Questions & Answers

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So if you're a visitor, or if you're a member, or you're just an adherent, someone that sticks to the church, even though you're not a member, we invite you to come over to our house tonight.
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Matter of fact, I think, Nancy, that's an old Presbyterian term. An adherent? Yes, okay. If you're an adherent, we'd love to have you come to our home.
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We just live about three miles north. Bring your own snacks or treats, or if you like to cook chicken, bring chicken.
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If you'd like to cook marshmallows, you can do that. We'll have a little fire. If you've got some firewood, I could use some wood. We've got some wet wood, but probably need some dry wood.
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So please come right after the service, and we'll have some good fellowship, and we'll celebrate
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Dave Jeffrey's birthday over there, too, so that'll be good. I think he turned 50 today, so that's been exciting.
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How old are you, Dave? 48. Happy birthday. We'll have a little celebration over at our house, too.
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So that's tonight right after the service, and we'd love to have all of you come. If you just want to come by for a few minutes, that'll be fine, too.
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We don't really need the lake for fellowship anyway. We just need one another, and that'll be tonight right after the service.
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All right, well, this week is week number two in questions and answers, and so we usually try to go through a book.
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We haven't done that for quite a while here on Sunday night, so we'll get back into Hosea in the fall. But tonight we'll do questions and answers, and I always liked it when my old pastor did questions and answers, because if I didn't like one of the questions, maybe the next one
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I would. And so you hit a lot of topics in a short amount of time, and so we'll hit some of those tonight. You will need your
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Bibles, and that's really the key, is I want to try to help you understand your Bible better, and I want your theology to determine your methodology and your doxology.
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In other words, when you learn about God, it should be with the point of understanding Him better, so you can worship
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Him better. Again, your theology should lead to a better doxology, or praise, a word about praise, and that's really the key.
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I get all kinds of weird things in the mail, and I got one this week as well. I almost used this this morning, but I knew we were going to be depressed for time.
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Dear Pastor, Bethlehem Bible Church, please accept this invitation to become a member of the
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Prohibition Party of Massachusetts. I thought of all the weeks to get this letter.
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I'm teaching on Christian liberty, and for those that weren't here this morning, I'm not trying to say all Christians should drink.
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I'm just trying to say that if the Bible doesn't say for Christians not to drink, outside of conscience and making other people stumble, and those things that we talked about this morning, that I don't want to give
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God extra rules. I don't want to put on extra rules that aren't even in the scripture. So we'd like you to become a member.
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Of course, it's $70. That's on the flip side. But it says, if you wish to join or receive our newsletter, simply fill out the application and return it to us.
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We do covet your support and participation. Let us hear from you. May the Lord richly bless you and your ministry, yours for civic righteousness, and then it tells the director.
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And then it's got all the different things that Prohibition Party stands for. One of the things, as you would guess, it stands against the commercial sale of alcohol and other harmful drugs.
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Of course, I don't like the effects of alcohol. Of course, harmful drugs are harmful. But I want to address this tonight a little bit and take you to some inside verses that Christians, fundamentalist
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Christians, don't want you to know about. And so let's open our Bibles to Proverbs chapter 31.
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And by the way, I'm going to respond to this gentleman in love, but I'm going to look at these verses and I'm going to say,
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I want to stand up for Christ in His name and He's to be exalted. He's the only Savior. He's the only risen
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Savior. He justifies us by faith alone. But what do you do with these verses?
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And I don't think I need to spend my time trying to ban alcohol when there are bigger issues.
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You can be a teet -holer and go to hell. True? You can. Or you can be a drunk and get saved and go to heaven.
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I am not, as I said the last three weeks, trying to say our church should drink more alcohol than it does.
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I am not saying that. But I am saying that we have liberty in Christ to do whatever we'd like as long as it doesn't go against our conscience, as long as it doesn't make another brother stumble, and as long as we are not in slavery and in bondage to what we do.
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So I want to show you a couple inside verses that Christian fundamentalists don't like us to look at and then we start getting into all this issue about, well, it's not really wine.
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Again, if you've got kids, my kids aren't allowed to drink. And when you get out of the house, maybe you can do this and do that.
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I am not trying to say I want everyone to drink, but I refuse to add commands to the
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Scripture. And the Scripture never says, don't drink under any circumstances.
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It says in Ephesians chapter 5, what? Do not get drunk. Drunkenness is a sin.
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And Will, to just soothe your conscience for a second, or just to soothe your mind, right after this
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I'm going to take you to some verses to try to convince you that drinking is not very wise. So hang in there with me.
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But we at least need to address these verses. Proverbs 31. What do we know this chapter as?
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A Proverbs 31 what? Woman. And in a sense it is. Indirectly. Directly, it's a
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Proverbs 31 man. A Proverbs 31 woman, the king's mom, taught her son these things about how to pick the right kind of girl.
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And you want to look for a Proverbs 31 girl. So in a sense it could be called a Proverbs 31 man because it's teaching a son how to pick a daughter.
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But there's a few things that are taught early on before we get to our regular passage when we think of Proverbs 31.
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Verse 4. She's teaching him. It is not for kings, O Lemuel. It is not for kings to drink wine or for rulers to desire strong drink.
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Now on Sunday nights it's a little different. You can give me some feedback. And if I ask you a question, it's not necessarily rhetorical. Why would it not be a good idea for kings to drink wine?
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And again, I'm not saying that this is grape juice or something like that. This is wine. This is the word for wine.
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Yes, Doug. Okay, and in this particular case there was not the judicial, the executive, the legislative kind of checks and balances.
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What the king said went. And they don't want to have judgment impaired. Very good. Any other comments about that?
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Verse 5 goes on to help us with that very thing. Lest they drink and forget what is decreed. You might be unjust, but you also are going to forget what the decree is and pervert the rights of the afflicted.
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But contrary to what the kings are to do, there is a time when wine is actually prescribed in the
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Old Testament. Verse 6, give strong drink to whom?
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To him who is perishing. And if I put the words in there, and give wine to him whose life is bitter.
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Why would we do that? How could that be in the Bible? It is. She's saying as the king, there are going to be people in your realm that you should give wine to and strong drink to.
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I mean, if I heard that message when I first got saved, my background is father drank all the time, alcoholic father, drunken father, whatever terminology you'd like.
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And then I had the same kind of struggles in my life. I become a Christian and I want to run from alcohol.
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And that's not a bad thing to do. But what do we do with these verses? What are some comments that you might have about these verses?
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Bruce? That is an excellent reason to give strong drink.
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If you watch World War II movies and somebody gets his leg blown off, what's the first thing you'll see?
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You'll see one of those Red Cross guys, not Red Cross guys, but one of the medics come over and do and jab it right in the leg where there's just shrapnel everywhere.
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What are they going to put in there? Morphine. And certainly we did not have morphine back in those days.
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They did not have morphine. In contrast to the king, there's a time that people are suffering and they need some kind of relief and that would be justifiable.
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That would not be sin. Jonah? Well, see, and here's what happens.
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That's a good point. God creates everything for His glory and it's for good, right?
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And then what does man do? Satan either influences us or our own unredeemed flesh, if we're
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Christians, the flesh that dwells in us, takes over and all of a sudden we pervert what
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God does. It's the same thing with sex. God says in marriage, it's great and I ordain that.
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I invented it. But then everybody takes it outside of that and then we have a problem. Same thing with this.
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Let him drink, look at verse 7, and forget his poverty and remember his trouble no more.
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There's a time where these people need to forget their condition. Now, certainly we have all kinds of drugs today and you might say, well, we can get things from the doctor and you don't have to have all the side effects.
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I understand that. I'm just saying that I don't need to run around and try to stop selling alcohol because that's going to cure all the nation's ills.
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Let's go on a little further and let me try to make my point. Psalm 104. This is the other kind of hidden verse that in your circles, you don't want to tell the kids these verses because they might go wild somehow.
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I don't think God made a mistake when He gave us these verses. I think as parents we need to teach our children.
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By the way, it's against the law for children to drink and so why would we break the law? But Psalm 104 just talks about how
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God gives good things. And I could take you, and I will maybe, to John 2 where Jesus actually makes more wine.
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And think about it. Think about Europe right now. Lewis and Dallas go to Europe and if you ask them questions about Europe, do
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Christians drink there? The answer is going to be what? Just as part of everyday life. Did you know for the
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Jewish people it was part of their everyday life to drink wine and have wine around? Much more so than here.
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Passover, guess what they drank? Why do you think one of the reasons Jesus said you guys stay here and wait and I'm going to go over here and pray.
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Stay awake and pray and I'm going to go over here and pray by myself. What was one of the factors for them falling asleep?
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They just drank wine. They just celebrated the Lord's Supper and they had drank wine. It was everywhere.
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And again, I am not pro -alcohol. I'm not trying to say in some insidious way everybody drink, but I don't want to add to Scripture.
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I want to force you to say if you have been justified by faith, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, if you have a conviction not to drink,
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I applaud that conviction. But if someone else says I don't want to make people stumble and I have a glass of wine once in a while at home by myself, who are you to say that's wrong?
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Because God has not said that's wrong. I feel strange saying it even.
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It sounds so weird. But look at Psalm 104 and how God just is a good giver of all kinds of things. Verse 13 of Psalm 104.
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He waters the mountains from His upper chambers. Just neat figurative language. He waters the mountains.
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By the way, if you have to water your front yard, how many times do you have to move the sprinkler around? Your front yard.
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God waters the mountains. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of His works.
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It's God's working. What are some kind of fruits that God gives the earth? He causes the grass to grow for the cattle.
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I mean, He thinks of it all. And vegetation for the labor of man so that He may bring forth food from the earth.
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And He may bring forth wine which makes man's heart glad so that He may make
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His face glisten with oil and food which sustains man's heart.
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It's just as easy for God to water the universe as it is for you to irrigate your front yard.
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Actually, it's easier for God. God supplies everything directly and indirectly including oil, bread, food, and wine.
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But, let's go to Proverbs and just give you a quick overview for those who say, well, I told myself when
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I got saved I'm not going to drink. Now, pastors have been preaching for three weeks on liberty and I think I just kind of want to now.
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That has not been my goal, by the way, in the last three weeks. Look at Proverbs chapter 20 and we're going to look at three different sections of the
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Proverbs and I want to remind you that wine is tricky and wine is something that you don't want to necessarily run to the front of the line to drink.
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We have to be careful. Now, remember, in the Christian environment there are two laws of the land. One is the
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Bible. Two is the conscience. So, here's what the Bible says. Proverbs 20 verse 1.
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You know these verses. Wine is a mocker. I mean, the only thing I can think of right now in baseball season is what do you say to the batter when you're young?
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Hey, batter, batter, batter, batter. You know, just kind of mocking. That's right. What do you say to a pitcher? We want to...
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You said that in church? Belliature in church? It's a mocker. There's mocking going on with wine.
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Why is that? Strong drinks a brawler. It's a fighter. It's pugnacious. And whoever is intoxicated by it is what?
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Not wise. Ephesians says it's sinful to get drunk. And you have to be careful.
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Go ahead a chapter. Proverbs chapter 21 verse 17. Now, remember, these were all written in a culture that had alcohol everywhere.
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I can say the same thing about food. The Bible says honey is good, but don't eat too much honey. Proverbs chapter 21 verse 17.
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He who loves pleasure will become a poor man. He who loves wine and oil will not become rich.
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There are problems built in. And by the way, if you're wondering, I'm just trying to give you a bunch of verses so that I can justify my private drinking.
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I don't drink. And you should say, Pastor, we're glad that you have your own convictions. But those are my convictions.
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I can't tell you not to drink. I can tell you not to get drunk. And then go to the one that's the best one is
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Proverbs chapter 23. We are to go so far to not even hang out with drunkards.
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We can't hang out with people who get drunk all the time. That's not right. And it goes farther, too.
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It goes for gluttons. Proverbs 23 verse 20. Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, or with gluttonous eaters of meat.
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Why? He didn't have to tell us, but he did. Verse 21. For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.
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There's a laziness factor built in, because when you drink wine, you just become apathetic. You become lethargic.
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It is a depressant. Then, a case study.
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Look at verse 29. Here's a case study with some interesting questions.
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Verse 29. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions, plural?
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Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
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You tell me who without even finishing. People who get drunk. Those who linger long over wine.
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They're just around the table where there's wine a long time, implying that they drink it. Those who go to taste mixed wine.
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You can study mixed wine on your own. Sometimes they put in other spices. Sometimes they mix it maybe with other chemicals that would make your mind to do what it ought not to do.
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Verse 31. Do not look on the wine when it is red. When it sparkles in the cup. When it goes down smoothly.
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Isn't this good? Better have another glass. Why? At the last, it bites like a serpent.
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And stings like a viper. There's problems with alcohol. Your eyes will see strange things.
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And your mind will utter perverse things. And don't you know, you just turn on the radio. Turn on the TV. Talk to somebody that's done it.
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Verse 34. And you will be like the one who lies down in the middle of the sea. Or one who lies down on the top of a mass.
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Can you imagine? It's like, you know, I talk to the kids about drinking. I tell them it's not sinful, but getting drunk is.
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In our family, we're just not going to, you know, I don't give the kids a little sip so they can just figure out what it tastes like.
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But how do you describe drunkenness to a kid? One of the ways I do it is I spin the kids in a circle all the time and make them dizzy.
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And then they stand up. And if you spin the kid that way when you stand them up, they tilt that way when they run.
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It's like that game that you have the baseball bat and you have to run down 40 yards, put your head, spin around 14 times.
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And I guarantee if you spin that way and then you try to run back, you're going to just drive yourself into the ground that way.
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Well, imagine being, here's another way you could describe it. Imagine being up on the crow's nest in a boat out in the ocean.
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And if the boat is going like that on the bottom, what do you think the crow's nest is doing? It is going back and forth and you are just tipsy.
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You are just, you feel weird. You can't control yourself. That's why kids, when they want to test somebody who's been driving, and the reason why it's against the law to drive and to be drunk is because you can't drive very well and you're driving this couple ton car.
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And they try to make you walk. And if your dad spins you around in a circle and you try to walk, what can you do? Well, what you can't do is walk in a straight line.
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Something else happens too. Look at verse 35. They struck me, but I did not become ill. Hey, you can hit my face and I don't even feel the pain.
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They beat me, but I did not know it. Can you imagine drinking something so somebody could not knock you just silly?
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And you didn't even know it. Who would want to do that? But you know the insidious thing about alcohol is it snares people and it masters people because they can't say no.
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And you know what people do? Verse 35. When shall I awake? I will seek another drink.
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Drunkenness forever and always is a sin. And when we get to Ephesians chapter 5, the
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Holy Spirit is to control us, not alcohol. But remember, in this congregational setting, there are people in this church that drink.
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And the first thing that you should do is not judge them why they drink. If they drink in front of you and you are tempted to drink because they're drinking in front of you, you need to pull them to the side and say, you know,
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I've got a problem with alcohol and so has my dad. I don't like to drink, but sometimes if I'm around it,
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I do. So would you just please not drink around me? And you should probably even be smarter than that and take one more step ahead and say, we're having some friends over tonight.
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It'd kind of be nice to have a glass of wine. We can do that in Christ's liberty, but there are other church people and why even bother?
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It's just the best not to. And so we have to be careful. You know, I said earlier today, legalists like rules because they don't want the congregation to go wild.
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And I think it's good to have rules for your kids. All right, and so I have another question for you.
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If it's okay to drink alcohol, then why do all the churches, and I would like an answer for this please, why do all the churches that you go to, with very few exceptions, serve only grape juice at the
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Lord's table? Because the real Lord's Supper was with wine, the third communion, the third
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Passover cup. Why do we do that? Yes, Wesley? You know,
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I never thought about that. Serving to minors. What if we tell the kids they can't have communion until they get older?
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That's a good point. Okay, besides that point, I think actually in a religious context with half an ounce,
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I don't think that would be breaking the law if we didn't do that. Because it would have to be probably with parental consent and they'd be there and I think we'd be okay.
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Other reasons, Doug? Grape juice is cheaper. That's true.
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Okay, and that's probably the biggest reason is it could cause somebody to stumble. Alcohol smells, it's got a different smell to it.
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It can linger longer. I mean, you can describe all the things about alcohol, but the main reason we don't do that here is because we don't want to cause anyone to stumble.
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I do think it's a lie that a Christian who's got a problem with alcohol is one drink away from becoming an alcoholic.
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I do think there's some truth to the fact that if you have some alcohol, then you might be tempted to have some more. But we just do that because we want to take the high road.
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It's the same thing with communion wafers. Sometimes we have the bread that the ladies make and that's sweet, but nine times out of ten, we won't have the bread and why is that?
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Why won't we have regular bread when we serve communion? Because of the leaven in it.
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Leaven in the scripture doesn't always mean negative things, although a lot of times it does. Leaven in scripture is a permeating thing and for the
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Jews, they couldn't have any bread for Passover because they didn't have any leaven for Passover.
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Why is that, any leaven bread for Passover? They had to make it quick. It wasn't because there was something bad in it, but leaven has a connotation in Christian circles of something bad.
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And so I know people, not any longer at this church, some guy was just here for a short time, moved back down to Florida, and he said, you guys serve bread with leaven in it and that goes against my conscience because it reminds me of sin.
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Jesus, did he ever sin? Thought, word, or deed ever succumb to temptation?
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No. So when I take the bread and think of the Lord's body and him dying for me, when it's got leaven in it,
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I'm thinking kind of like a Jew, and I'm thinking, I don't want that, and so I would prefer not to. So was it wrong for us to say, you know, most of the time, besides the family times every other month when the ladies bake some bread, let's just have unleavened bread.
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Is that a wrong thing to do? Can you guys all live without leaven in your bread a few times a year for communion?
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Yes, it's just a matter of trying to build up the weaker person. We could inform that person's conscience.
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That has nothing to do with it. It's no big deal. Or we could just say, you know, for the sake of the many, or the sake of the one, we don't have to do that.
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Now if someone said, I'm offended when this church passes the offering plate around because everybody's in it for money and you just want to, you know, spend it on new carpet and new this and new that, and I don't mean church carpet,
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I mean like the pastor's house carpet, and it's like that church that I went to in Los Angeles, that there was a special offering for the pastor.
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And you had to walk down the middle of the aisle to come up to put the money in the plate for the pastor. Special offering.
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And the pastor stood there and held the bucket. I kid you not. Can you imagine?
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So if I would have known that, I could have just got a bunch of pennies and thrown them in and it would have sounded like a lot of money. That, I thought, that is bad.
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So when it comes to alcohol in the church, we're not going to have any pot providences here that have alcohol.
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Why? We don't want to make anyone stumble. We don't even need to cause the distress. But if you go to someone's house and you open up the refrigerator and you see, you know, an ale in there or you see a bottle of wine, please don't have a conniption fit.
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Don't have a heart attack. Don't, you know, if you do, quick run home and throw away your
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Tylenol PM and your codeine, Tylenol codeine and everything else. Just get rid of it all.
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But we have liberty in Christ. And if somebody says, I just do it at home, I have a drink with my husband once in a while, then we need to get over it and get on to other issues of building up the body of Christ.
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Don't we? I don't want alcohol served. And if you tell me, I'm going to serve alcohol at my wedding and Marissa says,
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I'd like to get married. And pastor, would you do the wedding? We're going to have an open bar. We don't have any policy. Steve's looking at like, yeah, right.
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That'll be the day. Then I'm probably, I'm not asked to do this one because Marissa's close,
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Marissa's fiance is close to his pastor. But I'm probably going to say, you know, I probably just won't.
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Show me a Bible verse, pastor, that you won't do it. I'm going to say, I can't show you, but you can't make me go against my conscience either to go do that wedding.
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And then you're going to have an open bar. And I know some of my church folks are going to come and maybe some of them have a problem with it.
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So how about this? If you want to have a glass of champagne with your wife on your wedding night, then just,
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I'll go buy the champagne for you. I'll put it in the limo. You go in your hotel room and pray.
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Say, God, thank you for grapes and for the champagne and you're so good and we won't drink enough to get drunk. And then knock yourself out.
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What do I care? But we don't need to have other Christians. We don't need to have other Christians somehow around wine and making it an issue.
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But I've tried to push the envelope the last three weeks because our society here in this church is not, well, we don't obey any rules.
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My own bent and your bent, I know, is going to be legalistic because we like rules and so Satan pushes to give us extra rules.
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There should be no rules about that. But can the elders say we probably shouldn't have an open bar at a wedding reception?
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And then, you know, here's the question I always get. Yes, but my future in -laws are paying for the wedding and they want an open bar.
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And I usually have to tell them. I'm nicer than this in person, believe me. I'm usually nicer in person all the time versus in the pulpit.
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But I usually say, well, today's a good day to grow up and to tell your future in -laws it's my wedding.
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And the second I say I do, that daughter's mine, Dad, and not yours anymore. But nicer than that, of course.
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We just need to be what with Christians. The main thing in Romans 14 and 15 is we are to receive them to our face up close.
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In the Greek word, it's not just to receive, but to pros -receive, to intensely receive them close, whether they drink or they don't.
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And if you think drinking's wrong, don't worry about convincing your Christian brother or sister that it's wrong. As they grow in Christ, they'll figure it out.
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They'll figure out the wisdom of when they should and when they shouldn't. I know people that will go buy alcohol, but they'll go to another county or someplace else because they don't want anybody else to see it.
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I don't drink, but if I did, I wouldn't go down here to Price Chopper because what if I ran into one of you? Schlitz is on sale.
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Pass is down at Price Chopper. I mean, it just... Oh, Falstaff today. You know, it's just not right.
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So if you say, all right, I'm not living my Christian life for myself, that's the idea of the body of Christ.
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We're to love other people. And if you've got a husband that's not saved, or a wife that's not saved, or a grandpa and grandma who's not saved, the issue is not their alcohol drinking and the result of drinking too much their drunkenness.
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The issue is they need to get saved from that sin and every other sin. And if they're going to have a party at their house and you know alcohol is going to be served, then how could you say,
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Dad, I'm not coming over because you're having alcohol? What you do is something different. You say, family, we're going to get there early, and we're going to love on our parents, and we're going to honor them, and there's going to be the party, and then as people start getting drunk, then it's time for us to go.
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You just have to be smart about it. You have to be wise about it, but we don't have to run around saying, Oh, I can't do that.
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We're to love people just like Jesus loved us. He loved us when we were sinners. He loved us when we were enemies.
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He loved us when we were helpless. He loved us when we were alienated from Him and had no hope.
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Can't we love other Christians who are our brothers and sisters in Christ? And the answer is yes.
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Boy, I can see the letters are going to come fast and furious this week. All right, let's keep going. Any comments about that or clarifying questions?
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How did I know, Doug, you'd be raising your hand? No, just kidding. It's a great point, and I'm not trying to compare this church to your last church, but isn't it nice to be free from those legalistic shackles?
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I mean, it is great to have freedom in Christ, and of course I'm not saying that you can disobey God. Every time the
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New Testament says, Do something, the law of Christ, we are bound to obey. We have to obey. We're not running around libertines acting like libertines.
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But here's how I would answer that. There are people in churches, in every church, who try to control what goes on, and they try to manipulate and control in different ways.
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So in this particular case, that woman who was trying to do that, what if we walk around so much and we kowtow to the weak so we can never rise and mature as a congregation because we never get past the level of the weak?
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That's what would be happening there. And I think the answer is found, when we looked at Romans 14 last week, 13 to 23, where making another brother stumble is not their bug that I'm doing it.
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Their bug that I wore a pink shirt and they think pastors should wear white shirts and the same tie every week.
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I have a friend, he's a pastor, and he has four suits that are the same, all the white shirts and the same tie, so nobody says,
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Oh, I kind of like his tie this time. Oh, I don't like his tie. And I can't believe he wore a pink shirt. I can't believe he wore a purple shirt.
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And you're always checking out what the pastor wears. I mean, when I get these comments, you think, I just, you know, between you and I, I don't dress for you.
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I dress for Kim, so talk to her next time you don't like my tie. So they ask all these questions.
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And so, let's say we did something different and I said, I'm going to wear a pink shirt anyway.
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That person says, you're making me stumble. I'd say you don't understand Christian liberties. Stumbling is, they, because I wore a pink shirt, they think wearing pink shirts is sin.
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They go there for and wear a pink shirt the next Sunday, they think that's sin, so their conscience feels bad, then it'd be better for me not to wear it.
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That's how the church gets beyond at the level of the weak and we can grow. I personally, if this was a
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Mikesville here, and everything that I thought was right, we would do. I would probably have on the inner circle of the communion plate where we'd have the cups,
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I'd probably have the inner circle real alcohol and the outer circle grape juice and you could just pick and choose. Then the thing is, you know, it goes down the road when you're checking it out.
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It goes down the road when they take, when they pick real alcohol, when they pick the grape juice and all that kind of stuff and we could probably divvy it up.
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I would probably pick real alcohol. I just said I don't drink alcohol, but in communion setting
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I would. If I've got a bad cold and I need to be knocked out with NyQuil, I'll drink some NyQuil. I mean, it's all right.
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I mean, I'll actually use Listerine and gargle. I don't swallow it, but I'll gargle with it.
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I can see the newsletter at the church right now. And so, I think alcohol would stay with your, stay with your taste buds a little longer.
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I think I can smell it better than grape juice and I think it's just going to linger longer and I'm going to remember what
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I've done for a longer time period, but that doesn't, it's not worth the hassle of somehow doing that.
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You know, you get in enough trouble at a church with carpet and carpet color, let alone you start putting alcohol around the middle ring of the server.
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All right. Oh, this is interesting, by the way. A Methodist dentist,
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Dr. Thomas Welch, objected to the church's use of fermented wine in the communion service.
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Experimenting at night in his kitchen, he came up with a non -alcoholic grape beverage which he named
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Dr. Welch's Unfermented Wine. He approached church officials to persuade them to substitute his beverage for the traditional wine.
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The elders regarded his suggestion as being an unacceptable innovation. A son, Charles, who was also a dentist, changed the name to Welch's Grape Juice.
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He set up production facility in a barn behind the family home. Response was so overwhelming that he gave up dentistry and devoted full time to making and distributing grape juice.
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Welch's Grape Juice. Jonah. Am I in India?
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What did you just say? Sikar, Deraj, and...
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Teraj. I'm not familiar with the
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Hebrew words. It sounds like you are though and I applaud you. I only know the... Oh, it was?
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I know oikinos for the Greek word for wine. But here's what they would do back in those days.
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I'm sorry to try to make it a joke. What they would do in the old days is if you had bad water, and when
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I was in India, the water was not bad for them but it was bad for me and so you could just have a little pouch and that pouch would have kind of like a little paste and you could just put some of that alcohol paste in and it would kill some of the bugs.
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And I think Timothy, by the way, had some legalistic tendencies and Paul had to tell Timothy, this is only a guess, but I think it's educated, it is okay to drink wine,
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Timothy, for your stomach's sake. You can just imagine Timothy, he had other issues of being timid and it was a hard row to hoe and Timothy says, you know,
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I'm just going to go with no alcohol because alcohol is a problem and my friends are involved, etc., etc. And Paul said, it's okay to have it.
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Have a little wine for your stomach's sake. And so what they would do back in those days is they would have a lot of water wine, kind of three parts water, one part wine and you would basically be bloated before you could get, you know, stoned on it, before you could get drunk.
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And so people would just drink it all the time and it wasn't like MD -2020 today, you know, it wasn't like that, it wasn't something hard.
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That would be called, most of the wine today would be strong drink and it's a lot easier to drink one glass of that and get drunk than it is to just drink something and say,
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I mean, for those of you that do drink, how often do you really drink just a little bit and say, I just love the taste of this grape juice, so good,
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God, you are so glorified and I just, you know, it's just the best. I mean, there's that little element that you have to watch out for to say,
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I kind of just like to take the edge off tonight. That's the main reason I'd like to drink this. Is that the
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Anheuser -Busch translation? Sorry about that.
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Well, here's what you do. This is the truth. If somebody ever asks you a Bible question, then the first thing you have to do is this.
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You have to say, could you tell me what that verse is to look at it because some of the times it's framed in such a way that it doesn't refer that.
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So, find that verse out, let me know, and I'll be glad to look at it. We can maybe... Yes. No, in any of my studies,
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I can't think of any time that they would make beer around the Middle East. It was grapes and it would just happen naturally, and so I don't know when beer was in...
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Huh? Well, I don't know if it was made and figured out in Germany and all those kind of things 500 years later and you've got to have a certain temperature and a certain kind of distillation system and everything else.
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I think that was pre... post -Bible days. Oh, they did.
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All right. Boy, that's a long answer to a short question. Okay. No, that's okay.
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Let's go to Luke chapter 13, please. The Bible tells us we're not supposed to speak ill of our leaders, our political leaders, our governmental leaders, and sometimes the
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Lord is very gracious to us and gives us presidents that try to act like Christians or say they are, and sometimes people aren't.
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But Jesus seems to go against the Bible when he called Herod a name, and he called him
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Fox. And Exodus 22, 28 says, you shall not curse a ruler of your people.
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Ecclesiastes 10, 20, furthermore in your bedchamber do not curse a king and in your sleeping rooms do not curse a rich man for a bird of the heavens will carry the sound and the winged creature will make the matter known.
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Little bird, he's going to tell on you. God's going to find out. So what was Jesus doing when he said in Luke 13, 31, just at that time some
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Pharisees came up saying to him, Go away and depart from here for Herod wants to kill you.
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Now maybe they were against Herod and that's certainly the case for many Pharisees, but maybe they had a different motivation and that was this is a good way to get rid of Jesus.
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Who wants to have the light of the world rocking around when we live in darkness and we would just as soon have
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Jesus gone because it exposes us for what we really are, for who we really are. So let's get rid of Jesus.
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Herod's coming thinking Jesus will go. And then Jesus is just amazing.
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I mean, I just love him. And he said to them, Go and tell that fox, behold,
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I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow on the third day I reach my goal. In other words, you go and tell him,
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I'm on my own timetable and I'll do whatever I want when I want and I'm doing the father's bidding and nobody can take away my life until I lay it down.
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I'm in charge. Remember when people would come and say, you healed somebody on the Sabbath and what did Jesus say?
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I'm the Lord of the Sabbath and here I'm the Lord of time. I'm sovereign. I'm the creator, the sustainer.
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I'm God. So my question to you and you can respond out loud, please.
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Of course it was right. Jesus did it. But why? Excuse me, son.
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Luke, you want to sit down, please? Okay. Okay. Sorry about that. I just thought he was going to stand there in front of the fan while I'm preaching.
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Oh, you did. Okay, thank you. That's okay.
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What does Fox bring up to your mind? Jesus certainly isn't cursing him. Sly. Okay.
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Bruce? Okay. He will try to prey on something.
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He's very crafty. He's very... Okay. The Old Testament you would see in Hosea and Isaiah and Ezekiel prophets saying, this ruler's wrong.
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Because when God says a ruler's wrong, it's a lot different from us saying, hey, that guy's wrong and he's kind of hurting me.
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And he's cramping my style. Isaiah 1 .23, your rulers are rebels. I mean,
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God can say, these rulers are sinful. He can say, I'm not saying this president or any particular president, the president of the
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United States is immoral. I mean, God can say that. I think we need to be careful on what we say and how we say things.
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But Jesus certainly can say it. But it brings up another very interesting question that's farther in the verse. Luke 13 .33.
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Verses in the Bible that maybe are more misunderstood than even Romans 15 .4 this morning. Nevertheless, I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day, just a
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Jewish figure of speech. He's not saying count the days, how many hours, 24 plus 24 plus 24.
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In a sense, in another colloquial phrase, three days and three nights, just any portion of three days.
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This is talk for today, tomorrow and the next day. I've just got my own plan going on here. And he says, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.
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You just go, wow. Now prophets had perished outside of Jerusalem. Can you think of one? They cut his head off.
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Because he said that was an immoral dance. John the Baptist. Prophets have been killed.
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But Jesus is saying this, it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. By the way, it's mainly the
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Jews who are killing the prophets. That's his point. And then he says something that's very amazing that people use all the time to say if God's trying to save you, you can say no and you can win out.
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Verse 34. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her.
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How often have I wanted to gather your children together just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not have it.
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Verse 35. Behold, your house is left to you desolate and I say to you, you shall not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the
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Lord. So what's going on here? This was said two times early on in the ministry and one time later almost the exact words and let's look at the later one it's easier to look at.
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Matthew chapter 23. It's parallel in its wording but commentators think this is a little later occasion but let's just look at it anyway because it's the same kind of terminology.
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What is going on? If God says it's time to be saved, I've elected you before time has started,
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I'm going to have my son die for you and now's the time the spirit of God is going to regenerate you and make you born again.
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Can that person say no? To put it in other terms, let's say you've got a dear loved one, a family member that has said no to the gospel for 10, 20, 40, 80 years and God is saying, today's your day.
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Should you be worried that your family member can say no to God and somehow he's going to win? Certainly people say no to God all the time.
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But this verse doesn't say anything about that. Look at Matthew 23 verse 37.
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O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often
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I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling.
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And then he said the same thing he said in Luke 13 about the house is desolate. What's going on there?
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If you had to interpret this passage with one of the first things that you should do, Jesus is talking to Jerusalem, it seems like it's almost saying that these people wouldn't believe and they wouldn't follow
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Christ so God couldn't save them. How would you try to solve that problem? How would you solve every problem theologically and hermeneutically?
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Context. What is the context here? Anyone? It's all about the Pharisees, isn't it?
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Go back up to chapter 22 of Matthew 22. If we had to pick a group, the
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Pharisees, the lawyers, the scribes, the Sadducees, the Herodians, I'd rather pick the Pharisees because they kind of at least, the
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Bible says, of course they add things and it's not like they were unsavable but they're not saved but they would be the closest to kind of our group in the sense that they're trying to teach the
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Bible, trying to breed the Bible. Look at Matthew 22, but Jesus lays them out.
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Chapter 22 of verse 15 of Matthew, then the Pharisees went and counseled together how they might trap him in what he said.
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Verse 34, but when the Pharisees heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered themselves together and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him.
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Verse 41, now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question.
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Chapter 23, verse 2, he's saying to the multitude, the scribes and the Pharisees had seated themselves in the chair of Moses.
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Down to verse 29 of Matthew 23, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
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Can you imagine? He's saying this to the religious leaders. Verse 32, fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers.
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You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell? Verse 36, truly
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I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation. And then he says, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her?
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Who is he talking about? The leaders, the
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Pharisees, the prophets come to you, you're the leaders of Jerusalem, and you kill them.
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Most people take this totally wrong and they say, Jesus said how often
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I would have gathered you but you would not. He doesn't say that. What does he say, anyone? How often
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I wanted to gather your children. You leaders are putting hedges around what
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I say and do and you won't even, you're trying to stop me from preaching the gospel to them and telling them about salvation and you won't let your children believe in the real deal.
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The leaders are killing the prophets. The leaders have stoned them and killed them and Jesus says, you children.
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No, he says I wanted to gather your children, the leader of Israel's children. In a way that the hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling.
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Look up to verse 13 to just bolster this view. Verse 13, but woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites because, listen, this is exactly what he was saying later.
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You shut off the kingdom of heaven from men, for you do not enter it yourself, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
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This is the way to do it. Mint and cumin and do this and don't do that and everything else and Jesus said you are all wrong and the leaders are stepping putting a stumbling block in front of the steps of the followers.
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John Gill said the persons whom Christ would have gathered are not represented as being unwilling to be gathered but the rulers were not willing that they should.
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The opposition and resistance to the will of Christ were not made by the people but by their governors.
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The common people seem inclined to attend the ministry of Christ as appears from the vast crowds which at different times and places followed him, but the chief priests and the rulers did all they could to hinder the collection of them to him.
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Beloved, the good news is this. When God has the person's number, even though they've said in my case no to him for 29 years.
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I hate you practically for 29 years. Of course I didn't say that. I was afraid of hell.
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I needed hell insurance so I'd give him lip service but by my own life denying him for 29 years when it was that day driving in that car.
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What could I do? When God gave me a new nature, what was I to do? God immediately gave me a new nature.
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And what I used to love, my sin, I hated. Try to do that on your own.
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And what I used to hate, God and righteousness and his word and Bible studies and church,
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I loved. And so when people say that you're 2 Peter 3 and 9 and we don't have time to do that now but this verse,
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Jesus is talking in context to the leaders and he's saying, judgment is more for you because you've tried to stop what
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I've been doing. It's not Jesus saying to the common people, I've tried to gather you, I've tried to say come unto me but you said no and I vote for you,
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Satan votes against you and you cast it aside and vote. That is not what he's saying. There's only 3 votes that count in all of salvation.
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The father's vote, the son's vote and the yes vote. They always vote together and guess who responds with love when you have a new nature?
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You do. And when you used to be a... What do kangaroos eat?
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Grass or something. I don't know. And you used to be a kangaroo and you ate grass and God changed you into a lion.
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You didn't like grass anymore. You wanted meat. And people say, well salvation is like a caveman, you know, dragging his wife around and he just forces her to do it and breaks the door down and just forces her to get saved.
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I don't think that's the way I would describe salvation. I would describe salvation as God and his goodness and his tenderness and his kindness and his grace.
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He doesn't even have to do it. He gives you a brand new nature and that nature used to say no to God and now it says yes.
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And that nature comes running to God and loves him. Alright, one last one.
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I know I'll upset the apple cart but woe to you if all men speak well of you.
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I'm just kidding. Alright, lastly. Now hear me out on this one. VeggieTales.
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What do I think about VeggieTales? Everybody's like...
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See, it's late and it's the last question and it's already past the time but I know you'll hear this one.
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Listen. Oh, you've got a VeggieTales right there and you're my son's Sunday school teacher. Well, no wonder he's standing up in front of the fan going, oh, hello.
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I'm glad he graduated from your class. No, I'm just kidding. By the way, Wes and Stephanie have done a great job this year and I'm super thankful that my son is in your class so keep up the good work.
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Okay, what about VeggieTales? Certainly, after just preaching on Christian Liberty, I'm not going to tell you to throw all your
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VeggieTales stuff away. Burn it all. Before we get to the carpet,
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X marks the spot. Burning VeggieTales. I'm not going to say that but I do get asked the question and somebody even gave me this last week the
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Jonah movie book and they said, well, what do you think about it? So I said, I'm just going to put it on a Q &A.
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That's what we'll talk about. It's VeggieTales and what do we do? Are VeggieTales funny?
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Yes. I mean, who doesn't like silly songs and cheeseburgers? I mean, come on, Mr. Lunt. I mean, what are we going to do?
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I've watched them. We have them. I have not thrown them away out of our house. They're funny. They're catchy.
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They're nothing immoral in there but here's what I would do. Like anything, parents, it's your job to filter what's in the house and if something falls short, to kind of bolster it up.
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And if you had one complaint in VeggieTales, what would that complaint be? I have mainly one and if you get it,
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I'm thinking of a prize to give you but there is one major complaint that you as parents need to make sure you teach your kids because you don't want this to happen to them.
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Okay, excellent. That's the right answer but let's just hear what Wes says. But if you're using it to mess it up, it serves its purpose.
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Is that what you're trying to say? Yeah, and so I'm not that concerned about well, there's that new guy in the
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Jonah movie and he's that Arab guy, Khalil or whatever his name is and I'm not so concerned that there's some kind of effeminate little cucumber running around or something.
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I mean, I'm not that concerned about those kind of things. But the real issue is moralism and I'll talk about that in a second but one last comment and then we better wrap up.
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Well, and that could be, I haven't considered that. Certainly wrath is not to be joked about. You know, whenever you talk about hell they say a preacher when he talks about hell should have a tear in his eye when he talks about it because it is not funny.
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But my big thing is this. Parents, if you let your kids watch VeggieTales, make sure you teach them that morality alone is a stench in God's nostrils.
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Moralism can't save. The do -betters and the do -good theology that's out in most pulpits is wrong.
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If God says, do better, you have to ask yourself a question. How can we do better?
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Is the gospel moralism? By the way, you know who loves VeggieTales? This doesn't always make it wrong but Mormons love
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VeggieTales. Why? Because they're part of the do -betters. The do -goods. That's one word, by the way.
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D -O -B -E -T -T -E -R. Do better. Just do better. I could ask you this question.
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I could prove it in the Old Testament and the New. Old Testament. What is the most important part of the Old Testament Ten Commandments?
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Ten Commandments, it's in the Old Testament. Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. What's the most important part?
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Close. Haley? Good, let's go there.
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Exodus chapter 20. Friends, if you let your kids watch VeggieTales, make sure you tell them. What Haley said is, we'll read it here in Exodus chapter 20.
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Moralism is not it. Your kids can have good table manners and still go to hell. Your kids can know not to put their elbows on the table and say, may
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I please thank you, which I like to do, and I teach my kids that. And if you give my kids something and they don't say thank you, you have my permission to say, and, what's the response?
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Thank you. It's right. Good manners are fine. I like good manners. But they don't save anybody.
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What we do with kids is we teach our kids the gospel and then pray that God gives them a new heart to match their external, hypocritical, whitewashed, sepulchral life.
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Because we have no other option. You're going to raise your kid up to be a heathen and then hope God saves him?
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No, you're going to raise your kid up to say, I have one friend, he won't even let his kids pray. Because he's five years old, he doesn't think he's a
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Christian, and so if you're not a Christian, your only prayer is for salvation. I reject that. I want to teach my kids, we come to God and say,
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Heavenly Father, and you're good and you're wise and you're a Savior by nature, and God, please.
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But just do good is wrong. And that's most of the times what VeggieTales does. So you need to make sure you teach them there's this great
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God of all grace. Exodus 20. Then, then what? Then after God visited
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Sinai with an exclamation point, with the trumpets and the thunder and the lightning, and God said,
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I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
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Now do better. Do better is fine when it comes underneath the construct and the umbrella of,
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I'm God, I've graced you, now obey. Remember Ephesians? Chapter 1, 2, and 3,
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I've graced you, I've graced you, I've graced you, I've graced you. Chapter 4, Obey.
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The great Christian lie is it's propagated in most churches. Just do better, do better, do better. We're not talking about grace.
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That's why in the last couple years since I've done that grace series, you probably have heard me say it. I said it this morning. God, we just learned about legalism and liberty.
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Now help us to do that because we can't do it. And even did you notice in chapter 15 this morning? Christ's example,
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Old Testament proof, a prayer that we would be able to do that. So when you read, when you watch
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VeggieTales and it says we're supposed to forgive, I can't stand that one about forgiving because it says we're supposed to say
58:54
I'm sorry. If you step on my foot, say you're sorry. If you sin against me, say please forgive me.
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That's what we should be teaching our kids because that's biblical. It's not just I'm sorry. But you can't teach kids even about forgiveness without about the grace of God.
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Same thing in your parenting. I've been trying to do this lately. Instead of telling your kids, don't do that, you can do that.
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And as a parent, you have every right to do that. But come at it the way God does. He talks about His grace, indicative,
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God's grace, imperative, obey. It's always indicative imperative. Statement of fact,
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God's grace. And He's shown His grace in the Old Testament with Egypt, in the New Testament with Salvation.
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Now obey in light of that. So the same thing with the kids. Daddy loves you. Daddy loves you, so make sure you go pick up your room.
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I'm trying to teach them it's grace and in the umbrella of grace, now do better. But moralism is deadly.
59:53
Get that MacArthur tape or pull it up on the website, Bible BB I think it is, Bible Bulletin. The deadly effects of moralism or something like that.
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It's devastating. Do good, do good, do good, do good. And we've got a bunch of do -gooders who are forgetting, we can't even do good without the
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Gospel. And so, if you have beddy tails and you want to let your kids watch it, fine.
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If my kids drove at your house, they can watch it too. But I'm going to tell them when they get home, what's the most important part of the
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Ten Commandments? How do we even obey God? It's not by being better or doing better, it is because God has graced us.
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And if you would do what this beddy tail says, you're not going to heaven. Because God sends you to heaven only one way, and that is belief and belief alone in what
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His Son has done, period, paragraph. And out of that, then you try to live the life of Christianity.
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A little secret just between us girls, do better is liberalism from 50 years ago. That's Fosdick.
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That's Union Seminary down in New York. That's liberalism. Be good, do better, social problems and social ills, let's all get along.
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That's why we'll never be able to associate with other churches and say, let's get together and do better.
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Help the poor. Say no to abortion. We should help the poor. We should say no to abortion. But the answer to the unwed mother who is pregnant is not do better.
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She can't. That's why it's a lie to tell someone, you've got to stop that sin before God can save you.
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Don't ever say that. God needs to save them because they can't stop that sin. It is alright to say and perfectly biblical to say, repent and believe.
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You should say that. But if they're canny enough to say, I've tried that over and over and over in my life and I can't repent and believe on my own.
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Then that's why you say there's a savior for you and his name is Jesus Christ because he's done it all. I have friends.
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I've prayed the prayer. I've walked the aisle. I've done that. I've rededicated, reconsecrated, re -irrigated my life 50 ,000 times and I'm still not saved.
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And you say, let me tell you the real savior and he's not a savior of doing better. He's done it for you and graced you and in light of that, you believe in him and you trust him for all eternity and God will enable you to do better.
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So if you have VeggieTales and I have them, we haven't bought any lately, but if you have them, just make sure you don't let your kids only understand do better and be moral.
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Because that's Mormonism. That's liberalism. That's not Christianity. Ask me how
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I really feel. Just kidding. Alright. Alright. Let's just pray. Father, thank you for this night where we can come and be gathered and it's just sweet fellowship to be around your word and it has all the answers and I'm glad that we are not relegated in this congregation and as Christians to somehow just be better.
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We are so thankful, Father, that you have given your Holy Spirit to us and when Jesus ascended another one, the
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Spirit of God came and has indwelt us and empowered us and helped us to live the Christian life because we can do nothing to please you,
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Father, without your Son's Spirit. And so we would ask that when it comes to alcohol, maybe there's people in this church that struggle with getting drunk.
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We pray that your Spirit would help them to say no. There may be some that are judgmental when other people drink and somehow we judge them and question them.
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Father, would you be generous and liberal with your Spirit to help them not to do that? And Father, we have kids in this congregation and even my own and Father, we're not sure of everyone's salvation so we would pray that you'd help us to show them that they can never be good enough, never surpass the righteousness of the
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Scribes and Pharisees, never be perfect as you are perfect. So Father, help them to look to the One who has not done better but who has done it all in our place.