1689 London Baptist Confession (part 58)

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Our Father in heaven, we thank you this morning for all that you are, all that you do for us, all that you provide for us.
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Lord, even for this place to meet today, for the blessing that we have of being able to gather together as we think about our brothers and sisters around the world, persecuted, hunted, beaten, all for the sake of the gospel, even killed.
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Father, we would pray for them. We would pray for our time here this morning, that you would strengthen us as we look to your word, as we consider what really the word of God says, but how these men have distilled some of the teaching of scripture into this confession of faith.
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And Father, would you bless our time today in Jesus' name, amen. Well, before we get into oaths and vows, why is it hard to say oaths?
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I don't know. I don't know. We don't say oath a whole lot.
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I looked up yesterday. I wanted to find out how to keep the Sabbath, and there are some places online.
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I think it's like WikiHow or something, how to do something. And this one came with pictures, and unfortunately
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I don't have the – I don't use the capacity to project things because there were some fun pictures that went along with this.
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But there are, of course, seven ways to keep the Sabbath because seven is a biblical number.
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And then there are a few not to do. They didn't really get too biblical in that one. There are only five. Are there five things anywhere in the
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Bible? What's that? Should have been six. Yeah.
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Five ways to keep the Sabbath. Number one, go to church.
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That's a good one. But it's interesting how they phrase things.
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Attending a religious service is one of the most important things you can do to remember and keep the Sabbath, or a religious service.
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Okay. Worship with other believers. That's good.
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Helps to fulfill one's spiritual needs. Partaking in the unity of faith can enrich one's relationship with God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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Church also allows the average Christian to learn and discover more about God from the pastor, the parish, and other leaders and laypersons of the church.
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For some denominations, like Catholicism, attending public worship provides the individual with the opportunity to take part in sacraments as well.
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Okay. Number two, rest. Just as God rested on the seventh day in the story of creation, you too should rest on the
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Sabbath. So I guess for the first six days of the week, you should be creating. In rest, the
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Christian has quiet time to turn to God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Number three, make time for family and friends.
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The Sabbath is primarily a time to worship God. But another aspect of the day is the cultivation of close relationships.
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Okay. Activities that are not focused directly on worshiping God should be centered on nurturing the relationships you have with loved ones.
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And the verses they give are, there are none. But we should have fellowship,
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I think that's right, and do the one another's on Sunday. I think that's good. This is a good time to go on picnics with family and friends.
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And as I was reading this, I just thought, John Knox comes to Geneva and sees John Calvin, you know, out there playing lawn bowling with the kids, and he's in a state of shock.
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Anyway. Number four, serve others in your extended family. The elderly, ill, and poor are among those who are in most need of assistance.
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That's fine. Number five, spend personal time with God. Even though group worship is important on the
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Sabbath, you should try to spend some one -on -one time with God that day too. Pray, meditate, sing hymns.
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I think these are all fine things to do on Saturday and Friday and Wednesday and Monday and every other day of the week.
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Number six, though, was one I particularly enjoyed. Do things that would bring both you and God joy.
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I just don't really think like that. I don't think. What would bring God joy? A general guideline you can do or you can use when determining if something should or shouldn't be done on the
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Sabbath is to ask yourself if the activity glorifies God. Now, that's a different issue. Or otherwise enriches your life as a spiritual being.
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Okay, good. Number seven, do the things that need to be done. Nowadays, it can be very difficult to avoid all work and activities one would traditionally avoid on the
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Sabbath, whatever those things are. Then they give an example.
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If a loved one falls ill on the Sabbath, you should run to the store to get medicine. I don't run anywhere.
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Or otherwise, run to his or her side for the individual. Similarly, if the only job you can find requires work on the
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Sabbath, you do not need to feel guilty about doing so. Okay, what not to do? Well, they just said it.
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Try not to work. And number two, avoid heavy cooking or other chores.
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The women are like, yes. Large meals should be prepared the day before.
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Cleaning or household repairs should also be saved for another day. Number three,
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I like this one. Avoid confrontations. Monday through Saturday, go for it. Sunday, not so much.
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The Sabbath should be a day of healing. Even justified arguments or confrontations can cause pain to all parties involved, and we wouldn't want to do that on the
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Sabbath. Number four, do not make the Sabbath a catch -up day.
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Use mustard instead. No, sorry. Since life can be so busy, many
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Christians fall into the trap of using the Sabbath as a day to catch up on tasks they had no time to complete earlier.
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Okay, number five, pass on activities that do not serve God. Activities that encourage vice are usually discouraged, especially on the
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Sabbath. I don't even know what to say to that.
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For example, if shopping often leads you to have greedy or jealous thoughts, you might want to skip doing it on the
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Sabbath. If, however, it does not... So, you know, just to kind of summarize what we were talking about, and, you know,
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I would point out, as Pastor Mike did this week to me, that in the prelude to our
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Statement of Faith on the website, it says we're largely in agreement with the 1689.
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So anything that, like, feels like legalism, we probably wouldn't be in favor of.
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So, you know, if you were to ask us, you know, what is our take on the
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Sabbath, we would say that the Sabbath rest is provided to us in Jesus Christ, that we believe in Lord's Day, that's how we look at it, that we believe the priority should be on worship on Sundays, and that Sunday ought not to be about rules in spite of what, you know, whatever kind of rules and regulations.
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I mean, it's fine to have some things that you do particularly on Sunday, and I think it's important to keep the
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Lord in mind because it is the Lord's Day. However, I think, you know, it's pretty easy to get, as I said at the outset, pretty easy to get involved in a series of do's and don'ts, a list of things that we may not do on Sunday or that we should do on Sunday, and ultimately we wind up just in legalism.
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So other thoughts about Sunday before we move on to oaths and vows?
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Oaths and vows, the 1689 says this, a lawful oath is a part of religious worship.
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And I just want to stop there for a second because as I thought about that, you know, when you raise your right hand and take an oath in court, did you ever think it is part of religious worship?
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And we'll talk more about that, but it just struck me as odd, wherein the person swearing the oath or swearing in truth, righteousness, and judgment solemnly calleth
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God to witness what he sweareth and to judge him according to the truth or falseness thereof.
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I think it's easy, I don't know if you have, how many of you have ever, not just taken an oath, how many of you have ever been in courts?
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How many of you were found guilty? Oh, no. When you're in court and you, you know, you see people take oaths and stuff, did you ever think to yourself, you know, because they say, so help me
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God, right, when you take an oath, do you ever think to yourself what they're doing is saying what?
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Evaluate what I'm saying, God, hold me accountable for what I'm saying right now. I don't think most people really take that seriously when they go into court.
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You know, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you
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God. It doesn't mean that I'm calling God to help me tell the truth, although I suppose that's implied there, but really calling him as a witness as it says there.
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Now R .C. says, why a chapter on oaths? That seems just kind of, and vows, seems a little over the top.
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Let's look at James 5 .12, this is what he says, he supposes might be the reason for an entire chapter on that.
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It's kind of a tricky phrase there, but above all, because he said a lot of things in the book of James, there are a lot of commands and a lot of strongly worded items there, but he says in James 5 .12,
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but above all. So I went to some commentaries, Dr.
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Moose says this, he says James wants to highlight this prohibition, probably because he sees it as getting at the ultimate issue of personal integrity.
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We see that there, let your yes be yes or your no be no. When James says do not swear, it is not coarse or vulgar speech he prohibits, but invoking
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God's name to guarantee the reliability of what a person says. So this is exactly what we're talking about when we take an oath in court.
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We are putting, we are calling God as a witness, right? Invoking God's name to guarantee the reliability of what a person says.
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Moose goes on to say a person may take an oath to reinforce the truth of something he has said or to bind himself to a future course of conduct.
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God himself takes oaths to guarantee the fulfillment of what he has promised. Therefore, it's not sinful because it was sinful to take an oath.
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God himself could not do it. The Old Testament law did not prohibit oaths, but demanded that a person be true to the oath he had taken.
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Leviticus 1912 is both typical and potentially significant for James. Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your
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God. I am the Lord. In other words, don't use my name in an oath and lie about then what you're going to say because you're dragging my name through the mud.
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Moose goes on to say it's significance lies in the context. James makes the love command of Leviticus 1918 and several other ethical issues he tackles are also referred to in Leviticus 19.
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Jesus, as it appears, went even further than this when he commanded the disciples not to swear at all in Matthew 5 .34.
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In fact, turn over to Matthew 5 and let's read verses 34 to 37.
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He says it's particularly important in understanding James' teaching and then we'll kind of compare the two.
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And again, this probably would have been a good morning to have an overhead projector because we're going to do some comparison between James 5 .12
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and Matthew 5 .34 and 37. Who has Matthew 5? So here are the two comparisons if we're comparing them side by side.
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Jesus says do not swear at all. James says do not swear. Jesus says either by heaven and James says not by heaven.
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Matthew says or by the earth. James says or by earth or by Jerusalem.
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James says or by anything else. And then Jesus says do not swear by your head, which there's no comparison in James, which basically would mean what?
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If you're not going to swear by your head, what does that mean? Okay, yeah, in your life, right?
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Simply let your yes be yes. James says let your yes be yes. And your no, no.
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And your no, no. Anything beyond this, Jesus says, comes from the evil one.
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And James says or you will be condemned. So Moo goes on to say, some argue that Matthew and James diverge on one crucial point.
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Matthew suggests a substitute oath. Yes, yes and no, no. Well, James simply prohibits all oaths, but it is more likely that Jesus and Matthew is saying the same thing as James.
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Our truthfulness shouldn't be so consistent and dependable that we need no oath to support it.
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Simply yes or no should suffice. One mere word should be as utterly trustworthy as a signed document, legally and legally correct and complete.
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So R .C. says this. From a historical perspective, James would have had insights into the teachings of Jesus that others in the early church did not have.
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That adds credibility and significance to the admonition he gives. Why would R .C.
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say that? Because James, the author of the book of James, is the half brother of Jesus who spends most of his growing up and adult life as a skeptic, as somebody who is an unbeliever.
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But after the resurrection, he is converted, becomes the head of the church in Jerusalem.
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And here's the larger point. A Christian should be one whose word can be trusted.
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We should always say what we mean and mean what we say. And there's a word for that. And that word is?
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Starts with an I. Thank you. Then there's an
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N and a T. Integrity, yes. R .C.
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gives a story. He says that John Gershner, who was his mentor and a professor at seminary, has some work that he wants done at his house, some woodwork.
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And he hires, he contracts with a carpenter, a Christian man. And Gershner, because, you know, anytime you're busy and you have a job,
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I mean, for any of us, to rearrange your schedule is a big deal. So Gershner rearranges his schedule so that he can be there when this man shows up.
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The appointed day comes and the carpenter doesn't show up in the morning and Gershner waits and waits and waits.
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Of course, these days he'd be texting him, posting up on Facebook, where are you? But the carpenter doesn't show up.
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So Gershner happens to run into him some days later, and he says to the man, he goes, you know,
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I waited for you, you never showed up. He says to Gershner, he says, well, you know what? The day before,
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I ran into somebody and they offered me a contract or shot at a contract, but I had to go the next day.
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It was a huge contract. I had to go the next day to get the contract. And so, you know, I'll squeeze you in when
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I can, but I've got this other job now. That's not integrity.
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Integrity is, you know, I will do what I promise to do, even if it is to my own harm or detriment, or even if I have to take a loss to do so.
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I'm a big proponent, you know, that that's how, I think that's how
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I should live my life, to have integrity, but I think it's also how businesses should run. And when businesses are dishonest with me,
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I don't like it very much. I'd rather do business with somebody who's honest and charges me more than somebody who saves me money and tells me lies.
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Paul took an oath to demonstrate the truthfulness of what he wrote in Romans 9.
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He said, I'm speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying. My conscience bears witness in the
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Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I wish, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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They are Israelites and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
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He says, basically he calls the Holy Spirit in as the guarantor of what he's saying.
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Oaths are very serious, but why do oaths and vows even exist? If we're going to take the philosophical, the meta question, why is it that oaths and vows even exist?
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Why is it that we have to go in a court of law and say, I solemnly swear to tell the truth?
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Because we're liars, right? I mean, imagine if you went in a court and the judge just looked at you, you know, you're called as a witness and he said, go ahead and take your seat and you know what?
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Just try to tell the truth. We think, that's a pretty easy judge.
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There are punishments, you know, when people lie in court, or there allegedly are punishments for that.
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But as human beings, we have a natural aversion to the truth. Our words cannot be trusted.
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I think probably in recent memory, the most obvious example of the fact that we are natural born liars was the promise keeper movement.
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Why? Because here's 90 ,000 at its peak.
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There are 90 ,000 people filling football stadiums, men. And what are they saying? Basically, we're going to repent of being liars and cheaters and, you know, no good nicks.
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And for now on, we're going to keep these promises. We're done with all that. In fact, when men were asked why they went to PK, promise keepers, the most popular answer was that they knew they had not been keeping their word and wanted to change that.
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Why is it when you go to a wedding, you know, one of the first things the pastor will say is we're gathered together in the sight of God and all these witnesses.
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Because the idea is to hold the couple accountable. I think what you don't want to do is,
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I was at a wedding recently where the pastor said this. Is this being recorded? He said to the couple,
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Now I'm just going to tell you guys, you're going to fail. And that's okay.
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Because all of us are here to help you when that happens. And I just thought, okay, can we just see a show of hands?
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You know, first of all, how many people are already drunk, you know, and aren't going to remember two minutes of this wedding?
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Secondly, how many people in this room have already been divorced, like multiple times or have never been married or what have you?
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You know, et cetera, et cetera. How many people are Christians? I mean, the number of problems with what he said were innumerable, but I just thought witnesses at weddings.
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The purpose is not so we could all say, oh, I was there. It was great. But it's to hold them accountable to their vows.
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We are natural born liars. Let's look at Exodus 20.
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And, you know, it's fun. It's fun for me. How many of you people really consider yourselves kind of on the nerdy side?
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Anitra does. Okay, a few people. One of the things I delight in is when I find a published book by a, you know, big name person like R .C.
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Sproul, something that I know has been read and edited and, you know, run through the mill by a multitude of people, and I find a mistake in a book.
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I love that. So I'm going through this chapter, and it says, you know, basically turn to Genesis 20, verse 7, and starts talking about one of the
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Ten Commandments. I go, well, that's not right. And I look at Genesis 27, and it has nothing to do with the
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Ten Commandments. And I go, it's Exodus 27. There's a mistake in the book. So I circle it.
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I'm like, I'm going to write the publisher, you know. Yes. That's just kind of how
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I do things. Who would read Exodus 20, verse 7? I mean,
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I was excited. I don't know how many of you, you know, that probably doesn't excite anybody here, but it excited me.
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Exodus 20, verse 7, one of the Ten Commandments. How do you know it's the Ten Commandments? Because this is just, again, how do you do things in seminary?
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I'm like, I need to know where the Ten Commandments are in Exodus. Well, the
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Ten Commandments are kind of given a couple times, so let's just make it Exodus 20. So that works for me.
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Ten Commandments 20. Okay. So it works for me. Exodus 20, verse 7.
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Who would read that, please? Taking the Lord's name in vain. And this is something that really kind of bothers me, not just when people say that, but what does it mean to take the
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Lord's name in vain? And people just say that it means to say, to use the Lord's name as a swear word.
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Is that correct? I'm sorry.
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It's one way to do that, right? But it's not the whole of it. And really our first thought is that it prohibits blasphemy or cursing.
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But that's not its main function. Its main function has to do with using the name of God in an oath or vow and then breaking it.
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R .C. says the first commandment protects the purity of our worship. The second commandment sets up barriers against idolatry.
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And the third commandment also deals with idolatry. You hear people say this.
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How about this one? You ever heard this? I swear on my mother's grave. Ever heard that?
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I've never said that because mom's still alive. He says, you know, people swear by that or they swear by the pulpit or they swear on something else.
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He says, what are they essentially doing? If you examine this verse here carefully, what happens if you take the
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Lord's name in vain? For the Lord will not hold him guiltless, which means he will, if we put it in positive language, he's going to hold you guilty if you take his name in vain.
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Well, let me ask you something. Can your mother's grave hold you guilty?
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The answer, obviously, is no. So the empty, I mean, it's empty to say, I swear on my mother's grave.
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I swear on, you know, I swear on the pink slip to my car. I swear on whatever.
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There are no eternal consequences for that. I mean, you could say, I'll give you the pink slip to my car.
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You know, I guess that has some consequences. But here's his point. He says, none of those things have any power to enforce my promise, my promise that I've taken this oath upon.
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There is only one who hears every promise I make and sees everything I do subsequent to making a promise.
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The only one who has the power to enforce that promise or punish me if I break it, ultimately, is
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God. So if I swear an oath by anything less than God, I am attributing to that thing divine power, divine dimensions.
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I am saying, you know, I swear on my mother's grave. I am saying that my mother's grave can hold me accountable when it cannot.
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So that would be ultimately to ascribe to something other than God, the power of God.
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And that is wrong. But when I take an oath and I do so promising that God will hold me accountable,
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I need to really take that seriously and think about what that means. I mean, imagine on Judgment Day, on such and such a date, you said you would do something or that you did something or you're about to tell the truth and then you lied.
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And you invoked my name while doing it. I don't want to do that.
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The Confession of Faith goes on to say, the name of God only is that by which men ought to swear and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence.
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Therefore, to swear vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name. I want to just read that again.
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Therefore, to swear vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name or to swear at all by any other thing is sinful and is to be abhorred.
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Yet as in matter of weight and moment for confirmation of the truth and ending all strife, an oath is warranted by the word of God.
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So a lawful oath being imposed by lawful authority in such matters ought to be taken.
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Don't take an oath rashly. Don't take an oath for no particular reason.
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Take it with the full weight of what you're doing. But if it will help solve a situation and if it is administered lawfully, then take it.
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One of the ways in which we worship God is by calling him to be the witness and enforcer of the oaths and vows that we make.
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So when we say, I just noticed there's no clock up there. So when we say, so help me
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God, we are calling upon him to be a witness so that if we bear false witness, we are guilty of two commitments, sitting against both the person that we're lying to and God himself because we used him as our authority, as our witness, as our verifier.
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A human being can sink no lower than that because they have willfully brought dishonor upon the name of God.
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Now let's just think about some of the vows I mentioned marriage before.
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When we think about divorce, we say that divorce,
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God hates divorce, right? Divorce is terrible. And so again, as I mentioned before, we're gathered before God and all these witnesses.
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And then the bride and groom stand up there and look at each other lovingly and say, you know, till death do us part.
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So when they divorce, if they divorce, what are they actually doing? All those people that were there, they lied to them and they lied before God.
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They used him as a witness and lied before him. In an oath, again, we call upon God as witness and judge of what is said.
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Now this is interesting. R .C. cites this. He says, 50 % of Americans who say that they're born again, who say that they're
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Christians, do not believe in absolute truth.
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Now what's the implication of that? If I say I'm a Christian, but I don't believe in absolute truth,
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I believe in moral relativism, in other words, and I don't believe that there is an absolute bottom line, baseline truth, what am
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I actually saying? Okay, that's the million dollar answer right there.
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Then what I'm really saying is that I don't believe that God is truth. The Bible says that God is truth, right?
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Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. If I say that I don't believe in absolute truth, then
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I am saying I don't believe in God, and there is absolutely no way that I then can be a born -again
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Christian. I'm also saying that I don't fully trust Scripture.
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How can I? The Bible is inerrant.
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It is without error. It is perfectly true in everything that it addresses. So if I say
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I don't believe in absolute truth, then I have another issue, because not only do I not believe in the
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God of truth, but I don't believe in the word of truth. And he makes an important point here.
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He says when a person, quote, unquote, leaves
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Christianity, when a person apostatizes, or when a denomination apostatizes, when they leave orthodoxy, what's the first thing?
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What's the first step of that? The very first step.
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What leads to that sort of thinking? What leads to that sort of movement in somebody's life?
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They doubt the Scriptures, right? So when you hear somebody say, well,
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I don't really know if homosexuality is a sin. I don't really know if God is so upset about homosexuality.
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I don't really know, you know, if I can trust the first two chapters of Genesis.
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I don't really know if Jesus paid for all sin. I don't really know.
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Whatever they say, I don't really know. And then you look at what the Bible says, and does the Bible say that homosexuality is a sin?
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Yes. Is there any reason to doubt Genesis 1 or 2?
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No. Is there any reason to insert, say, evolution into Genesis 1 or 2?
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No biblical reason. When people start chipping away at the
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Bible, ultimately what happens is they start moving away from it.
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There's a reason why people choose, for example, there's a reason why somebody will say, well,
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I'm not really sure if homosexuality is a sin. Why is that? Okay, that's a reason.
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They're either homosexual or they know somebody who is one. I think there's another reason, though.
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Okay, relying on their feelings other than the Scripture. I think there's one more reason. Pressure from the culture to conform.
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And I think that's the same with evolution, right? Because you're an idiot if you believe the Bible. Yes. If that sin's okay, right?
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If God doesn't really, if the Word says, you know, homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God, but that's wrong, then maybe my own personal sin, whatever it is,
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I can do and still get into heaven. If I, you know, and what
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Pastor Bob said is so key, because if I take, in fact, ultimately
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R .C. will get there, so maybe I won't skip that, or maybe I won't go there. But back to the topic at hand, before we go back to this other thing, our personal integrity matters.
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Our Word matters. It matters that when we take an oath or vow, we follow through. To keep a vow is to honor the truth, and ultimately it reflects well on what we profess, right?
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If we live a life of integrity, then people can trust what we say when we come to Scripture.
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Let's say there's some blatant sin in my life, and I'm running around, have you known
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Christians like this? There's some obvious sin in their life, and yet they're still out there witnessing to people.
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Maybe at the workplace, you know, everybody knows that so -and -so is cheating on his wife, but he's still out there witnessing to people at work.
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And their response is, dude, you say one thing, but you're doing something else, right?
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There's no integrity there. We are people of the light. We are people of God, and we must live that way.
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We must exhibit that all the time. But I like what R .C. says here, getting back to this idea, this pressure from the culture.
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R .C. says we live in a culture that, listen, abhors abhorrence.
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Abhors abhorrence. And he uses that word because it's in the confession. He says it's an interesting word and a word we don't really like, abhorrence.
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To abhor something, which means to hate something. The one thing that is not permitted in our culture is to hate anybody or anything.
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I suppose probably if you said, I hate Hitler, that would be okay.
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I don't think too many people would get upset about that. Of course, Hitler's dead. But you're not allowed to hate anything.
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Now, what's the problem with that? Our culture says don't hate anything.
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We're to be a culture of love, tolerance. Not to hate anybody or anything,
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Gary. That's not the way God thinks. What does
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God do? Does he look at abortion and just kind of go, well, you know what?
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Sometimes that just needs to happen. In fact, we could just look at Scripture, and we go to this passage often in Romans 1.
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We don't have to worry or wonder what God thinks. He tells us in Romans 1 .18,
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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
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We don't have to wonder if judgment is coming because that fixed wrath, that fixed anger is building.
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Now, is it right to love what God loves? Is that good?
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Of course it is. I mean, we see things like Psalm 2, kiss the sun, right? We're to honor
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Jesus. We're to love God's word, it tells us. We're to think like God thinks, and that includes hating what he hates, and he hates sin, abhorrence.
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The Confession says that there are certain things that are so despicable, so noxious to God that a
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Christian ought to abhor them, hate them. And the bearing of false witness and the irreverent and flippant use of the name of God, R .C.
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says, should make our blood curdle. We're kind of anesthetized to that, we're sort of numb to it.
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Somebody takes the Lord's name in vain in the general sense of it, uses it as a swear word, do you say anything?
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I'm like, I generally don't, why not? Is it because it doesn't bother me?
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No, it's because it's just common. I've probably mentioned this before, but when people found out that I was going to seminary and I still work on the sheriff's department, and they would say something in front of me and then say, oh, apologize to me, oh,
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I'm sorry, or whatever. What do you say to somebody who says that? They take the Lord's name in vain, they use his name as a swear word, and then they say,
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I'm really sorry about that. I used to say, well, don't worry about me.
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It's not me you have offended. I'm not the one you need to be concerned about. It should bother us, and it does bother me.
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I mean, I don't know if you ever, I just have certain threshold, you know, and when I hear,
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I mean, because we live in, we live in a world full of people who swear a lot.
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I mean, I know when I was growing up, because I am kind of old, I know when
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I was growing up that, you know, there were certain rules. Gentlemen did not swear in the presence of women.
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And now women swear in the presence of little kids. I mean, we've seen a lot of,
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I think our society has gotten more and more profane and just filled with profanity, really.
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R .C. says the name of God is full of dread. That's what the confession says. Dread is a profound fear of something very frightening.
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So when Jesus says hallowed be your name in the disciples prayer, not the Lord's prayer, praying this way, hallowed be your name means that it ought to be treated with supreme reverence and respect.
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It should involve a holy fear and trembling. That's how dreadful the name of God is, how it should be thought of.
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We should not be calloused by the indifference of the world to this sin.
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When we hear the name of God, a hush should come over our souls and we should be prepared to tremble.
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And I like this. I posted this on Facebook last night. I've said before that when they started the service at St.
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Andrews, the church that he pastored down in Florida, they would say this. We cross the threshold of the secular.
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This is the beginning of service. We cross the threshold of the secular to the sacred, from the common to the uncommon, from the profane to the holy.
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It is a sacred hour when we come into the presence of the living God to listen to his word.
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We're surrounded, we're submerged in a world of profanity, in a world that not only hates
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God, but tells us all about that all the time. And for an hour or so every week we get to come in here and what?
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Really, it's a refuge. It's a protection. It's kind of like one of those, it's a force field or a dome over us for just a little while, where we don't have to be submerged in that.
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We don't have to think about that. A few years ago when
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I was at a church I was visiting in Bakersfield, and they were using it, and I remember
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Bob brought this to my attention several years ago. We were talking about, you know, licensing the right to show movies.
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And I was like, what would we need that for? And then I'm sitting in this church service, and they're using clips from TV shows and movies during the sermon.
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So it would be like three minutes of talking and then a movie clip. And I was like, so they showed this clip from this
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TV show. I think it was a TV show. Maybe it was a movie, probably a movie. And this guy actually used the
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Lord's name as a curse word. And I thought, wait a second.
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We're a church. We're supposed to be separated from all this.
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We're supposed to just be focused on Christ. We're supposed to have a little bit of time where we have rest from all the things that are going on in the outside world.
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Not to come in and be assaulted again. You know, it's like, I don't even want to talk what it's like.
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It's really like, well, I put it this way. It's like putting a sign on your lawn that says, burglars welcome.
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I mean, we would not invite someone into our home that was there to rob them, rob us.
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So why would we invite somebody into church that's there to profane the name of the
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Lord? Why would we do things that distract from the teaching of the word like that, like show movie clips?
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The Bible isn't interesting enough. You have to see a scene from whatever movie.
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Don't you remember when Frodo threw the ring into... This ought to be the most sacred hour of the week.
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We need to be reminded of the holy and of the sacred because, again, we live our lives in a profane and vile environment.
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We're to be people of integrity. We're to keep our word. And we want for just a short period of time to just be reminded of the
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God who is both wonderful and dreadful to be feared. Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for your word. We thank you for what it teaches us, for how it reminds us of who we are to be, how we're to have integrity at all times.
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To not take lightly either the word that we give, the promises that we make, the vows that we take, the oaths that we take, understanding that everything we do, everything we say, we represent you.
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And when we take an oath, we are calling you in as a witness. Father, we ought not to take that lightly, and I pray that you would assist us, help us to live lives of integrity.
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And, Father, I would also pray that you would help us, keep us, protect us.
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This little church here, during these few hours that we get to spend together on Sunday, that you would keep the profane out of our services, that you would keep our minds focused on the holy, even in our own individual seats and minds as we think during this service, that we would push off all thoughts of the mundane, the worldly, and focus on the transcendent, what is true, what
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Jesus Christ has done for us, what the Holy Spirit is working in us, and what you have promised us in all eternity.
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Let us rejoice. Let us worship. Let us be focused on Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.