Book of 1 Corinthians - Ch. 6, Vs. 9-Ch. 7, Vs. 14 (12/24/2000)

Park Meadows Church

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All right, I tried to cheer you all up before we started, because we have a lesson that's not very cheerful.

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Now therefore, there is utterly a fault, we have that, nay, you do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren."

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I don't know. 1 Corinthians, 1

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Corinthians 6, 9. Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

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Now we know that. We know that the people that persecute us are not going to inherit the kingdom of God.

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Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, effeminate.

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They touched on that problem way back there. He who is not a child of God has no right to the family inheritance.

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It's just that simple. For that inheritance is for the children, heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.

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There are here ten classes of transgressions, transgressors, which the apostle excludes from the kingdom of God.

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And any man who is guilty of any one of the evils mentioned above is thereby excluded from this kingdom, whether it imply the church or Christ here below or the state of glory hereafter.

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After several of the evils here enumerated will not bear to be particularly explained.

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They are, however, sufficiently plain of themselves and show us that abominations were commonly practiced among the

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Corinthians. It's hard to imagine a church practicing these.

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Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor rivalers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.

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Now, just so that we'll be clear, what makes an extortioner as predicted here?

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He is scheming evil against another. All right. What else did he list?

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What makes you a thief, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners?

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What makes you those? All right.

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It's not someone that does something one time. Now, I would hope none of us do any of this.

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What did you say? What are you laughing for? What did you say?

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Yes. All right. No. No.

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No. They are not to be accepted in the church.

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And if there's someone in the church doing one of these things, we're to go to them one -on -one.

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If they will not adhere, then we go with a group. And if not, we bring it before the church.

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And if not, then they're excluded until they get right. The dishonest, the unjust, the impure, and those who seek wealth, honor, and pleasure are the chief good.

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Whatever their profession or to whatever church they may externally belong, if they continue such, will, with drunkards, idolaters, thieves, robbers, and so forth, be forever excluded.

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Now, the enrollment of the church. We speak this quite often as pertaining to others because I think we have very little of it.

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People that belong that are not Christian. We may disagree among ourselves, but we agree on salvation.

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And such were some of you, but ye are washed. You have been washed, but you are excluded from heaven, sanctified.

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And such were some of you, but ye are washed. But ye are excluded from heaven, but you are justified in the name.

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I don't get that. Instead of excluded, say sanctified. Well, someone read it to me, the 11th verse.

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And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the

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Lord, our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. Okay, but ye are excluded.

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Okay. Yes, that's what was thrown me off.

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I copied that out. I'm going to have to go look that up. We're sanctified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God. We are set apart. We are sanctified forever.

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All things are lawful unto me. This is Paul speaking. He says, all things are lawful unto me.

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All things was in reason. Robbing somebody isn't. That's not what he's talking about.

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But all things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. It's not necessary that I do all things.

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All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

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And therein lies the key to success as a Christian. I will not be under the power of any.

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What do you mean, Joy? He means that he will not be in some kind of interest except something from another nation.

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All right. Richard. All right.

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Richard. Well, what did he mean?

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He will not be brought under the power of any thing. All right.

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Bill. If you relate this back to the previous where he said, all things are lawful for me, that means activities that I might take place in.

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There's nothing necessarily wrong with any particular activity. But it's not expedient that I do it.

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It's not good that I do it necessarily because it doesn't advance God's kingdom. So maybe there's things that I need not do because they hinder someone or somebody else.

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But whatever it is that I am doing, and I think this works out, whatever it is that I am doing,

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I should not be tied so strongly to it that it stands in the way and interferes with someone else.

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All right. That's the crux of the whole thing, that nothing that I do, no thing that I do, stands in the way between me and God.

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Even though I'm doing something for God, he may change it. I can add one other thing.

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Back in the olden days, at Jesus' time, people drank a little wine.

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And in fact, Timothy was instructed to drink a little wine. Times were different.

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And I think that if I were to go out into a place where I would be seen and drink a little wine, that that would hurt my witness.

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And therefore, even though it wasn't wrong to be drinking wine, it is wrong to be hurting the witness.

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All right. We cannot keep from offending people.

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The best we can do, watching everything that we do, we will offend some.

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But everything that we do depends on others. And by that I mean,

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Greg, those with whom you associate. You cannot do something that would go against them doing everything in a

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Christian way. But maybe they haven't grown as much. Maybe they haven't come up to the point yet where they can do these things.

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So it behooves all of us to live a life in front of people.

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And you're in front of people every day, even when you're by yourself. You're in front of people.

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So we have to do the best we can with whatever we have, wherever we are, right now.

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And that includes others. That Christianity does not barely restrain us from doing what is unlawful, but from doing that which is expedient also.

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It may be all right for us to eat meat, eat meat offered to an idol.

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It takes the extreme. But if it causes a weaker brother to stumble, then not do it.

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So whenever you're invited to a meal, and this is the time of season for being invited out, don't ask questions.

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Just enjoy what's put before you. Because if you know, then it makes a difference.

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Meat's for the belly, and the belly for meats. But God shall destroy both it and them.

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Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

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Meat is for the belly, and the belly is for the meat. What's he talking about? Clarence?

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All right. And then, to close that verse out, the body is not made for fornication, but the

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Lord, and the Lord for the body. What does he mean by that?

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All right. Our body is but an extension of the

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Lord. Now, to look at some of you, it doesn't look like that. But it is.

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Now, do we keep it holy? Do we not keep it holy? Do we let it slip once in a while?

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Do we forget? That's the easiest thing to do, is to forget things.

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That just because you got baptized, doesn't mean you have to satisfy that life.

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That just because it gives you a temporary pleasure, whatever it is, that doesn't mean that you should engage in that activity.

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What you should do is to recognize that those things that you do are affective.

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You should be affected by the presence of God even. All right. Now, let me find something here before I forget it.

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All right. He is saying, as if he's saying, You put the body to a use for which it was never intended.

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Like what? You put the body to a use for which it was never intended.

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What's he been talking about? All right.

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You put the body to a use for which it was never intended. It was never intended to run your life.

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It was never intended to be the uppermost thing in your life.

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And we're all guilty of that. That we let our body run our life. By body,

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I mean the desires of the appetites that we have. As if the belly was made for meat, but the body was not for fornication.

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But the Lord, that is, for the Lord's use and service. And the Lord is for the body, that is, that the good and salvation of the body.

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The body does not run the thing. The body does not sit in the throne.

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And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power.

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As if he had said, where were your bodies to be finally lost in the dust?

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Then were it no great matter how you use them or abuse them. Is your body to be lost?

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Is your body going no place? Right.

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So, we may get trapped into the thought of thinking that our body is going to be changed anyhow.

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It's going to be destroyed. It's going to be lost.

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It's going to be this or that. But it's the only body I have. And it is this body that's going to be changed.

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I know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ. He says,

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I know that. Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of the harlot? God forbid such a thing.

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A third argument here follows. Our bodies are the members of Christ. Even though they're going to be changed, they're the members of Christ.

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As well as our souls. That is, the union is made between Christ and us consisting of soul and body.

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Or both. What then? Know you not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body?

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For to saith he shall... Well, that looks wrong.

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What? Know you not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? Does everybody have that?

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For to saith he shall be... Okay. For to saith he shall be one place.

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If you're joined to a harlot, What if a married man, which is joined to his wife, goes out and joins a harlot, as it is used here, in one incident?

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What about that, Greg? Yes. Yes.

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So, you must be very, very careful. How closely and immediately believers are united unto

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Jesus Christ. Our body is the house of Christ. They are nearer than one place.

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They are one spirit with him. They have both one father, one house, one home, one heart, one interest, and one acquaintances.

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This, verse 17, is a type like when

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Moses smoked the rock the second time he was punished by God. He was never allowed to go into the promised land, because what he did was he taught, incorrectly, that Jesus could be crucified twice.

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And that he needed to die again in order to obtain the spiritual blessing, which, of course, is false.

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So God punished him for that. And with this, where a married man would go into a harlot, he is destroying a beautiful type of marriage of bridegroom

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Jesus with the bride, which is the church. And also, further, it destroys the picture of the spiritual unity and lack of idolatry between a believer and his

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Lord. So, if a man who is married commits adultery, then he is actually showing that it would be okay to have several gods, several relationships at one time, and you don't need to be just one of them.

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And that is false. So, I think that one who does that will find a punishment in his life, destroying that type.

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So, we have to be very careful with our marriages and our young people, as they are thinking about the fact that someday they may be married, and realize that whoever they choose needs to be the one that God has for them, and they can stay with them forever, or else they will destroy a beautiful type.

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God's place in every single married community, right? And I think he also talks that when we marry outside our beliefs, that's when we are sold for a price.

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We would have problems because we bring in the false gods and the false idols, and that's the danger.

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That when you marry someone that, for instance, his family is Hindu or Buddhist, you are exposing your children and your grandchildren and your great -grandchildren to that same doctrine.

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That's right. Paul had just mentioned the effeminate, and that's what he was talking about.

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Right. And, brother, you've got to give a better example. He started using religion.

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For him, what he thought was the best of all three major religions, of Islam, the best of Christianity, and the best of Judaism, and he packaged all of that in a bundle that the whole world he thought would accept.

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And then he was shocked that the Jews were not compromising for the Christians. And that's what brought the great animosity between the

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Muslims and the Israelis and the Jews, is because one group wanted to compromise with the other one.

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In mind, we can't afford, we can't allow compromise. What?

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Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own.

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Our body is the holy temple. Since our bodies are the temple of the

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Holy Spirit, we are to keep them holy. That just makes sense. The body is but an instrument of ours, and as such it can do only what we demand of it.

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The body can do only what we demand of it. The question of shall

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I or shall I not, if, well if you have to ask a question, then it's wrong.

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But we slip and do these things thinking nobody knows, but our

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Lord knows. Body is not an instrument of others, and as such it can do only what we demand.

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We're never to let it run by itself. How long you haven't now, but before you were saved, how many of you just did whatever come?

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I think we'd all have to answer yes. We are never to let it run by itself.

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We are to keep it under control at all time. It is the temple of the Holy Spirit, so I must keep it controlled at all times.

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Are you? For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify

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God in your body, and in your spirit, which are

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Christ's. The spirit we have is of Christ. The body we have is of Christ.

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Have the slave who is purchased by his master for a sum of money is the sole property of that master.

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Is that true or false? Then if you're a slave to food and you eat all of the time, are you controlling your body?

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If you drink Coke all of the time, you just have to have a

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Coke. Simple. Can't win.

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Well, let's talk about Coke a while. Well, the point

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I'm making is that we are the master of our body. Now, let's start acting like it.

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Yes. You know, we're

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Christians. We do whatever is good and go along.

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I think the bigger challenge most of us, especially Americans, is before we really accept

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Christ and he has influence on us, that we may be exposed somewhat to religion. And we conduct ourselves in a morally good fashion.

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And so we're probably more vulnerable than the people who are totally wretched and do all these horrible things that when they are convicted and God calls them and notifies them, that they have this totally repentant heart and realize how far that what

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God has done to them. The ones who are semi -good, I'm saying semi because no one is good other than God, then we have this false sense of security that we're good and we don't see the great sacrifice that Jesus has done for us.

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And we kind of delude ourselves in thinking that we live in this kind of a trench of religion, but not of the grace of God.

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The closer you are to Christ, the more you see. If you will close your eyes to the truth, yet you are part of the truth, then you have very little problem.

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But there's something inherent in each one of us. He puts in each of us to study his word, to find out the truth.

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And the more I learn, the more deplorable I see that I am. So it's just a never -ending vicious circle.

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Now concerning the things where we wrote, you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

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He said it is good that a man not touch a woman, but he didn't say his wife.

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Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife. Let every woman have her own husband.

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Let the husband render unto his wife due benevolence. When likewise also the wife unto the husband.

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The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife.

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Defraud you one, defraud you not one another, except it be with consent for a time that you may give yourself to fasting, prayer, and come together again.

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That Satan tempt you not for your inconsistency.

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Defraud, he's giving the warning of defrauding. I get from that the picture of doing something without the other's consent.

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And he says don't do that. For I speak this by permission and not of commandment.

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Paul is the only one that I know of that wrote such words.

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Now, by permission, this was a subject about which persons were permitted to judge for themselves and on which they should exercise an enlightened and replenished

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Christian doctrine. We know what's right even though it's not spelled out in the

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Bible. The Bible's not a book that you can go to and look up in the index and find the answer to everything.

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There is general principles that create the truth for everything.

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For if I would sit, for I would that all men were even as I myself, but every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, another after that.

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I say therefore to the unmarried and the widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I, but if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.

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It is better to marry, it would be better to marry than to commit adultery. And unto the married

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I command, ye, not I, but the Lord. He broke into his words he was giving that I give this by permission.

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Well, even the permission of Paul was far above most of us. And unto the married

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I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband, but, and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife, but to the rest speak

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I, not the Lord. If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.

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And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, and if it pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.

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If they have become saved after they were married, let not the one depart from the other.

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There's some folks have the idea that when they're married, they need to quit their job, they need to start over, they need to,

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God took you right where you were. He has his own schedule, his own plan for you.

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No matter where you are, what you are, and he'll move you out of where you are. Now, I speak generally, there are some cases that as they've become saved after they're married, if they have become saved and they immediately need to stop that business, but that's very rare.

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For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.

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Else where your children were your children unclean, but now they're both legitimate.

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Now this is, besides hard to read, it is a little confusing because the wife cannot save the husband, nor the husband save the wife, what's it talking about when it says, lest your children are unclean?

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Burge? That they be born in sin, or brought up in sin.

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Alright, Clarence? I think what it's talking about is that if one of the members of the marriage is a

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Christian, then the children will be exposed to that Christian element, and they will receive a blessing of protection.

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Through that, they wouldn't have if they were both, were unbelieving parents.

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So it's talking about the children having exposure to our

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Lord and Savior, and being revealed to them, and that way you would not be an unclean child.

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Alright, anyone else care to give a word before I pronounce?

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I think it's almost, it legitimizes the, so that the children are not illegitimate, although the spouse is not a believing spouse, the fact that you are, and you keep them there, whole in the family, it legitimizes the situation.

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If you were to say, my husband is, or my wife is not a Christian, and it would be better that I take them out of this environment, we're saying that that's not the case.

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No, and you touched on one word, legitimacy.

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To mean that your children are not bastard. All marriages outside of the church, that's what their children are concerned, are, are, what word?

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Considered. Alright, considered. They're all considered bastards.

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That means without father or mother, legitimately. And Diane touched on the very heart of it, that what he's talking about is legitimate marriage.

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Now, if there's one saved, one not saved, stay together. If at all possible.

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We need to stop here. Okay, we'll start with 15.

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I wish you'd do something for me this next week.

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Just for one week only. I know it's going to be hard, but you can do it.

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Don't use the word I. Just don't use it.

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Say we or don't talk, one or the other. Let's see if we can go all week.

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And come next Sunday, I'll ask how many did it. And I'll check you today.

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Whether in this class or out of this class, don't use the word I. All right, does anybody, does everybody understand the assignment?

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Don't use the word I. All right, let's stand.

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Don't add I after that. Bill, would you dismiss us today, please?