Sojourners in a Strange Land: Immigration & the Bible | Numbers‬ ‭20:14-21

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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Another surprise public service announcement. Sometimes these songs can be a hit or a miss. And I noticed here in how deep the

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Father's love for us, how great the pain of searing loss the Father turns His face away.

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There's a common teaching that teaches that the Father suffered when

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Jesus suffered on the cross. It's called patripassionism, and it's actually a heresy. The Father did not, so to speak, turn

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His face away from grief. He actually pleased the Lord to crush Him, to crush His Son, according to Isaiah 53 .10,

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because He poured out His wrath on Him on our behalf. So it's good to be discerning and to be mindful of those things as we seek to apply the

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Word in every aspect of our lives. And speaking of correcting bad theology, I did need to make a few corrections to my sermon, my last sermon.

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I misspoke a few times. The first time was when I said that Jesus, who is

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God, became God. And obviously I meant to say that He became man, not

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God. He's always been God, and He lived a perfect life, etc. The second time was when

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I said that Jesus is not flesh and blood person, so we can't relate to Him physically.

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That's not really what I meant to say. What I really meant was that even though Jesus has a body, we must relate to Him spiritually by His Word and by means, means of grace, the

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Word, prayer, those sacraments, those things, until He returns for the resurrection. So just wanted to clarify that.

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And as Tim said, they're dealing with family matters, so he asked me to step in. And I really do believe that this was

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God's providential hand moving us to deal with the issue of immigration as a church. I think this is a very critical, it's a very critical topic that we need to understand rightly.

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And as you know, we haven't been able to meet at the rescue mission because the city has been dropping off migrants there.

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The entire facility is packed, and the chapel is also occupied with COTS, so they've been canceling the services.

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And I've been getting informed from different sources, including from Brother Ivan. He was saying that the open border policies and the free welfare are incentivizing people and traffickers to come in illegally.

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And in the past, the government would rent out large warehouses or other facilities to house them, but they're not doing this anymore.

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So now they're doing what's called catch and release. They just catch them and release them. So they have nowhere to go, and no one is taking care of them.

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The federal government is not funding or helping at all, and so local cities are doing what they can with whatever they have.

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And we're talking about millions of immigrants that have been coming here for years now, and Venezuelans and people from all kinds of countries, especially in South America.

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So this is a very important issue that we need to deal with. Last week, we had a group of families, including ours, went on a homeschool trip to the

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Rio Bosque Wetlands Park in Socorro. And we had a great time, but when we went to the other side of the park and walked to the entrance, we saw a man that was laying down, hiding under a big bush.

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And we checked to see if he was alive and realized that he was sleeping, but then he woke up and he pleaded with us not to say anything.

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So we kind of figured it was an illegal alien. So he ran off, but a while later he came back to ask me for help.

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And this greatly perturbed me because it's supposed to be a family park, but thanks to our corrupt government, it's a hotbed of illegal immigration.

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And so he said he was from Bolivia, and he explained that inflation was spiking in his country thanks to socialist leadership, which made it more difficult for him to pay his mortgage.

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He didn't want to lose his house, so he looked for other ways to make more money and decided to come to the

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U .S., but didn't qualify for a visa, so he came illegally to work and pay off his mortgage and then go back home.

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So he hired a coyote to transport him and his wife, but when they arrived at the border, they stole all their stuff, wallet, passport, all that stuff.

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And his wife also hurt her knee and couldn't walk anymore. So this encounter really showed me that this individual, as I was thinking about it, it showed me that this individual was putting matters into his own hands instead of simply trusting in God.

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And that's one of the main takeaways that I want us to get from this issue. This also led me to the question, how should we as Christians view and deal with illegal immigration?

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So we're going to take a closer look at how we should respond to the complex problem of illegal immigration and how we should understand and respond to this issue.

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So we're going to take a big -picture approach to address these main issues, but really we're only going to scratch the surface.

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There's so much things to address that I'm not going to get a chance to cover everything, which is why

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I also encourage you all to look deeper into this issue, especially into Brother Steve Matthews' blog and podcast, many of which are posted on thronecrownministries .com,

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that's our website, and also on his blog at luxlucid .me. So these are the main points that I want to establish with Scripture and sound logical arguments that are necessarily contained and induced from Scripture for the rest of the sermon.

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These are it. So I think the best way to help illegal aliens is to first understand that illegal immigrants by definition are lawbreakers.

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They are breaking our laws, and they need to be admonished to respect the law of the land.

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We should also give them the gospel, the gospel of salvation, and encourage them and help them to go back home or somewhere where it's legal, and also to encourage them to report themselves and be reported to the local authorities instead of sneaking in to the country.

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And also very important, which I touched on already, I think we really need to admonish them to put their lives in God's hands instead of their own.

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And even though what our government is doing is very evil and even treasonous, nevertheless, these illegals are also breaking the law and suffering terrible consequences in many cases, as are we as citizens and taxpayers.

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So what about the government and illegal immigration? These are kind of the main points that I'm still establishing here.

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Our country should have a vetting process of some kind to prevent criminals from coming in. And we as Christians need to call out the immoral policies of our government, immigration or otherwise, and admonish them to do the right thing according to Scripture and the law of God.

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So here's a question. How should we judge matters like immigration?

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By what standard exactly? And the answer here is pretty simple, if you know where we're coming from.

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It's obviously the word of God, but specifically it's the eternal moral law of God that everyone, believers and unbelievers, and especially rulers and leaders, religious and political, are bound by.

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And I'm going to appeal to the Westminster Larger Catechism because it has some excellent synopsis of the moral law here.

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Question 93 of the Larger Catechism says, What is the moral law? The moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind, directing and binding everyone, not just believers, everyone, believers and unbelievers, to personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto in the frame and disposition of the whole man, soul, and body, and in performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness which he oweth to God and man, promising life upon the fulfilling and threatening death upon the breach of it.

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And question 98 also says, Where is the moral law summarily comprehended or summarized?

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The moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments, which were delivered by the voice of God upon Mount Sinai and written by him in two tablets of stone and are recorded in the 20th chapter of Exodus.

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The first four commandments containing our duty to God and the other six our duty to man. So then the question becomes, which they also answer in question 95, of what use is the moral law to all men, to both unbelievers and believers?

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The moral law is of use to all men to inform them of the holy nature and will of God and of their duty binding them to walk accordingly to obedience, to convince them of their disability to keep it and of the simple solution of their nature, hearts, and lives, to humble them in the sense of their sin and misery and thereby to help them to a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ and of the perfection of his obedience.

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This is also known as the second use of the law, the second use of the law. There's three uses of the law in the reformed faith.

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This is the second one. So now if the moral law is our standard, how should we apply it to immigration?

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And question 99 of the larger catechism has really just an excellent points here that we want to use in our dealing with this issue.

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Question 99 says, what rules are to be observed for the right understanding of the Ten Commandments?

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For the right understanding of the Ten Commandments, these rules are to be observed. One, that the law is perfect and bindeth everyone to full conformity in the whole man unto the righteousness thereof and unto entire obedience forever so as to require the utmost perfection of every duty and to forbid the least degree of every sin.

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Two, that it is spiritual and so reacheth the understanding, will, affections, and all other powers of the soul.

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It's not just about external action. It's about inward intent as well. And as well as words, works, and gestures.

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That one, number three, that one and the same thing in diverse respects is required or forbidden in several commandments.

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Four, that as where a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden.

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So in other words, you shall not lie. Therefore, you must tell the truth. Amen. So where a promise is annexed, the contrary threatening is included.

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And where threatening is annexed, the contrary promise is included. Number five, that what

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God forbids is at no time to be done. What He commands is always our duty and yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times.

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Six, that under one sin or duty, all of the same kind are forbidden or commanded.

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Together with all the causes, means, occasions and appearances thereof and provocations thereunto.

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So for example, adultery is forbidden. So is pornography.

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So is bestiality. So are all of those sexual kinds of sins. Number seven, that what is forbidden or commanded to ourselves, we are bound according to our places to endeavor that it may be avoided or performed by others according to the duty of their places.

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That in what is commanded to others, we are bound according to our places and callings to be helpful to them and to take heed of partaking with others what is forbidden them.

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So this is talking about context. So if we live in a country with specific kinds of laws that are not against the word of God, we need to respect them.

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Now, and judge righteously, of course, like Jesus says in John 7, 24. Now, it can be tragic and sad what's going on with a lot of these immigrants that are coming here illegally.

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But ultimately, many if not most illegal aliens are suffering the consequences of taking matters into their own hands instead of trusting

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God. Whether it's out of desperation or opportunity or whatever. They are, for the most part, choosing to come illegally, consciously.

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Proverbs 14, 12 says, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

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And many illegals have been found dead or badly injured just like we did.

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They were mugged. The wife was, she couldn't walk. There's, this is not according to God's will, commands, law.

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So Proverbs 3, 5 verses, sorry, Proverbs 3 verses 5 through 8 says,

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Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, all of them, your travels included, acknowledge

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Him and He will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

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It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones rather than injury to them.

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So as far as I can tell, that's what's going on with illegals, that they are not trusting God. Matthew 6, 33 through 34 says,

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But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

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Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. That's what we need to admonish them with.

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They need to trust God with their circumstances like we do, like we should.

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Now Romans 13 verses 1 through 2 says, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

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

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Every person, including immigrants, must obey the law of the land. They don't get a hall pass.

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They don't get an exception just because of their circumstances. And they are, again, in the vast majority of the cases, from what

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I can tell, they are not being forced to disobey. They are consciously choosing to come in illegally instead of reporting themselves to local authorities legally, the legal way.

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Now let's turn to 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3 verses 13 through 17.

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1 Peter 3 verses 13 through 17. All right.

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God says, Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed.

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Have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

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Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

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For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

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Obviously, if you suffer for doing evil, you likely deserve it. And ask yourself this,

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Can you help illegal immigrants to break the law, and at the same time, honor

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Christ the Lord as holy, being ready to give an answer, have a good conscience, backed by good behavior in the process?

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If you're honest with Scripture, and with what is going on, the reality of the situation,

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I think the answer is clearly no. But what if the law is not fair?

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What if it's not fair or merciful with respect to immigrants? In situations like these, we still need to seek the whole counsel of God, such as passages like Numbers 20, where Moses was denied permission to cross through Edom.

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This passage sheds light on the question of fairness, and on the other points that I made earlier, at the beginning of the message.

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Let's turn now to Numbers 20, verses 14 through 21. Numbers 20.

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Numbers 20, verses 14 through 21. God says,

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Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom.

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Thus says your brother Israel, You know all the hardship, the hardship that we have met, how our fathers went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time.

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So they suffered hardship for a long time, 400 years to be exact.

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And the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our fathers, and we cried to the

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Lord. What did they do? They cried to the Lord. They trusted God. And he heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt because they trusted

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God. And here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory. Please let us pass through your land.

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We will not pass through field or vineyard or drink water from a well.

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We will go along the king's highway. We will not turn aside to the right hand or the left until we have passed through your territory.

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But Edom said to him, You shall not pass through lest I come out with the sword against you.

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And the people of Israel said to him, We will go up by the highway and if we drink your water and I and my livestock, then

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I will pay for it. Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.

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But he said, You shall not pass through. And Edom came out against them with a large army and with a strong force.

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Thus, Edom refused to give Israel passage through this territory. So Israel turned away from him.

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They did not come in to Edom. This passage has so much bearing on what is going on here.

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And even though you can see the issue of fairness right here, even though the

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Edomites were jerks, they were jerks, they were mean -spirited, they were not merciful, they were not gracious, the right thing to do would have been to let them pass through.

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And Moses said, told them very clearly, We're not going to abuse your stuff. We're not going to take advantage of anything.

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We're not going to take your welfare, your water, anything. We're just going to pass by. And even if we do, we will pay you whatever we use.

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So even though they were jerks about it, the Israelites and Moses nevertheless respected their decision, their authority, their law, and they turned away.

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They did not pass. So even though they said they would not demand or accept any welfare without paying for it.

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And Steve Matthews, Brother Steve Matthews, I had a great conversation with him about this to help me prepare. He's had a lot of good episodes in his podcast and articles, many articles about this issue that are very edifying.

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He has a really good commentary on this passage. He says, Note well, Moses did not think that he had the right to barge into Edomite territory.

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This was true even though the Edomites were close kindred people descended from Esau. That's why he said,

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Thus says your brother Israel. He was appealing to family. Hey, we're family. And he still didn't let them in.

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Rather, Moses went out of his way to emphasize that Israel would respect the property of the

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Edomites. We will not pass through your fields or vineyards. That is to say, we won't steal your food, nor we would drink water from your wells or steal your water.

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If there ever was a group of migrants who would have the right to pillage food and water, it would have been

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God's chosen people on their way to the promised land. Yet from the text of Scripture, we get not so much as even a hint that it entered

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Moses' mind to plunder the Edomites' property, even though they were jerks about it.

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On the contrary, he went to great lengths to emphasize that Israel would not steal Edom's food and water or make themselves a nuisance.

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This raises the question, if Israel did not have the right to plunder the

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Edomites, what right do Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Venezuelan, Bolivian, etc.

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migrants have to plunder the American taxpayer? And rest assured, plunder they will, all with the blessing of the

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Antichrist papacy and the prelates of the woman who rides the beast. So we need to see the issue for what it really is, according to God's word.

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And so our country is being undermined and destroyed by degenerate religious hypocrites.

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That's what Brother Steve was talking about. Most, but not all, come out of the Democratic Party.

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I've already called out many times President Biden's immoral policies on abortion, illegal immigration, and LGBT agendas.

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The Democratic Party's and Biden's agenda is exactly the same as the devil's.

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Identical. John 1010 says, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

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But I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Now with respect to immigration specifically, likewise, liberals want to, number one, steal by redistributing wealth through open borders and the welfare state so we end up paying taxpayers, citizens, end up paying for illegal immigrants' government benefits.

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Number two is to kill, to murder, in addition to expanding abortion rights without any restrictions till birth, making

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Biden and Harris rank religious hypocrites because one is Catholic and the other is supposed to be Baptist. Liberals try to fix the problem, quote -unquote, of abortion causing unsustainable depopulation with mass illegal immigration, known as the demographic cliff for winter.

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So, hey, we keep killing ourselves off, how do we replenish the babies that we keep killing?

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Send a bunch of illegals in. That's how we deal with that problem. Twisted logic.

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Very twisted logic. But it has consistency to some extent.

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Now, number three, to destroy. Our country, they want to destroy our country with all of the above and by encouraging and even paying people to come in illegally and siphon off our already crippled welfare system, which isn't even meant for them in the first place.

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And by granting them the ability to vote for Democrats, pushing more socialism and welfare at the expense of who?

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Yours truly. Right? American citizens. The church's silence due to taking 501c3 hush money only makes matters worse.

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They're afraid to speak out against immigration and abortion and all of these things because of the hush money. They're not allowed to talk about it if they're 501c3.

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But we cannot wear our faith on our sleeves. We must wear it in all of doctrine and all of life.

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Every aspect should be submitted to the Lordship of Christ, like Scripture says. Now, I found a really good article that explains very well the problems of having both open borders and a welfare state as a country.

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It's by Robert Rector called, Look to Milton, Open Borders and the Welfare State was written in 2007.

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He says, Economist Milton Friedman admonished the Wall Street Journal for its idée fixe on open border immigration policy.

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It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state, he warned.

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In the transfer state, government taxes the upper middle class and shifts some 1 .5

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trillion dollars. This was in 2007. It's worse.

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It's much worse now. And economic resources to lower income groups through a vast variety of benefits and subsidies.

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Across the globe, this sort of economic redistribution is the largest, if not the predominant function of government in advanced societies.

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This is called socialism. This is socialism. And our country is guilty of it.

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Socialism is the legalization of theft. You shall not steal.

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They say, No, you should steal. You should take money from the people who have more money and give it to the people who don't have it.

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Like illegal immigrants and people who are at the poverty line or whatever standard they use to determine poverty level.

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Even, the article continues, even Julian Simon, the godfather of open border advocates, acknowledged that imposing such a burden on taxpayers was unreasonable, stating immigrants who would be a direct economic burden upon citizens through the public coffers should have no claim to be admitted into the nation.

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And this is coming from the open borders guy himself. Very telling.

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There is also a political dimension to the transfer state, of course. An immigration policy which grants citizenship to vast numbers of low -skilled, low -income immigrants not only creates new beneficiaries for government transfers, but new voters, likely to support even greater transfers in the future.

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The Senate Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, and note here, every time you hear a reform bill, comprehensive reform bill, what they're talking about is taking your money, giving it to illegal immigrants, by and large.

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This bill grants some 12 million illegal immigrants, 60 % of whom are high school dropouts, access to Social Security, Medicare, and over time, to 60 federal means -tested welfare programs.

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It also substantially increases the future flow of low -skilled immigrants and gives them access to welfare and transfer programs.

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Far from building a wall around welfare, this legislation levels or tears down existing walls, builds a highway to Fort Knox, which is the official repository of gold of the

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U .S. It's a pot of gold. At the end of the rainbow. For illegal aliens. And shovels billions of taxpayer funds into the pockets of immigrants who enter this country illegally.

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So, here we see the government is plundering money and services from the

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American people to illegal immigrants. Our federal government is betraying the

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American people by pushing these treasonous policies on us. This is what socialism leads to.

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Now ask yourself, is that loving your neighbor? Is that a loving thing to do?

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To take things from us, steal it from us, and give it to somebody who doesn't even have legal access to come in here?

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Where does this idea come from? Obviously, it comes from the devil, because he wants to steal, kill and destroy.

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He wants to steal. It also comes from socialism, which is legalized theft, which is also of the devil.

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And it's time for another maxim. Like I said before, theology has consequences.

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Sometimes dangerous ones. Now, I want to say,

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I forget the Latin term for the theater, where they say, in comes the character. In comes, enter the

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Roman Catholic Church State. The Roman Catholic Church State promotes this corruption through the doctrine of the universal destination of all goods.

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This doctrine, and again, I have to give a shout -out to Brother Steve Matthews for this information. This is what they say in an official

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Roman Catholic publication. I quote, The natural law itself, no less than devotion to humanity, urges that ways of migration be opened to these people.

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For the creator of the universe made all good things primarily for the good of all. Since land everywhere offers the possibility of supporting a large number of people, the sovereignty of the state, although it must be respected, cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate or unjustified reasons, denied to needy and decent people from other nations.

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Provided, of course, that the public wealth, considered very carefully, does not forbid this. So here we have the

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Pope's henchmen, bishops, asserting that need, quote -unquote, which is, of course, defined by who?

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The Pope and his magisterium is the only moral entitlement to property. This is the universal destination of all goods.

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And it's socialism. In other words, you are not allowed to own what you have.

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If somebody else needs it more than you do, they're more entitled to it than you are. That's socialism.

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And this is what the Catholic Church teaches. And it's an attack on sovereign nations.

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It's an attack of sovereign nation, the sovereignty of nations.

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Who defines and determines who these needy and decent people are? It's the

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Pope and his lackeys, of course. The Pope, a .k .a. the Antichrist, which is the source of this mess, it's the devil.

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Again, it's the devil, it's Antichrist, it's all sin.

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Also has the evil, ungodly nerve to tell other nations what they can and cannot do.

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Who is it to tell these countries what they can and cannot do? He's a tyrant.

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It's a megalomaniacal, spiritual tyrant. Diatrophies at his finest. And Joe Biden, the good hypocritical

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Roman Catholic that he is, is actively destroying our country by pushing virtually all of the

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Pope's policies on us. This is tyranny, this is political and religious corruption.

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The Pope and his agents are masters and champions of both types of corruption. This is socialism, this is utter hypocrisy.

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And it's completely anti -American, anti -constitutional, anti -everything that America stands for.

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And it's obviously against the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church State also promotes the dangerous assumption that all immigrants are victims just like the innocent, pious, holy family of Jesus.

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This is from one of the people encyclicals of Pope Pius XII in 1952. Called Exsul Familia Nazaretana.

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So it says here, the emigrate holy family of Nazareth fleeing into Egypt is the archetype of every refugee family.

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Jesus, Mary, and Joseph living in exile in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king are for all times and all places the models and protectors of every migrant, alien and refugee of whatever kind who whether compelled by fear of persecution or by want is forced to leave his native land, his beloved parent and relatives, his close friends and to seek a foreign soil.

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I just realized when I read this, they said Jesus, Mary, and Joseph living in exile.

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They claim that Jesus' brothers and sisters were from another marriage from Joseph.

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So where were those kids? So they're contradicting themselves right there. Obviously Jesus was the firstborn.

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They get tangled up in their own web of lies. This is an extremely narrow definition of immigrant refugees.

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So narrow in fact that it does not and cannot apply to any illegal aliens. The family of Jesus did not break the immigration laws of the land nor were they criminals fleeing from justice nor opportunists in search of a better life with government welfare.

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Furthermore, the family of Jesus was already vetted. Who vetted them?

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By who? Think carefully about this. They were vetted by the

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Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture. That's a quote from the

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Westminster Confession chapter 1, section 10. God wrote down the testimony of Christ's family assuring us that they were truly holy victims of the wicked government at the time.

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Now because that's true, does that mean that we should therefore assume that all illegal aliens are the same just like they are?

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This is a blatant contradiction and false inference. It also commits the fallacies of composition and category confusion because you cannot mistake the one instance there for the whole.

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And it's category confusion because illegal aliens are not even part of the same category as Jesus' family.

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God did not vet and write down the names of all immigrants we should allow in. We can't use this the same way.

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How then should we respond? Should we do what the pietists do and simply ask

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God and then wait for a subjective impulse? Obviously not.

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While it's good to ask God and pray for guidance, we must nevertheless search out the matter carefully and judge for ourselves by rightly understanding and applying the scriptures to this and all other matters in a systematic, logically consistent way to the law and to the testimony.

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We need to know what God's moral law is in order to apply. We're taking simple, basic theological principles, moral principles, and applying them to a very complicated issue of immigration.

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That helps us to untangle the mess that it's become. We must therefore use the moral law to properly judge or vet immigrants, both as individuals and as a country.

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Because remember, the moral law applies to who? Everyone. Amen. Unbelievers and believers, citizens, immigrants, illegals, you name it.

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It applies to everybody. Therefore, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of illegal aliens are making a conscious decision to come here illegally and our government is incentivizing them to come because they want more voters.

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They want to replenish the babies they keep killing off. There are very few exceptions such as the children of illegal immigrants who are subject to and often victims of their parents' decisions.

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Sometimes children get dragged into the decisions of their parents. That is a different case that should require a little bit more wisdom and mercy.

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Now, woke evangelicals who claim to be all about social justice also need to, ironically, wake up.

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They, like Democrats and liberal groups such as Black Lives Matter, promote victim mentalities.

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We're all victims. All the minorities are all victims. They're victims of society, victims of the cops, victims of this, that, and the other, victims of the government.

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This affects their views on immigration because it portrays them all, once again, just like the Roman Catholic Church does as victims.

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But we need to carefully distinguish as Christians and as a nation if they are victims of their circumstances truly or victims of their own decisions and of failing to trust

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God. Another question here. Doesn't God...

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Here's an objection, right? Doesn't God love the sojourner and command us to love them as well?

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Let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 10 verses 17 through 19. Deuteronomy chapter 10 verses 17 through 19.

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Deuteronomy chapter 10 verses 17 through 19. God says, Wow.

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So that's pretty clear, right? This is pretty straightforward. How do we reconcile this?

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Have I told you completely the wrong thing? Now, this, however, begs another question.

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This begs the question, what is a sojourner? Ask yourself, what is a sojourner exactly?

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If you look it up, it says a sojourner is a temporary resident, a stranger or traveler who dwells in a place for a time, not permanently.

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He is a guest, a visitor, someone who is just passing by. This verse also applies to individual goodwill.

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So this verse is not saying that therefore the government should be taking your money and giving it to illegal aliens.

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It is admonishing us individually to be merciful and love sojourners, legally sojourners.

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So it's not talking about that either, the government redistributing wealth through socialism.

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Now, another objection. Weren't the Israelites sojourners in Egypt for 400 years?

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Let's turn to Genesis 15 verses 13 -14. Did I mess up again?

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Let's find out. Genesis 15 verses 13 -14.

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Here we see, God is talking about the promises He's going to make to Abraham. Then the

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Lord said to Abram, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants or slaves there.

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And they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

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So here God is saying that the Israelites were sojourners in Egypt.

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But let's make one thing clear. Is that all they were? They were, in reality, more than that.

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The Bible says they were slaves. They were enslaved to the

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Egyptians. They were in bondage and they were not allowed to leave.

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You remember the story? Moses said, Let my people go.

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What did Pharaoh say? He said no every time. Pretty much every time.

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Except the last one when he finally gave up. But we cannot falsely apply scenarios that do not correspond.

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This brings me to another maxim. Theology is the science of making good and proper distinctions.

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Good and proper distinctions. Like the Bible says in 2 Timothy 2 .15, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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We must consistently define terms biblically and properly distinguish them in addition to relating them to each other in our doctrine.

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This is a crucial task of systematizing doctrine. Otherwise, we commit errors and fallacies of equivocation, for example, where we use a term in one sense and we conflate it with another term that doesn't have any correspondence to it.

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It's a contradiction to do that. It's illogical, and God is not a God. He's a

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God of order, of peace, of truth, and a sound mind. So there is a big difference.

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In fact, there is a great uncrossable chasm fixed between a sojourner and an illegal alien.

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They are simply not the same thing. If you caught what

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I quoted, that was from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where he talks about how there's a great chasm between heaven and hell.

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This is the same way. They have nothing in common. God says we should help sojourners as individuals, not through socialist redistribution of wealth, but that does not mean we should encourage, promote, or allow illegal immigrants that are breaking our country's laws by coming in illegally, which is bad enough, and trying to stay here illegally, which is even worse.

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This is not the same as sojourners passing by, like Moses was trying to do through Edom.

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Right? That's a sojourner. They're not there to stay and leech off of the system that they don't have a right to take.

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It's blatant category confusion. After all, how do we know that they're not violent criminals fleeing from justice?

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That's why we need to legally vet them. The Holy Spirit isn't going to tell us who is and who is not a criminal.

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We need to apply law and order and biblical principles of the moral law to our nation and to our society, to our country.

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It's evil for criminals to escape justice from the country where they committed the crime, and it's negligent and derelict for our country to not vet immigrants coming in.

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The criminals must answer for their crimes and be prevented from committing crimes in another country.

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You're already guilty. You shouldn't be allowed just to be coming in.

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And it's very common for criminals to do that. That's a very common thing. They don't want to be punished, so they go to another state, country, etc.

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Now, let's turn to Numbers 15, 14 -16. We're getting close to wrapping it up here.

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Numbers 15, verses 14 -16. Numbers 15, verses 14 -16.

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Very important relevance to our topic. God says,

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And if a stranger is sojourning with you, or anyone is living permanently among you, and he wishes to offer a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the

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Lord, he shall do as you do. For the assembly there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations.

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You and the sojourner shall be alike before the Lord. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.

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That means, we cannot apply special exceptions to illegal aliens who are breaking our laws.

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One law, one standard, must apply to all. This is also relevant because it's talking about assimilation.

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If you wanted to be a Jew or live in Israel, you had to become a

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Jew. You had to get circumcised, you had to get conformed to the laws, the temple ritual, you had to conform to all of that stuff and assimilate into the country that you are in.

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Foreigners must therefore respect our laws, even if they're not always fair. But if you think, for example, that Sharia law should replace our laws, which is what many

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Muslims believe, your values are fundamentally incompatible with our country's values.

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That creates a problem. That's what happened with the Muslims who were coming into France and all these other countries and they were tearing things apart.

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There's no assimilation. Or vetting. if you're willing, now with regard to illegal immigrants here, if you're willing to break our laws to come into our country, then your values, you're showing that your values are incompatible with our country's laws.

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That's a big problem. It's not like Moses.

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You need to respect the laws of the country that you're asking permission to come into. Okay, so now a question.

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Do illegal immigrants fit the basic principle of respecting the laws of the land? How can they?

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How can they when by definition their legal status is that of a lawbreaker? They are illegal.

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They have broken the law. To conclude, again, these illegal immigrants by and large are suffering the consequences of their own choices.

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They come in here, they're desperate, they've lost a bunch of things, they've been mugged and all these things, and it's hard.

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It's like sad, yeah. It tugs at your heartstrings, but at the same time they didn't trust

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God and so they ended up in the mess that they're in because of their decisions. More often than not, consciously deciding to break the law and come in illegally.

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I think the best way, once again, to help illegal aliens is to understand that illegal immigrants by definition are lawbreakers and they need to be admonished to respect the law of the land.

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We need to give them the gospel of salvation. Encourage them and help them to go back home or somewhere legal and to report themselves to the local authorities instead of sneaking in.

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They need to be reported. They need to report themselves and to let the country, just like Moses did, he sent emissaries and he announced himself saying, please let us pass through.

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And they need to be admonished to not take advantage of welfare that doesn't belong to them even though our corrupt government may try to give it to them.

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We're Christians in a fallen world. We are stuck with fallen men, fallen governments, fallen nations, fallen laws that are not always in accordance with the scriptures.

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But we have to as Christians shine as lights, salt and light to our neighbors in our society.

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We have a higher standard to hold to, to live up to and be a model example of.

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And of course, we need to admonish them to put their lives in God's hands instead of their own and trying to do things the way they think is right.

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Just like the passages that we've covered very clearly where God, the

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Israelites were in bondage in Egypt. They trusted God however and God delivered them.

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That's how God works. You trust them. They didn't try to escape or anything like that.

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They trusted and waited on God and for God to move in their situation and to lead them on the right path.

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It's just like again, Proverbs 3 .5 says, Even though again, our government is committing treasonous evil but these illegals are also breaking the law and suffering terrible consequences as are we as citizens.

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We need to understand that. We may not realize it but now I just showed you the information how this is costing us.

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Our government should have a vetting process of some kind to prevent criminals from coming in. And we as Christians need to call out the immoral policies, immigration and otherwise of our government and admonish them to do the right thing according to the eternal moral law of God that everyone, believers and unbelievers, especially rulers and leaders, religious and political are bound by.

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We must continually strive to understand and apply God's truth to all of our doctrine and life, making adjustments and corrections as necessary.

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Semper Reformanda. Amen. Let's go ahead and close with a word of prayer and then we'll go ahead and partake of the

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Lord's Supper. Precious Heavenly Father, we thank you Lord for this wonderful blessing and privilege to be able to fellowship together as a church,

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Father God. We ask that you would bless the preaching of your word, that you would help us to test these things and ensure that they are true, that they are faithful to what you have instructed us to do in your word, to hold ourselves to the standard of your eternal moral law,

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Father God, and to call to account, to hold our government and our leaders accountable to your law,

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Father God. Help us to be salt and light to our friends, our families, our neighbors, our coworkers, our enemies, and to our politicians.

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Help us, Lord, to seek the truth and also to have a biblical perspective and to seek to help in a biblical way in this issue, this complicated and difficult problem of illegal immigration,

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Father God. Help us to apply mercy where it is just to do so and the law when it is proper and appropriate to do so according to your word,

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Father God, to rightly distinguish and understand the different circumstances that we have to deal with,

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Father God. We thank you, Lord, and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church, where the

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Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning

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Christians who evangelize, stand firm in, and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.

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If you're looking for a church in the El Paso, Texas area, or for more information about our church, sermons, and ministries, such as Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorn Crown Network Podcasts, please contact us at thorncrownministries .com.