Wise Faithfulness

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Brother Keith is not here tonight, as it would have been his night.
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So he has tested positive for COVID, as well as Jennifer.
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Jennifer tested positive today.
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So they're in COVID jail.
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And so therefore he will not be here Sunday because of the five-day protocol.
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Brother Mike will bring the message on Sunday.
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And so we just need to pray for him.
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I talked to him just a little while ago and he's feeling sore, he said, but they're pressing on, as you would imagine.
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So again, and there are others that are affected by this, I say sometimes the gift from God to teach us about humility, to teach us that he's in control.
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And although Dr.
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Fauci has much advice for us, I'd rather trust in the Lord, my God, than Dr.
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Fauci.
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So having said that, we're gonna continue tonight in the book of Proverbs.
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So if you have your Bibles and you'd like to turn to Proverbs chapter two, we will just continue on in what we have been looking at.
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And as I said, this next week, Brother Keith will start his messages on Judah, and then we will alternate continually back and forth from Proverbs and the little epistles.
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So tonight I wanna look at the remainder of chapter two, which is where we left off the last time we were together in the book of Proverbs.
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And so for tonight, I'll ask us to read from verse 16 through the end of the chapter.
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Those verses should be enough to occupy our time tonight and let us read God's word.
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It says, Proverbs two, verse 16, to deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of a God, and her house leads down to death, and her paths to the dead, and none that go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life, so that you may walk in the way of goodness and keep the paths of righteousness, for the upright will dwell on the land and the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
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And I know we're kind of breaking in in the middle of it, but let me just remind you of how the chapter opens and then as we'll see how the chapter closes, and so if you would just look at the first four verses in the opening of chapter two in Solomon's direction, Solomon's exhortation, ultimately God's word to us.
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It says, my son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as hidden treasures.
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Remember we considered that and I kind of wanted to leave on our impression last time about the if and the then and that there is this conditional aspect of communion and fellowship with God.
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So that's the way the chapter opens and then as we close tonight, we will look at verse 21 and 22 because they kind of, what's in between these two, the opening verses and the closing verses is much instruction to the end of how he opens the chapter and closes the chapter because in verse 21, he says, for the upright will dwell in the land and the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked shall be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
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And again, there's that if and then that if we heed God's word, we will be blessed as I've been trying to lay out for us continually, that really is the major theme of the book of Proverbs that there are two kinds of people with two kinds of characteristics and it's two results that come out of those two kinds of people, the wise, the diligent, the blessed, the fool, the lazy, and ultimately the cursed.
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And so as we go through these verses, here's what I wanna do tonight and it might be a little different and if you wanna have discussion about it, that's great, but I wanna address these verses on two different planes or two different levels if we could, I wanna address them from a physical standpoint and then also wanna address these verses from a spiritual standpoint or from looking at it from a different position and one being physical and one being spiritual and I really believe that there's good warrant to do that as I hope to show you, especially in this area of the harlot and the immoral woman and what it does to be entangled in this sort of behavior with an immoral woman or with a harlot or vice versa.
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Now, again, I'm not just speaking to it from the standpoint of men, but also from the reality of that you and I have to be very careful in our lives from physical immorality and also how that is a picture of spiritual immorality and I hope to show us that and so there are times when we can make these double applications, again, not losing sight of the context or the physical application, but also being able to look above and beyond as those that are to have a spiritual understanding, I think it's important for us when possible, not stretching it to an extreme, but where possible, when possible to make applications both physically and spiritually for ourselves and I think even in the realm of what we see in our world, the things that are seen, what we can taste, touch, feel, smell, that there are many examples of how there is a physical reality and how that reality in the physical world gives us spiritual understanding and just I mentioned one or two, did you ever wonder why water puts out fire? I mean, well, you go to the word of God, what does the word of God say? Says the word is the water, water is the word and many times the fire is representative of judgment and so when you think about that in the physical realm, why is it that water puts out fire? Because the word of God is the thing that quenches the judgment of God if we will take heed to it, right? So when you think about it, there's a physical reality and yet it has a spiritual meaning behind it, even as I believe that God created the world and put those things in place to teach us not only physical principles, but spiritual principles or perhaps you ever wonder why the moon has no light of itself and I remember when I first found that out, that there is no real light to the moon, it wasn't for the light of the sun reflecting on the moon, it would be dark all the time and then you look at it and you think it from a spiritual standpoint, that even as God created the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night, that we as the people of God are pictured in the scriptures at times as like the moon and so therefore we are in and of ourselves unable to produce any light, anything good and yet by the reflection of the sun, we are able to shed and give off light.
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Again, might seem overly simple to you and it is simple, but yet it's profound and how many people in this world wouldn't even begin, if I said that to a lot of people, they'd say you're a nut.
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Well, I'll be a nut for Christ because that's the reality, right? Those things are true and again, we've talked about this, but you ever wonder why the sky is red in the morning and red at night? It's not just for the sailors to light or it's not just to warn us of rain, I really believe it's just a picture of the blood of Christ and then you wake up and there's the pink sky and it's speaking of the sacrifice of Christ and as the sun sets and it's pink at night, again, there is the blood and I'm not gonna get into the whole thing whether blood's really not red and all the other stuff.
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My whole point is saying that as we move on is to kind of give us some thoughts that at times in the scriptures, we ought to be able to make that jump.
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Again, not taking it to an extreme as some people will, I mean, I've heard people talk about numbers in such a way that boggles the mind or I heard one time someone preaching about the locust and he must have preached three months on locusts and the creeping locusts and the swarming locusts and he made these analogies that were just, in my mind, they were bizarre, but nevertheless.
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So I wanna look at it again from a physical standpoint as these verses lay out instruction to us and then make a spiritual application and then to prove it by the scriptures.
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Again, if we ought to think anything, we need to have the scriptures to use to credential what we're saying.
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So in verse 16, it says, to deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God, for her house leads down to death and her paths to the dead and none who go to her return nor do they regain the paths of life.
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So just think of it in the physical realm and again, perhaps we would all wanna say, well, you know what? I don't even have to consider this.
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This whole idea of immorality and this whole idea of getting involved in a relationship that ought not to be in, not even a relationship, but in something that I ought not to be in.
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I think that Solomon would prove to us that no matter who you are, we can fall into these areas of infidelity and immorality and we have to be careful.
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And so even as we have that great example of King David with Bathsheba.
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So no one is exempt and I think we need to constantly remind ourselves of that, but just reading these words, it really is to me so horrifying of the nature of immorality, of how it works and of the consequences.
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I'm just gonna read a couple of verses to you.
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You don't have to turn to them, but again, in Proverbs and Proverbs is interesting because it mentions it a number of times.
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And I just wanna take a couple of minutes to show you, but in Proverbs chapter six, it says, for by means of a harlot, a man is reduced to a crust of bread.
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By means of a harlot, a man is reduced to a crust of bread and adulterous will prey upon his precious life.
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I will ask you if you want, since we're right here, go to chapter five of the book of Proverbs.
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Let's look at something.
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And again, I'll deal with it now.
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And then perhaps as we go through Proverbs, I won't deal with it as intently then, but the book of Proverbs is full of instruction, friends, about immorality, right? About the snares of immorality, about the need for us to avoid it at all costs.
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In Proverbs chapter five in verse 15, and again, perhaps familiar portion, but let's just read it together and let God's word speak to us.
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It says, drink water from your own cistern and running water from your own well.
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Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets, let them be your own and not for strangers with you.
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Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth as a loving deer in a graceful doe and let her breasts satisfy you at all times and always being enraptured with her love.
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For why should you, my son, be entrapped by an immoral woman and be embraced in the arms of a seductress? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponders all his paths and his own iniquities entrap the wicked man and he is caught in the cords of his sin and he shall die for lack of instruction and in the greatness of his folly, he shall go astray.
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Again, there's this reality very bluntly laid out to us of the enticement for immorality, for entangling ourselves in relationships and situations that we ought not to and also the reality of the consequences that come out of it.
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Look, just look over in chapter seven for a moment in the book of Proverbs and these verses are very vivid and they're very clear and they're very pointed and they're very instructive.
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In Proverbs chapter seven in verse six, it says this, for at the window of my house, I looked through my lattice and I saw among the simple and I perceived among the youths a young man devoid of understanding passing along the street near her corner and he took the path to her house and in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night, there a woman met him with the attire of a harlot and a crafty heart and she was loud and rebellious and her feet would not stay at home and at times she was outside, at times in the open square lurking at every corner so she caught him and kissed him with an impudent face she said to him, I have peace offerings with me, today I paid my vows so I came out to meet you diligently to seek your face and I have found you and I spread my bed with tapestry and colored coverings of Egyptian linen and I perfume my bed with myrrh and aloes and cinnamon, come, let us take our fill of love to the morning, let us delight ourselves with love for my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey, he has taken a bag of money with him and we will come home at the appointed day and with her enticing speech she causes him to yield and with her flattering lips she seduces him and immediately he went after her as the ox goes to the slaughter or as a fool to the correction of the stocks till an arrow struck his liver as a burst hastens to the snare, he would not know it, he did not know it would take his life.
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And again I could have given us many other examples of this great reality of how often men and women, young and old, rich and poor, powerful and unpowerful, how we are entangled in relationships and especially in this area of immorality in a way that leads us like an ox to the slaughter.
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And there's that picture and there's this dumb ox walking straight ahead right into the end of his life.
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And you and I have to consider that.
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It's amazing to me that we live in such a society, especially in our country at this time with all the ability to view things, how much energy, time, space, media is dedicated to holitary and immorality and perversion, just straight up perversion and yet so often it almost seems like to some it's an honorable thing to be entrapped in an illicit relationship to be caught in a situation where you find yourself in places and situations that we ought not to be.
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And again, particularly for young people, I think this is a great snare in our day that they become entrapped in it and it almost seems like the thing you ought to do and if you haven't done it, you ought to do it because it's great.
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Well, the scriptures say a lot about it, don't they? The scriptures don't say it's great.
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Matter of fact, as again, we'll show you and as the Proverbs say, it really has a destructive end, right? For her house leads down to death and her paths to the dead.
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How many families have been ruined by immorality? How many people's lives have been changed forever by being unfaithful in relationships? How many countries have suffered the consequences of immorality and things that ought never to be done? It's amazing brothers and sisters and yet as I say to you, it just seems to be subtly presented to us as okay, it's all right, even as, and I'll just mention this, I am struck a lot lately by how this whole movement, if you will, of tolerance and acceptance of all these perversion in relationships of as I said last week, LBGTQ squared, whatever it is.
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But do you ever watch, you when you're watching TV and you see a commercial nowadays, it'll give you a commercial for hand soap and you'll find two guys kissing or you'll find two women together or you'll find an illicit relationship and it just kind of just moves along as if it's just part of society.
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Well, I say it is part of society, certainly we could go back from the beginning of time and find infidelity and immorality, but it's never been right, has it? It's never been what God has ordained and you and I need to be so careful, brothers and sisters.
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I will mention this to you of people that I know that had been married for at that time, 50 years.
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50 years and the man decided he wanted to have a relationship with another woman.
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50 years together and so he stepped out on her and although he contends that there was never any physical interaction, interaction, but it was only mental, it was only consensual conversational enjoyment, the consequences of that ruined those 50 years of marriage and again, lest we think that we are either at a point where we don't have to worry about it, within the heart of man are all kinds of issues and again, even as we consider what Solomon will tell us in the fourth chapter, to keep our hearts with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
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Nevermind the fact that you and I are to be examples of purity and holiness and I mean, there are churches today that are established and they welcome in people in adulterous situations and holitary and all kinds of perversions and then I read something like this and it's striking to me that these things are laid out for us in very clear language and again, that the result of it, even as it says, none that go to her regain the paths of life.
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So there's a physical aspect to all this and I think it's important for us and even in the New Testament speaks about it as Paul says that what right do we have to take the temple of God and to be intertwined with a harlot or with adultery or with fornication or with any of those things.
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I mean, I kind of balling them all together but really they come out of the same root of unfaithfulness, right? They come out of the same root of lust and uncleanness and of illicit desire and you and I, we need to heed that warning and again, realize that but for the grace of God, there goes I.
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And again, especially young people, I feel so, so I think of it very often because there's so much pressure that's exerted by society in general and ungodly society to especially towards young men and I say that because I'm a man and I can't really, I can relate to women but only so far but pressure on a young man or a middle-aged man or a successful man or this, that, the other kind of man to kind of enjoy himself a little bit.
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I always remember when I would gather with people at work and these were presidents and CFOs and I'd be in a meeting with us and we'd go out to dinner or it'd be a sales meeting and we'd be with the customer, we'd go out to dinner and then we'd be sitting down at dinner and a woman would walk by and some of these guys that were so unhealthy, they probably couldn't stand up and everybody's eyes go to her and then all of a sudden, the words, little words come out and I remember there was a number of times where I went out on a limb and I told them what I thought about their attitudes and their words and I remember how often they told me, well, we're just window shopping, window shopping.
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Commit adultery in your heart.
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So again, I did wanna bring it up from a physical perspective and a physical reality and ask us to consider that but as I said to you, I also want to do this in such a way that we can see it from a spiritual realm because again, I do believe the physical speaks many times about the spiritual and especially in this area of holatry, especially in this area of unfaithfulness and that the word of God is so full of instruction about spiritual holatry and spiritual unfaithfulness.
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As a matter of fact, that's one of the great reasons why God cut off Israel and I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna read a number of verses and certainly I don't expect you to turn to them all.
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I've kind of printed them out so I have them but I wanna show it to you so that we understand that this is no small matter and that you and I need to be not only cognizant and aware of the physical immorality and holatry that we are not to entertain with but the spiritual one has even as the physical, many times eternal consequences attached to it.
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So let me just ask you to consider this.
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I'm gonna read, first I'll read from Deuteronomy and just listen to what it says and see if you agree with me.
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I'm in Deuteronomy 31, should you wanna turn there but just listen to what it says, Deuteronomy 31, six and this is where God tells the children of Israel what he'll do for them and giving them a land and how God will be with him.
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In Deuteronomy 31, six, and the Lord said to Moses, behold, you will rest with your fathers and his people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land where they go to be among them and they will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them and my anger shall be aroused against them in that day and I will forsake them and I will hide my face from them and they shall be devoured and many evils and troubles shall befall them so that they will say in that day, have not these evil come upon us because our God is not among us and I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done in that they have turned to other gods.
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Spiritual harlotry, spiritual immorality, spiritual perversion.
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Let me ask you to consider this and I read this from Isaiah in Isaiah chapter one and this is an indictment that Isaiah sets before the people, the nation.
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In Isaiah one verse 21, it says this, how the faithful city has become a harlot.
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It was full of justice, righteousness lodged in it but now murderers, your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water, your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves, everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards and they do not defend the fatherless nor does the cause of the widow come before them.
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How the faithful city has become a harlot.
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Again, God likens the nation of Israel as someone who chases after a harlot just as Solomon lays down a Proverbs about the seduction that comes and as we read in Proverbs chapter seven, all the enticement of an immoral woman, how she appears as such a beautiful and treasured thing to behold and yet ultimately it's nothing but an arrow in the liver and it certainly was to the children of Israel.
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Is not physical harlotry and perversion and it's connected to spiritual harlotry presented to us? Think about the book of Hosea.
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And again, I'm not gonna read from all of it but I'm gonna read a couple of sections, one now and then one as we go further on but I want you to just think about this.
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In Hosea, and remember Hosea was what? Told by God to go into what? To take to himself a harlot.
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Take to himself a woman of harlotries.
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In Hosea chapter four, we read this.
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Hosea 4.12 says, harlotry, wine and new wine enslaved the heart and my people ask counsel from their wooden idols and their staff informs them for the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray.
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They offer sacrifices on the mountaintops and burn incense on the hills, on the oaks and poplars and terabiths because their shade is good.
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Therefore your daughters commit harlotry and your brides commit adultery.
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Again, God is the only true God and any worship of any other God than the true and living God is spiritual harlotry.
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It is leaving the one who is to go to one who is not.
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And certainly it was worked out that way in the children of Israel, right? Under every green tree, there was a wooden image or an image.
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And even if you read some of the descriptions laid out in the Old Testament, they're very vivid of even gods and goddesses set up in the most perverted ways and statues and things that were dedicated and of things that ought not to even be spoken of.
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But it really was an indication, right? Of Israel's unfaithfulness to the covenant that God had given to them, just as that's what is still in effect in the physical realm.
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Thank God for faithful marriages.
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Thank God for faithful people who enter into a covenant with each other.
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And even as Job says, they make a covenant with their eyes.
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Why? That they might not behold another maid.
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Again, it's a rare thing.
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It's a rare thing, brothers and sisters, to find people who've been married for decades.
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We live in a day, and I know I've said this a number of times, we live in a day when there's more people that are divorced than are married.
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And if you were to break it out, how much of that is due to unfaithfulness in relationships, to immorality and going astray and chasing things that ought not to be chased? Well, it's the same thing in the spiritual realm that you and I need to be very careful over, that we do not just say, well, I would never commit physical holatry when at times we might be tempted to commit spiritual holatry.
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And move away from the covenant God that has come to us in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Let me read to you this from Revelation.
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Revelation 17.
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As the judgments are poured out and as the reality of the wrath of God to come, in Revelation 17, we read, one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and talked to me, saying to me, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
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So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness.
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And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and 10 horns.
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And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of the abominations of the filthiness of her fornication.
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And on her forehead, a name was written, mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth.
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Again, I think I'm on solid ground when I say to you that as we read about the immorality that goes on in the physical realm, that it is in many ways a teacher of the immorality that goes on in the spiritual realm, of chasing other gods, of chasing, if you would, other covenants to be aligned with.
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Perhaps that's one of the reasons why so many houses have been destroyed by physical harlotry and unfaithfulness and adultery and fornication, because it is an indictment of spiritual unfaithfulness and spiritual perversion and spiritual immorality.
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There are just so many consequences for us to think about, not only in, again, in the physical, but in the spiritual.
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In Proverbs 23, Don't turn to just one verse, it says, for a harlot is a deep pit and a seductress is a narrow well.
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A harlot is a deep pit.
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I think of it sometimes in the realm of how churches are established today and that their allurement is the allurement of a harlot rather than the allurement of a holy God.
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What I mean by that, it's all based on experience.
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It's all based on pleasure.
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It's all based on entertainment.
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It's all based on your feeling fulfilled.
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And as it says in Proverbs 2, the end thereof is the way of death.
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Just think, think of how many churches that we know of that have sprung up and have withered away because they're not fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And they commit spiritual harlotry, spiritual unfaithfulness, even as Israel did.
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And we all would sit here and shake our heads and say, Israel, how could you have moved away from this glorious God who ransomed you out of Egypt and brought you into the promised land? How could you have been so unfaithful? And yet we today in so many ways are no different.
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We chase things that we ought not to chase.
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Let me read to you something from Exodus 34.
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And I know I'm quoting a lot of scripture, but that was my intent tonight, to quote a lot of scripture.
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In Exodus 34 10, we read this.
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And he said, behold, I make a covenant before all your people.
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It's what God will do.
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I will do marvels such as not been done in the earth nor in any nation.
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And all the people among whom you shall see, among you shall see the work of the Lord for it is an awesome thing that I will do.
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Observe what I command you to this day.
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Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
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Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest there be a snare in your midst, but you shall destroy their altars and break their sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images for you shall worship no other God for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God.
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Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifices to their gods.
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And one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice and you take of his daughters for your sons and his daughters play the harlots with their gods and make your sons play harlot with their gods.
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Is it any wonder as the Lord Jesus Christ said that wide is the way and broad is the path that leads to destruction and there'd be few to find it, but narrow is the way and straight is the gate that leads to life.
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And there'd be few to find it versus the many on the...
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Well, I say today, even in a physical realm, if you're a young person and you're not straight and been unfaithful in the intimacy of life, you're almost considered as a prude.
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What's wrong with you, man? And in the same way we do it spiritually for we chase after things we ought not to chase after.
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Do you think I'm at least, do you see the analogy? I mean, again, I'm not trying to stretch it, but it's there, it's clear as could be for us.
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In Jeremiah, it says this, for of old I have broken your yoke and burst your bonds and you said, I will not transgress one on every high hill and under every green tree you laid down playing the harp.
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And again, brothers and sisters, we have this great responsibility as our God is so faithful to us that we ought to be faithful to our God.
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And we ought not to sister.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, but just go ahead and read it.
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For the exception of you do not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own, for you were brought into Christ, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit with your voice.
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Absolutely.
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And the way it's laid out is flee.
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And again, one of the allurements as you look in the book of Proverbs is that the fool, the lazy is the one who when he sees evil approaching, he doesn't flee.
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Matter of fact, he stands.
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And then next thing you know, he's sitting just like I always think of that in Psalm 1 that he stands in the way of sinners.
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And then before you know it, he's sitting in the council of the ungodly and it is this progression and like the ox just slowly carrying himself into the pit.
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Yeah, yep, yep, yep.
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First he looked, right? Well-watered, looks like a beautiful thing.
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Next thing you know, he's up over his neck in it.
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And again, it's a horrible thing, brothers and sisters.
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And so when, and I think of it often from a doctrinal perspective, that people will insist that we ought not to be that overcome with doctrine and teaching.
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And it should be more of again, singing and ministry and joy and hopping up and down and all that.
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But I will tell you what will keep us from spiritual hollow tree and what will keep us from physical hollow tree.
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It's the word of God, right? Isn't that that saying that says either this book will keep us from sin or sin will keep us from this book.
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It's one or the other.
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And so this whole idea of hollow tree, again, the consequences of it are terrible in the physical realm, but I say to you that the consequences in the spiritual realm are deadly.
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And so we have to ask ourselves again, that we have to consider other areas in my life where I am being allured away to spiritual hollow tree, to being spiritually unfaithful.
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Well, the things in my life that are attractive and appealing and outwardly beautiful or outwardly pleasant or outwardly this, that or the other, are they like that woman that I see as I look through the lattice? And I always get a picture of that in my mind.
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I think about it in the Song of Solomon, it says that too.
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It says that Solomon looked through the lattice and he saw the Shulmanite.
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And when she didn't know it, he was still checking her out.
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He was still looking at her.
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And I think we talked about that Sunday where me and Steve were having a conversation and I said to him that even as young men, many times young men will go from church to church to church to church.
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And although they say they come to worship, as I said to him, and I just wait, it makes sense to me.
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It's sanctified hunting.
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Then they move on rather than trusting God to bring the right person at the right time according to his purposes.
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Again, brothers and sisters, any other comments that you have in this area? I think it's pretty wide.
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It's a pretty wide thought when you think about it.
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Any thoughts? No, sir, there is none.
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And Jesus said, if you're not for me, you're against me.
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There's no spiritual Switzerland.
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It's just not there.
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It's either you're pressing on towards the kingdom of God or you're pressing on towards the kingdom of the devil.
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And the devil has many tools in his toolbox.
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And if he could snare a soul with a wink of an eye or with the smell of perfume, well then he would be more than content to do that.
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Anything to move people away from the truth.
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And so I think it's important for us, even us in our own body that we continually maintain purity, physical purity, spiritual purity, and that we stand on the things that we know to be true and not be moved with anything that would take us away from the cross.
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Even as Paul said, I don't wanna know nothing among you except what? Jesus Christ and him crucified.
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Well, you're just a bunch of old dead Christians.
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No, we're just a bunch of born again Christians that desire to please our savior.
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As we close, just let me remind you again of what he says in verse 21 and 22.
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Because this is the end of it, right? In Proverbs chapter two.
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He says, the upright will dwell in the land and the blameless will remain in it.
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But the wicked will be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
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Whatsoever man sows, that shall he also reap.
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He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.
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And he that sows to the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting life.
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And let us not be weary in well-doing for we shall reap in due season.
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What? If we faint not.
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So may God bless us.
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May we be able to maintain right relationships.
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Not be enticed by the allurements of anything of this world.
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And even in the area of physical immorality and hollow tree and perversion that you and I would seek to flee from it.
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Even as Paul says, flee from all the parents of evil.
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And that we would be known as people who are such a mind and a heart that we will flee from any appearance of evil.
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So may God bless us.
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Let's ask God's blessing on the word and then we'll just have a time of prayer together.
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Father, we do thank you for tonight.
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We thank you again for what we've been able to look at in your word, Lord, the great sin of hollow tree and adultery and fornication and immorality and lust and desires that are not right.
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No, God, we would all confess that you who know the depth of our hearts, you know what we are capable of apart from your grace.
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So give us that grace, Holy Spirit.
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Give us grace to walk the narrow path, to go through the straight gate, to love the relationships that you've given us, to desire those relationships, but yet Lord, not to be carried away with illicit relationships, both physically and spiritually.
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Be with us according to your word in Christ's name.
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Okay, you cut that, Stephen, thank you.
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All right, so I wanna just take a minute or two.