you're ready to become a long -term missionary, a pastor, all kinds of different things, and I thought the church at large needs that, so we will wait, and tonight we'll do a
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Q &A instead. For those of you that haven't been here before on Q &A, I have on occasion taken live questions and answers, but I am not that smart, and so I like to have questions ahead of time, but we will have some comments, and so we'll try to make it a lot of different questions and answers, so at least there'll be something for everyone's interest.
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And what we want to do is we want to be good Bible students. We want to have ideas in our mind that come from the
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Bible, we want to have a biblical worldview, and there are answers in the Bible. Not to everything, sometimes
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God is silent about things, but there are plenty of answers in the Bible, and that's what we want to look at tonight on a wide variety of topics, including the first one that will certainly pique your interest.
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Question number one, what do you do when you have a sinful dream?
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When you dream something sinfully, what do you do? Is it actually a sin to commit a sin in your dream?
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Comments. On Sunday morning, we usually don't like to have interaction because there are just too many folks, but tonight, what would you do if someone came up to you and said, friend,
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I know Romans 15 says that you are competent to give me biblical counsel. I'm coming to you as a friend to help me with this problem.
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I sin in my dreams, and then I don't know how I should react. What would you tell that person?
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Dave. Don't you try. I've never heard such a great answer.
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Let's just bow in prayer. Try to confess your sins in your dreams.
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That is a great idea because sometimes you can stir your dreams certain ways, can't you? Very brilliant answer.
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That is great. Are there any other options? What would you tell someone? This is obviously the remnant tonight because we first had like 19 hours of Gaither -like singing and then now we have this.
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Dave? Okay, great.
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For the sake of the tape and for the internet, sometimes it depends on what you're doing all day and thinking about before you go to bed.
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If you watch some... I'll give you an example. Before I was a Christian, every night to put myself to sleep, I would read
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Newsweek magazine, and I would have these dreams about all kinds of war and issues, and I stopped reading
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Newsweek and I didn't have those dreams anymore. The way I usually go to bed now is I have a little flashlight all set up because Kim goes to sleep, and then
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I've got this little flashlight that I set perfectly right here, and I just read some book about the
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Lord and His Word, and those are the last thoughts that I have. And so it also depends on what you are putting into your brain.
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I mean, it would not strike you as odd, would it, if you watched a pornography show and then went to bed and had some kind of sinful dream.
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And so certainly Dave is right when he says, if you want to confess your sinful dream as sin, it wouldn't hurt, although I don't think it's mandatory, but be careful what you put into your brain before you go to sleep.
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Now, this book here is called A Christian Directory by Richard Baxter. He was a Puritan from Kidderminster, England in the 1600s, very famous preacher.
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Matter of fact, I went to Kidderminster once and I said, I'm looking...I went to an information booth in secular
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England in Kidderminster, and I said, I'm looking for any kind of Richard Baxter church or where he might have ministered, do you think you might have any information on that?
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Certainly, there would be no information given. And they said, oh yes, he's famous here, he's one of the most famous Kidderminsterians.
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And right over there is his church still. He was a voluminous writer and he wrote this
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Christian Directory, volume one. This is just volume one. And if I turn to page 341, he has all kinds of Christian living advice.
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Part eight, page 341, directions against sinful dreams.
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Isn't that amazing? Dreams are neither good nor sinful simply in themselves because they are not rational and voluntary nor in our power.
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But they are often made sinful by some other voluntary act. They may be sinful by participation and consequently.
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And he just has a period there. The antecedent causes are any sinful act which distempereth the body, or any sin which inclineth the fantasy and mind thereto, or the omission of what was necessary to prevent them.
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So far, so good. He's basically said what we've said. Direction number one, avoid those bodily distempers as much as you can, which cause sinful dreams, especially fullness of diet.
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So, it would not be good to have a lot of salsa and other picante things right before you go to bed.
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I guess that's what he's saying in old English. He also says, the cure of a lustful heart is the best way to cure lustful dreams and so the rest.
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Cleanse the fountain and the waters will be sweeter day and night. Direction three, suffer not your thoughts, our tongue, our actions to run sinfully upon that in the day which you would not dream sinfully in the night.
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Direction four, commend yourself to prayer to God before you take your rest and beseech him to set a guard upon your fantasy when you cannot guard it.
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Cast the cure upon him and fly to him for help by faith and prayer in the sense of your sufficiency.
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Direction five, let your last thoughts still before you sleep be holy and yet quieting and conciliatory thoughts.
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The dreams are apt to follow our last thoughts. If you betake yourself to sleep with worldliness, our vanity in your minds, you cannot expect to be wiser or better when you are asleep than you are when you are awake.
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But if you shut up your day's thoughts with God and sleep, find them upon any holy subject, it is like to use them as it finds them.
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But if you sweeten your last thoughts with the love of Christ and the remembrance of your former mercies are the foresight of eternal joys, our can confidently cast them and yourselves upon some promise, it will tend to the quietness of your sleep.
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Direction number six, when you have found any corruption appearing in your dreams, make use of them for the renewing of your repentance and exciting your endeavors to mortify that corruption.
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That is to say, if you sin in your dreams or what's supposed sin, then when you're awake, make sure never to do those sins because you realize that they're sinful.
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Isn't that amazing advice from Richard Baxter? Who would have ever thought? The best thing that you can do is when you wake up in the morning, think about the
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Lord and His goodness and then also before you go to bed. Comments on that? What do you do with sinful dreams?
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Have you ever thought of that? No more comments. There's a little comment over there, a little one.
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She's not going to bother me at all, you can come in. All right, number two, is there anything you should be anxious for?
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Be careful before you answer. Is there anything you should be anxious for? What's your gut reaction when
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I say that? Nothing, because you want to say what verse? Be anxious for nothing, and that would come from Philippians 4, but the
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Bible says that you should be anxious for something. What might that be? The Lord, be anxious for the
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Lord? Anything particular? It's kind of like what did you learn at Sunday school today, son? God. What else did you learn about God?
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Jesus. That's the right answer, but not the total right answer. Who might know something that we should all be anxious for?
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Naomi. All right, good. Let's turn to Jude, the only chapter,
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Jude. We know Philippians 4 says to be anxious for nothing and instead we guard ourselves and gird ourselves with prayer and supplication and thanksgiving as we make our requests known to God and our great
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God, who's the God of peace, who surpasses all comprehension, guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
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We are not to be anxious about those kind of things, yet if we're not careful using the new
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American standard, at least there is a verse in the Bible that says we are to wait anxiously for something, and that is the second return of Christ.
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Jude, as you know, is a book contending for the faith. He doesn't even really want to write this book to contend for the faith, but he is forced by the spirit of God and his own conscious simultaneously to write this, and he says at the end, but you, beloved, verse 20, for those computer people here, it is chapter 1, verse 20, not that there's more than one chapter, but if you don't put a chapter in your computer program, it won't happen.
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But you, Jude 20, beloved, contrary to what we've just heard for others, building yourselves up on your most holy faith.
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Here comes another participle, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God.
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Certainly the responsibility is there for every Christian to persevere, to have
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God preserve you through duty and responsibility. Waiting anxiously, the new
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American standard says, for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
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Would you imagine that would be the same word for anxiousness in Philippians 4 or a different word?
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What would be your guess? It's a different word. This word is a different word.
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The ESV says waiting for the mercy. King James says looking for the mercy.
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The new English translation says anticipating the mercy. And so when
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I see words like this, I think I need to do a word study. I'm to be anxious for nothing. That seems fairly an umbrella statement in Philippians 4, but here it says
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I'm to be anxious. So the first thing I do is get out my computer program or concordance and realize that this word to wait is the word where it means to anticipate.
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We are to anticipate, certainly not with sinful wringing hands of anxiousness, but we are to look forward to the day that Jesus returns.
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Don't let anyone ever tell you that the key to eschatology, our end times, is pre, post, our ah.
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For those that love to spend all their time diving into all those issues, and since it's a biblical issue, it's a worthy issue, but the key for all eschatology is what?
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Jesus will return soon. We are to anticipate that and we should live lives that are what?
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Holy. All end times theology should make you holy. If you are an end times maniac, then may you be a good poster child for end times theology, which is holiness.
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People running around with all kinds of charts and graphs and books living unholy lives do not do themselves nor the
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Lord any good. Here, this is eager anticipation that Jesus will return.
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What a day that would be. Can you imagine it could be soon? I believe in the imminent return of Christ. My father used to go to Tulsa and he used to go to Tulsa to work and so Omaha is here in the
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Midwest. He'd go down to Tulsa and it was major fun around the house while dad was gone.
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We still knew that there was going to be mother to answer to, but it was a lot easier when it was only mom around and we just went fairly wild around the house and mom in her goodness and kindness at about Thursday, she would say, your father's getting home tomorrow from Tulsa.
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What do you think that would do to our behavior? I mean, I can just remember getting all those things done.
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So when dad walked into the house, he would be pleased. He would be happy. Dad's home.
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Jesus will return soon. So the bumper sticker says what the blasphemous bumper sticker,
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Jesus is returning soon. What look busy? How blasphemous is that?
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Look busy as he couldn't see our hearts and minds. Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our
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Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. So the point being is when you study the
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Bible and you see words that may be conflict, it'd be good to get yourself a Vines dictionary.
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You can get online. If you have a computer access, you can click on the word and it'll tell you the Greek word.
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Good long Bible study that takes time, pays off. Questions about that?
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All right. Number three, is it sinful for Christians to be involved with cremation? Is it sinful for Christians to be involved with cremation?
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What would you tell someone? Someone is a friend of yours and they've just had a loved one who's died and they are in charge of the funeral.
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Do you know when someone in the family dies, there's someone who's always there who's going to be the leader, either de facto or by choice, that there'll be a leader who helps and makes all the decisions and they are to try to make the deceased's wishes come true and if those decisions have not been made before they died, this person will run with that and this person calls you up and says, my mother wants to be cremated, but I think it might be sinful.
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What should I do? What would you tell them? How would you go about giving them counsel?
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The counsel should not be, call Pastor Abendroth, because Pastor Abendroth wants you to know the answer, because you can be equipped for ministry.
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Yes, Scott. So no matter what kind of burial there might be, your opinion would be that God knows how to reattach and get all those molecules and atoms all over the world and he'll know where to find them for the resurrection bodies.
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Okay, good. What else would you say? By the way, this happens. This happens with Donna Flanagan.
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When Donna Flanagan died and I was talking to the family, there was the discussion that the husband of Donna, Bob, pulled me to the side and said,
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I'd like to have Donna cremated, but I don't want it to go against her born again religion.
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Is it okay for me to cremate Donna? What would you say?
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What would you say in the hospital at Deacon Israel Hospital? All right,
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I'll tell you what I'd say. Steve, do you want to comment at all? Okay, good.
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Well, what I usually do is just say WWJD and then pray. That's all I do. Jesus was buried.
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That solves it. No, I don't do that. Let me tell you a few facts about the Bible and burial.
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I'll call this Buriology, number 101, Buriology. Just a few facts and then we'll draw some conclusions.
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Fact number one, the Jews didn't cremate. Now, you think I'm going a certain direction, but I wouldn't be so sure.
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These are just some facts. Pagans cremated, Jews did not. When it comes to early
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Christian writings, you will not find any Jewish or early Christian people who said, you know what, we will cremate because it was something that the pagans did, unbelievers did.
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Number two, in the Old Testament, it was often a curse when you were not allowed to be buried.
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Someone would try to curse you or damn you by not allowing you to be buried.
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God curses Jehoiakim in Jeremiah 22, 19. He will be buried with a donkey's burial, dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
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If you want to know that you're cursed in the Old Testament, you don't get to be buried. The same with Achan, the same with Jezebel, the same with Sisera, the same with Jabin, the same with Ahab's offspring.
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Joshua 7 .15, and it shall be that the one who is taken with the things under the ban shall be burned with fire,
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Achan. You always remember Achan stole something, right, because Achan was Achan to steal something.
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That's exactly right. You'll remember it. He and all that belongs to him because he transgressed the covenant of Yahweh and because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel.
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So number one, pagans cremated. Two, it was a curse not to be buried in the
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Old Testament. Three, much is said in the Bible about the burial of faithful people.
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Genesis 23, a whole chapter of the Bible is about Sarah, the faithful one, and her burial.
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The Bible could have just said, and she was buried. But a whole chapter is given on the burial of faithful Sarah, 20 verses on her death and burial.
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In the New Testament, there are quite a few verses that talk about the burial of Jesus. True?
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True. Joseph of Arimathea, he came and took the body away, remember, and spices and customs and things.
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He was bound. Nicodemus comes, the garden. Number four, the fourth fact that I know about the
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Bible, and you all think I'm going a certain direction, but I'm going to pull a U -turn on you at the very end. Number four,
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God buried Moses. When it comes to the only burial that we can find God taking care of is he buried
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Moses. Now why did he bury Moses? I've been to Mount Nebo. It's one of the favorite places of all of Israel.
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Actually, it's not even in the land of Israel, but you can see Israel as you stand on top of Mount Nebo, looking down in the valley, and you can see where Jerusalem would be.
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Why did God bury Moses? Because, Louis? That's right, because they would have dug him up, certainly, as they would dig up George Whitfield and take his cufflinks and lead those cufflinks out before people for the battles against the
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Indians. So too they'd do the same with Moses, Deuteronomy 34 .6 then it says, and he buried him in the valley of the land of Moab, but no man knows his burial place to this day.
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That's about all we know about burial. What's in Scripture? Are any of these verses prescriptive?
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Remember when we're thinking about Bible, we think of, it's more complicated than this, but it's a good place to start.
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There are things that describe and there are things that prescribe. That is to say, these things are said in the
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Bible, they're descriptive, and these things like a doctor prescribes you medicine, take these three every day for a week, so too the
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Bible says in an epistle, this is what you ought to do. Is there anything in the Bible prescribed about how to be buried?
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The answer is, not one thing. There's nothing in the Bible at all, and so friends, this is a liberty issue.
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There's nothing in the Bible that tells us one way or another, and if the God of the universe thought it was so important that you never be cremated,
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I think he would have been very clear you ought not to do that. Furthermore, if you want to use the
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Old Testament and this whole cursing thing and nation thing, I think you're going to have a big jump to say that we somehow now, the church, would be the nation of Israel back there in the
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Old Testament. So for me, the cheapest casket you can find would be the best way to bury me because it's my preference.
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As a matter of fact, Anne Graham was just buried the other day, and she was buried in a what?
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Casket. And where do they find the casket for Billy Graham's wife, Anne? From prison.
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Franklin saw that there were people, I think in Tennessee or Georgia, one of those places in the south, they're all the same, anything south of the
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Mason -Dixon line that goes north and west, north and east, north and south, what do
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I know? It's all in the south there, and these prisoners were building their own caskets and making caskets for poor people, and Franklin said, that's the kind of casket
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I'd like to have my mother buried in. If someone calls you and says, I'd like to be cremated, then don't you dare come alongside of them and somehow in the time of grief and in a time of ministry opportunity, do you somehow place biblical convictions that you have on top of other people, when in fact, friends, they're not biblical.
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They're just your own convictions, they're your own personal convictions, and you cannot defend, well, cremation's sinful, that is not right.
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So what you do is you just say, you know what, if that's what you want to be, is cremated, that's fine. I personally want to be buried.
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Find me a pine box and just bury me, and if you don't do it, I won't care anyway, because where am
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I? I'm with the Lord, so whatever you want to do. Questions about cremation.
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You'll see many, many tracks, and I own some, that it's a sin for Christians to cremate, and these people abuse scripture, in my opinion.
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I'll never forget the day when Irv Busenitz told me that he and his son were fashioning caskets in their own driveway, building their own caskets.
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Talk about an object lesson. How about that for an object lesson? Hey, son, what are we going to do today? Oh, we're going to build our own caskets together.
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I think it's a great thing why we never talk about death. Every one of us is going to die.
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You kids sitting right there, you four young kids, you're all going to be dead. Every one of you, from the oldest to the youngest, we're all going to die, and kids need to know it, and in the old days, things died, right?
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Animals died. I have a little niece, her name's Chloe, and they live on a farm in Iowa. My sister and her husband has a farm there, and you can't go walking through the farm without seeing dead things everywhere.
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They're just all dead. Oh, there's a dead rooster. Yeah, there are a lot of dead roosters on the farm, and around you go.
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We can't say the word dead. Anyway, they were building their caskets, and a long story short, but basically, some
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Jehovah's Witnesses came by, and Dr. Busenitz talked to the son of the older Jehovah's Witness, and he said to the son, do you know your father is trying to damn you by teaching you that Jesus isn't
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God, teaching you that Jesus' death on the cross was not sufficient for your salvation, and you have to add works to that, and one day, if you believe what your father's teaching you, you will be damned to hell.
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Now, father, let me talk to you as well, and then he went after the father. So unloving, isn't it?
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Pretty unloving of Jesus to confront the Samaritan woman this morning, I guess, too, if that's our definition of love, but 1
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Corinthians 13 says, love rejoices with the truth. All right, number four, could you please make some comments on Jerry Falwell?
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I'd love to. Anybody want to make a comment before I make my comments? Jerry Falwell, Steve, don't steal my thunder.
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That would be Al Sharpton. Good, well, you just stole my thunder, thank you.
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You didn't know. I'm going to get to that in just a second. That's excellent. Yes, Simon.
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Who is Jerry Falwell? Is that like, what's that game? Who is
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Carmen Sandiego? Jerry Falwell, I'm glad you asked, was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and his father was named
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Kerry Hezekiah Falwell. How about that? In 1956, at age 22,
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Falwell became the founding pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg.
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He was president of a school, Liberty University, and was probably well known in 1978 or 79 for starting the moral majority.
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I liked Jerry Falwell when he said, I have to get rid of the PTL scandal with the
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Bakers, and he says, it's about time somebody flushed that cesspool. Falwell was known for lots of things.
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He was into segregation when he was younger and other issues. He was a,
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I would say, prominent evangelical fundamental leader. What I've noticed the most, if you'll take your
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Bibles and turn to 1 Timothy 3, I guess I should have had you turn your Bibles to all these verses that I've been looking at so far.
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But 1 Timothy 3, there's a verse about elders that I think is very important that we can learn from Al Sharpton.
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By the way, I don't call Al Sharpton reverend, and I don't want you to call me reverend either, because there's only one to be revered, and it's not me.
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God is to be revered only, and Scott Farah can call me high holy father, but that's just a joke.
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Don't call anyone father, and frankly, don't call anybody revered unless he is the triune God. Pastor, or teacher, or preacher is just fine.
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If you actually want to know what I really want to be called, I want to be called preacher. He's our preacher, because that defines me as a man.
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I preach. All right, well, 1 Timothy 3, verse 7 is a great passage, and when
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I think of Jerry Falwell, this is what will always go down in my heart so that I may learn from someone, and I want this to be true of myself and of you as well.
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What do your enemies say about you when you die? What do they say about you when you die, because they've noticed as you live, you have lived a good life?
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And in 1 Timothy 3, verse 7, the King James says, moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without.
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The English Standard Translation says, he must be well thought of by outsiders. When it comes to be an elder,
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New American Standard says, this is a qualification, and you must have it. He must have a good reputation with those outside the church.
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And this is mandatory. If you look at the first few words there in 1 Timothy 3, verse 7, he must.
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It's a day there. It's a D -E -I is the Greek word, and it is a present must.
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It has to be. You have to have a good reputation with those outside the church. Good report, a praiseworthy report, you could translate it, a beautiful report, a pleasant report, a morally good report.
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Those who are outside the church must think that there is something good about your life. They may disagree with your theology, but they say that is a fine man, that is a fine woman.
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In 1983, Larry Flint, the publisher of Hustler Magazine, the pornographic magazine, was sued by Jerry Falwell for $45 million for a satire, a parody on Falwell.
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And it went through all kinds of courts, all the way to the Supreme Court. And Flint won the
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Supreme Court case in February 24th, 1988, on the
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First Amendment that says, interpreted by the courts, that it is okay to parody well -known national figures, whether there's emotional distress or not.
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And when Jerry Falwell died, Larry Flint wrote an article, and I won't read the whole thing, but here is
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Larry Flint's article entitled, My Friend, Jerry Falwell.
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The first time the Reverend Jerry Falwell put his hands on me, I was stunned. Not only had we been arch enemies for 15 years, his beliefs and mine traveling in different solar systems, and not only had he sued me for $50 million, but now he was hugging me in front of millions on Larry King's show.
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It was 1997. My autobiography, An Unseemly Man, had just been published, describing my life as a publisher.
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King was conducting the interview. It was the first time since the infamous 1988 trial that the
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Reverend and I had been in the same room together, and the thought of even breathing the same air with him made me sick.
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I disagreed with Falwell on absolutely everything he preached, and he looked at me as symbolic of all the social ills that society can possibly have.
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I'd do anything to sell a book and film, and Falwell would do anything to preach, so King's audience of 8 million viewers was all the incentive either of us needed to bring us together.
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No wonder that when he started hugging me and smooching me on television 10 years later, I was a bit confused.
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I hadn't seen him since we'd been in court together, and that night I didn't see him until I came out on stage.
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Soon after that episode, I was in my office in Beverly Hills, and out of nowhere, my secretary buzzes me, saying,
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Jerry Falwell is here to see you. I was shocked, but I said, send him in. We talked for two hours.
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He suggested we go around the country debating, and I agreed. In the years that followed, and up to his death, he'd come to see me every time he was in California.
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We'd have interesting philosophical conversations. We'd exchange personal Christmas cards.
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He'd show me pictures of his grandchildren. The truth is, the Reverend and I had a lot in common. He was from Virginia, and I was from Kentucky.
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His father had been a bootlegger, and I had been one too in my 20s before I went into the Navy. We steered our conversations away from politics, but religion was within bounds.
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He wanted to save me, and was determined to get me out of the business. The more I got to know
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Jerry Falwell, the more I began to see that his public portrayals were caricatures of himself.
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I'll never admire him for his views or his opinions. To this day, I'm not sure if his television embrace was meant to mend fences, to show himself to the public as generous and forgiving, or merely to make me uneasy.
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But the ultimate ... Now listen to this, congregation. But the ultimate result was one I never expected, and was just as shocking a turn to me as was winning that famous Supreme Court case.
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We became friends, end quote. If you learn anything from Jerry Falwell, and there's much to learn, but what
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I want to learn is, I want my arch enemies in life to respect me for being a kind and generous person.
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What would your enemies say when you say, I don't have any enemies? Maybe should you live your life a little bit more for the glory of God, and you might get some?
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Questions about this or comments? I am just floored by that letter from Larry Flynn.
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We want to have a great reputation with those outside the church, without compromising what we believe. No? All right.
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Well, I was shocked, maybe you're not, but that's all right. Next question. Probably all came for this one.
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What about tattoos? What about tattoos? All right.
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To this day, I have a picture of a huge dragon on the forearm of my father that he got in the
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Korean War. On this side, there was some kind of snake -esque down his forearms, and he was 6 '4", 240.
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He was the kind of guy that, if he needed to fix the car in the dead of winter, he could do it with his hands.
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He was so tough, kind of thing, and here are these huge tattoos. And now everywhere you go, people have tattoos.
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What do we do as Christians? I'll put it back on you, because you should get the questions as well.
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You have a friend, and they said, you know what, I'm thinking about getting a tattoo. What do you think about tattoos?
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And you would tell them what? What would you tell them? Biblically? Your preferences?
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What if you meet somebody at the church who's got a tattoo? I've just been noticing the last couple of weeks, people were coming in with tattoos, and I've made sure to steer clear of those people, haven't you?
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What do we do? Of course, I didn't steer clear. I went right over to see if they're from Korea, is what
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I wanted to know. Should you get a tattoo? Kind of a cool thing to do.
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What if you've already got one? What would you say? All right. What do you say?
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Okay, Steve. Well, that's a good point, because there are even regulations now in the military on how tattooed you can be to even get accepted in the
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United States military. So sometimes when it comes to a job or just pragmatics, we should probably think about getting tattooed on the neck and the face and the teardrop and all these other things.
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So yes, good point, Louis. Okay, those are good points.
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We all change our mind often. I remember when I was younger, and I was thinking about getting a tattoo, and I didn't get it, but the tattoo that I thought about getting was, and I'm sure glad I didn't get this,
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I was going to get the Rolling Stones' tongue, is what I was going to get. Now, that would have come across well as a pastor, wouldn't it?
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The Rolling Stones' tongue. So that's some more good advice. How about biblical advice?
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What would we say? Well, why don't we turn our Bibles to Leviticus, and I want to make sure...
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Here's my big point on tattoos. What I don't want you to do is I don't want you to take the
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Bible out of context to prove your own point, because that's what cults do, and we don't want to do that.
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And so I'm tonight going to try to make sure you never, ever use Leviticus 19 again to A, tell people they can't get tattoos, and B, don't even use
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Leviticus 19 when it comes to homosexual behavior, because the homosexuals are smart enough to go, you know what?
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You're using the Levitical code to say there's no homosexuality, well, what about tattoos?
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What about the shaving of the hair? What about blending fabrics together? If you want to talk about homosexual behavior, the
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Bible condemns it. Go to Romans 1. It's quite obvious, but be careful that if you've got children and you're trying to tell them no tattoos, that you don't use
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Leviticus 19 out of context, because one day, friends, your kids are going to grow up, and your kids are going to grow up and say, you know what?
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My mom and dad so dislike tattoos that they will use the Bible out of context to make me not get them.
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We wouldn't want to do that. You can say to your children, children, Ephesians 6 .1, obey your parents, what?
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In the Lord, for this is right. Don't get a tattoo, and if they get a tattoo, it will be called what?
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Sin, because of the authority given by God to the parents, but what
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I don't want us to do, even if it helps our cause, and my cause tonight is not
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I want everybody to get tattoos. My cause is don't take the scriptures out of context to prove something that you desperately want proved when it would not honor
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God overall. Leviticus 19, we see this holiness code here. This is the only verse where you'll see the word tattoo.
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Depending on what translation you use, King James uses not print any marks, but in New American Standard, you shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves, and if you think
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I'm kidding, I am Yahweh. No tattoo marks, no printed marks at all.
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When it comes to tattooing and printing things on your body, that is something that the pagans do.
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Remember, Israel was told to do things a certain way to distinguish themselves, to delineate themselves from the pagans.
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If you automatically jump to, well, you know, the trigonosis that's in pork, God was making sure that the people didn't get trigonosis.
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That may in fact be true, but that would only be secondary. Primarily, God gives these codes to the
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Israelites so that they will always remember we are different than everyone else.
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And if the pagans like to cut and tattoo for the dead, don't cut and tattoo for the dead.
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Don't scratch your arms and face. Some think this was right from Egyptian idolatry, and if you would have somebody who would die that was a relative, what would you do?
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You would cut yourself, you would brand yourself, you would tattoo yourself for the honor and the respect of that dead person.
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Now, I can prove that this isn't for the church right away by just reading the context.
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If you look at Leviticus chapter 19 verse 1 and then 2, it's easy to see that the context here has nothing to do with the local church, emergent church or something.
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Verse 2, speak to all the congregation, Moses, of the people of Israel and say to them, you're going to be different for I, the
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Lord, your God, am different, are holy, are set apart. And he gives all these things and all these reasons.
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Even in verse 27, you shall not round off the hair on your temple or mar the edges of your beard.
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So much for the caterpillar, as Steve Lawson says. These things were not necessarily moral.
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I mean, if you listen to Expositor's Bible commentary, there was nothing morally wrong with tattooing, but these practices were parts of heathen rituals.
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Don't act that way. Let's be very, very careful that we don't say, I'm using
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Leviticus for tattoos today, for the church. You say, you know what?
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But that's fleshly. Those people that like to get tattoos, that's fleshly. Well, the deeds of the flesh are evident, true or false.
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Galatians 5 .19, immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outburst of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.
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Nowhere tattoos are there. And you say, you know what? My body is the what?
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Temple of the Holy Spirit. Well, that's used a couple of different places in Scripture.
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If you'll turn with me to 1 Corinthians 6, may I remind you that context rules everything.
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And the context of 1 Corinthians 6 with the Temple of the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with tattoos.
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It has to do everything with sexual immorality. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You've been bought with a price, verse 20 of 1
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Corinthians 6. Therefore, glorify God in your body. And as we learned last
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Sunday morning, it's all about sexual immorality. So what do we do about tattoos?
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To me, the biggest issue with tattoos, well, let's just back up for a second. If you meet somebody who got tattooed before they were a
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Christian, how would you treat them? They weren't a Christian. They're all tatted up, and they're all kind of gothy.
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They're all this. They're all that. I don't care. Maybe they've got their tongue split. That's a big thing these days is you get your tongue split right in the middle, kind of like a serpent.
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And they look all weird, and they're here, and they've got their Bible. How would you treat that person? Well, that's why we have that blue divider back there.
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They sit behind the thing. Friends, this is a place for sinners. You know what
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I do when I see those kind of folks? If I see somebody who doesn't fit in here at White Bread Suburban Bethlehem Bible Church, they're the first people
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I go up to say hello to. They're the very first. What if they did get tattooed?
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What if you think tattoos are sinful, but they got them before they were saved? How do you know? We don't act differently because somebody has a tattoo or somebody has an earring.
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I don't wear an earring anymore, but I used to have this ear pierced. How do you think of me?
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You come to my house, and you'll see old pictures of me with a hoop in my ear. Now then, what do you think?
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Well, I think I was pretty... I was immature. It's not always immature to wear an earring, but I don't wear an earring now because there are enough ways to get mad at a pastor.
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May it never be for something so stupid that I just... The only time you'll ever see me wear an earring is if our kids, the girls, when they're 12, they get earrings.
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It's a big deal. It's like a rite of passage. It's some kind of earring mitzvah at our house. And we all go down to Claire's together, and it's this very big deal.
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And I might just get wild and run around the house with one of Haley's earrings, but the doors are shut.
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The lights are off. The doors are barred. No one would ever see. We don't know what people were like before they were saved.
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They were sinful, and they manifest sinful propensities, and some are on their bodies.
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Some are not. And so, when it comes to earrings, tattoos, how people look, what they wear, we love them, and we need to remember,
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James 2 is in the Bible. We don't judge people based on the way they what? Look.
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Well, what about Christians? Should they get tattoos? Well, number one, if you're a kid and your parents say no tattoos, you may not get a tattoo.
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You must not get a tattoo or that will be sin, and you will be chastened for that. Maybe by your parents, maybe by God.
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Number two, I think you need to work through the issue of stewardship and how much money it will cost you to get a good tattoo.
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And lastly, and the biggest one of all, is if you get a tattoo, you have to work through the motive of why am
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I getting the tattoo. If you haven't heard anything else, that's the bottom line for tattoos. Why am
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I getting a tattoo? If it is a very visible tattoo, you will have a hard time proving that you're not trying to look cool.
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You will have a hard time. You may be able to prove it, but you will probably have a hard time saying, well, it's for some reason besides looking cool.
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And you say, well, pastor, you like to wear certain ties and shirts and you like to look cool, and so it's a fashion statement, and you would be more right.
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Motives are very, very important. If you want to get a tattoo and you want to get it in a place that I can't see it and it says mom on it or something, you know, my sister's brother just got a tattoo and it said,
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I love Marcy, right here. What am I going to do? You're so sinful,
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I love Marcy. That's Marcy with a Y, by the way. That guy's not a
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Christian. What do I care? If you want to get a tattoo, then you are going to have to work through the machinations of your own mind, and I think the real issue is always motive, but you will not find something in the
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Bible to prevent you or to somehow tell you every time you get a tattoo, it is sinful.
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If you get some tattoo on your ankle and you wear shoes and nobody ever knows and it's got your wife's name on it,
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I mean, I would have a hard time saying that's sinful. But Lewis is very wise and so is
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Steve. There are very pragmatic reasons that may even supersede any kind of Bible reason we have for not getting tattoos where it's just sometimes not smart, people are immature, younger people are especially immature, and it's just not the best, but one thing is for sure, if you meet somebody with a tattoo, friends, they already have a tattoo.
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So love them. Be kind to them. And we live in a day and age where godliness somehow is much more easily defined by what we don't do.
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That is not biblical sanctification. People that say, I define my Christianity by I don't drink,
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I don't smoke, I don't have tattoos, we're not allowed to date in our house, and the list goes on and on have imbibed deeply the moralism championed by Veggie Tales and many other people and they do not understand the first thing about Romans 6 and 7 when it comes to real sanctification.
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Sanctification is a heart issue. It's a position in Christ issue practically worked out by the
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Spirit of God. Do I want you to get tattoos? No. Do I think they cost too much to get good ones?
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They're too often a manifestation of, look at how cool I am. I'm counter -cultural.
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I'm different. When if you want to be different, that place is called the local church where you are transformed on the inside.
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If you've already got tattoos, you will never see me treat you in a way somehow different than I would treat somebody without tattoos.
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Questions? It is very quiet.
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Yes, Steve. Maybe there's something I forgot. What did I say? My sister's wife?
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My sister's brother. Yes. Yeah. My sister's husband,
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Pat, did not get a tattoo that said, I love Marcy, although he does love Marcy. Okay.
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No other comments about that? I would challenge you to read Romans chapter 6 for real sanctification, and sanctification is not what we don't do, and Colossians makes that very clear.
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All right. Boy, time. It just zoomed. I was also going to do, how do we explain the long day of Joshua?
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I was going to do that. I was going to say, how can you avoid the most amount of trouble in your life?
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That was going to be from Ecclesiastes, and the answer was going to be by avoiding riches.
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I can save you from so much trouble you don't even know, and that is if you avoid riches.
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That was going to be one. Let's see if there's any others that are just short.
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I was going to do, is our Seventh -day Adventist cultic, or would they be within a
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Christian denomination? That would be the earlier one. They are a cult. What else do
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I have? I have all kinds of things, but I think we are going to end there. Will Christians be judged in any way after they die?
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Yes, not for sins, but for what we do in the body, 2 Corinthians. What about annihilation?
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Lots of questions in the Bible, lots of answers. Are you sure there are no other comments about tattooing?
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If you think this is a promotion of tattooing, you would be wrong. I'm not promotion, promoting getting tattoos.
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Our family are not allowed to get tattoos. I'm not going to get a tattoo. The five tattoos that Kim already has,
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I just live with, but I am trying to stress this.
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It's one thing if I say, I like to drink, therefore I'm going to talk about how Christians have the liberty to drink.
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I don't drink. I want to talk about tattoos because I like to wear my tattoo.
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I don't have a tattoo. I have no goal except this is my primary goal, that you don't play with scripture and mess around with it to get your desired effect.
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The scripture does not teach you shouldn't have tattoos. I think you could ask the question, why?
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Is it wise? You go right back to Romans chapter 14 and 15, good, better, best.
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For those of you that are 21, 22, you get out of the house, you think it's freedom, I'll do whatever I want. Friends, I've been 21 or 22 and I know the scriptures.
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You think you're mature, but you are immature. So don't make immature decisions that will last your whole life.
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There are many reasons why you should say maybe no to tattoos, but I think as time goes on in our church, we are going to have more and more people that aren't white -bred
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West Boylston people and we need to make sure our arms are open to love them. I come from California.
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In our Bible study, Janet and Steve know this, the whites were the minority. I like it that way because the potlucks are better, spicier.
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I like it when I'm the only white person around. Food is way better. It's an
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Eastern flavor to it and we just all sit around. It's just much better. I don't care what color you are.
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If you come and you ask for my daughter's hand in marriage, I won't care what color you are either. I'll care if A, you're a
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Christian and B, you're a Calvinist. That's all I care about. And you think I'm kidding.
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I'm not kidding. You're going to take my daughter away to some Timbuk3 place and you don't believe
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God's sovereign over who goes to heaven and you have your first miscarriage or you have your first disaster and then the husband of my daughter who knows better is going to go, well, you know,
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I think God's sovereign, but I just don't know if he's sovereign over who goes to heaven and who doesn't and, you know, free will and all that stuff.
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Friends, that is a setup for a disaster and you may not touch my daughter or even ask her out if you're going to be
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Arminian. But if you've got tattoos and you're a Christian and you want my daughter's hand, maybe one extra hurdle, but only about one.
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I'm after the guy who can love my daughter more than I do and if he happens to be black or red or green, it doesn't really matter to me.
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I guess green would show he's got gangrene and we might have to go to the hospital first.
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Janet's sitting there looking at me like, Mike, quit while you're ahead. We bleed red, we have interrelated marriages, interracial marriages in the church.
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I think it's great and we look at people and we go, brethren in Christ, that's as far as we go.
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And I love that and I think as time goes on, we'll only see more people coming to the church who act differently, who look differently and we should say,
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James chapter 2, here's my seat, please sit in the front, you get the place of highest honor, we're so glad you're here.
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Right? That's how we treat everyone and Jesus treats sinners the exact same way.
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He loves them and He does not act in a way inconsistent with James 2.
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All right, well, let's just pray and then we'll be dismissed. Father, we would acknowledge that there are many difficult issues and I'm sure some tonight have not even agreed with me on all my positions, but Father, our desire is to be biblical, to think about You properly, to handle
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Your Word rightly and we would ask that You would prevent us from the two horrible sins in Christian sanctification.
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One being that we add rules to Your Word, legalism,
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Father, protect us. And another one would be just as bad and that would be somehow living away loosely, loose living without the
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Word against the law, somehow thinking there's no law for the Christian when in fact there are many commands for us as Christians.
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So Father, would You help us to split those two roadblocks in a way that would honor
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You, may Your Spirit give us power and strength so that we might not show our holiness on the outside, but that would be manifest on the inside, that we might be holy for You are holy.