The Rejection of Truth

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Lord God, bless your word wherever it is proclaimed. Make it a word of power and peace to convert those not your own and to confirm those who have come to saving faith.

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May your word pass from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip, from the lip to the life as you have promised.

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Your word may achieve the purpose for which you sent it. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Today we're going to look at probably one of the most controversial commandments nowadays.

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The sixth commandment, you will not commit adultery. And we're going to note that scripture is quite expansive in what it means to keep this commandment.

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It is not merely a commandment for the married to be faithful, but this impacts our very understanding of the purpose for which

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God has given us the gift of marital relations and the physicality that goes with that.

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That being the case, reviewing what the commandment is, what it says about the commandment in the small catechism is helpful.

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The sixth commandment is you shall not commit adultery. What does this mean? Luther asks. It means that we should fear and love

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God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do and that husband and wife love and honor each other.

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The central thought here is that God has created us to live faithfully as male and female by respecting his purpose for sexual activity within the context of marriage.

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And you're going to note what I just said is now controversial. That God has created us male and female.

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I mean, was it Bruce Jenner who was the woman of the year? I'm sorry, but Bruce Jenner's a dude.

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He's not a girl. You know, the increase, the exponential increase in pronouns that have, that has happened.

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I mean, in Canada, I understand that you can be fined. It is a civil penalty, a civil fine if you do not address a person according to their preferred pronouns.

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And it's not just he or she anymore. There's like zeh and whatever. I don't know.

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Didn't we have a choice though? Yeah, all kinds of choices. You'd be fined for telling the truth.

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Yeah, right. Yeah. How dare you assume my gender?

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I don't have one apparently. I mean, I mean, these are the crazy days that we live in. And by the way, you're going to note what this is.

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This is a full -blown rebellion against God all the way down to how

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God has made us. Our sinfulness will reject all of God's truth, including the truth that God created you and that he created you with a gender.

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This is the scary thing. And this is all, believe it or not, wrapped up. And in order to kind of talk about adultery, we have to do some like humanity 101 stuff.

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And literally what I'm saying here, there's a real good chance once this hits the internet, somebody's going to like talk about what a hate -filled, backwoods, you know,

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Nazi Pastor Rosebrew is because he would dare to affirm that God made people male and female.

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Yeah, and yes, what are you guys thinking? I mean, you guys let me say this stuff. Yeah, I mean,

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I can tell you this. There's never going to be a day where I wake up and say I've decided to self -identify as a lawnmower because I don't like mowing the grass.

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I'm just saying. And there was a story that made the rounds on social media this week about some woman who's marrying a chandelier.

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Yeah, it's like, what? It's just nonsense. There's an actual term for this.

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It's called mental illness, insanity. And you're going to note that in our society now, we have rejected objective truth.

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Everything that is supposed to be true is what you feel or experience within your innards.

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So if you feel like you are a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, so be it.

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You are. Now, of course, if you're Muslim, you can't be a BLT. You got to be something else. I mean, but this is just bizarre.

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And so we're going to go back and we're going to do a little bit of work in this. And we have to affirm, at least take a look at what scripture says.

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So to start our study of the Sixth Commandment, as odd as it sounds, we have to go back to Genesis 2.

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Genesis 2 will help us out here. And then we'll look at Mark, the gospel of Mark. And when you see what

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Jesus does, you are going to realize we are completely out of step with the culture. Genesis 2, verse 15,

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Yahweh Elohim took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. How many humans are there at this point?

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One. There's only one human at this point. Yahweh Elohim commanded the man saying, You may surely eat of the tree, every tree of the

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Garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

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Then Yahweh Elohim said, It is not good that the man should be alone.

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I will make for him, and the ESV says, helper fit for him.

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Does anyone else have a different translation there in 18? I will make for him a helper fit for him, suitable for him.

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So I'll make a helper suitable for him. And the reason I ask is because this is actually, it's a little bit weird pulling this into the

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English from the Hebrew. I've highlighted it over here in the Hebrew. And the Hebrew reads,

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Ezer Kenegedo. Ezer means a helper. Keh is a participle.

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So like or as. And then neged, this is an interesting word.

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Neged is like frontal counter opposite is the best way I could put it.

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If you think, any of you do like jigsaw puzzles? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if you do a jigsaw puzzle, you know, you've got one part that has, you know, a part that's sticking out.

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And another part that has a part that isn't sticking out that it fits together. Neged in the Hebrew is, is really that kind of a picture.

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And you have to get this in the Hebrew mind. They don't deal in abstractions. You'll notice that in the ancient world, there are no great

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Hebrew philosophers. This is not how the Hebrew mind thinks. And the Hebrew language is very concrete.

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And so it's literally teaching that God is going to make a helper for Adam, who is his frontal counterpart.

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So that the puzzle pieces fit together. You're like, when you put a hose male and female work together, male male never connects.

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You kind of get the idea. That's the picture here in the Hebrew. God is going to make a helper who is his exact mirror counterpart opposite.

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Physically. That's the idea. So I will make for him a helper who is his exact counterpart.

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Now out of the ground, Yahweh Elohim had formed every beast of the field, every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

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Whatever the man called the living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock and the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field.

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But for Adam, there was not found for him. Here's the phrase again in verse 20, a helper fit for him or his exact counter opposite.

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So Yahweh caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man while he slept, took one of his ribs, closed up its place with flesh.

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And the rib that Yahweh Elohim had taken from the man he made or fashioned into a woman and brought her to the man.

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Then the man, and the Hebrew is kind of interesting playing words, ish and isha, the ish said, this is that last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called isha because she was taken out of ish, out of man.

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Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

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And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

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Now there's a lot going on there, but if you begin to unpack it, you understand.

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Number one, let's kind of talk about something that is politically incorrect. For years, humanity has been referred to as what?

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Mankind. Every single human being on planet earth comes from Adam.

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Every single human being. Where did Eve come from? From Adam.

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The idea that there is this mother earth or that humanity has its origin in a big spirit mommy, false.

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Humanity comes from man. We are mankind. And you sit there and go, well, that's just terrible.

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The politically correct set says that we have to neuter all of these types of concepts.

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No, we are mankind. We all come from Adam. So when we confess with our words that mankind is this and we use that word, you're making a theological statement now, an important one that needs to be made.

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You see, politically correct speech is not being enforced by the government. I mean, is your congressman going to pass a law and put you in jail if you use the phrase mankind?

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Nope. Who's going to do it, though? The feminazis. And the feminazis are trolling your social media.

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They're listening in on your conversations in social events and things like that. And so when you say

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God is a he, those, by the way, are the pronouns that God uses for himself. Fascinating.

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When you say God is a he or that we are mankind, they come unglued. But I want you to consider this.

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We must. We are now at a point where we cannot cave in to their desires anymore because it's clear that they have an agenda and we cannot bend the knee to their agenda.

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So we must continue to refer to God as he. We must continue to refer to humanity as mankind because this is a theological statement.

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And you back it up with Scripture. Well, you need to use the word humanity because you're offending women. No, no, no.

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We're going to refer to as mankind because every human being comes from Adam. And because they're telling you, you must obey our rules.

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We have to say we refuse. Apes. Then you can't.

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No, no. In a situation like that, you sit there and go, no, we did not come from apes. Right. But they still have apes.

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Yeah, we still have apes. Right. Remember the song from Annette Funicello? Oh, he loves a monkey's uncle.

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Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, it's a California thing. So in a situation like that, Robin, we must make the confession.

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No, we are not evolved from apes. We we are God's creation.

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And this is where our second text is going to help us out here. Let me let me ask you, do you know any scientists who have died, been dead for three days and raised from the grave?

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I submit to you that those are Jesus's credentials. He claimed to be none other than God, but not any old

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God. He's not Zeus. He claimed to be the Old Testament God in human flesh and proved it by raising himself from the grave.

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Let me ask you this question. What is Jesus's view regarding where humanity came from and whether or not

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Adam and Eve were literal people? Well, same as the Old Testament. Let me show you a text

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I would like you to consider in this context. Let's take a look at Mark 10. The fact that this is even controversial is weird.

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And here's the scary thing. It's controversial to say this in the context of church because there are so many churches that have gone totally squishy and silent on these things.

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Mark chapter 10, verse 2. The Pharisees came up in order to test

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Jesus and asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He answered, what did

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Moses command you? They said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.

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Jesus said to them, because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of, and watch the word, creation.

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From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.

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Now, one of the arguments that is thrown around in church circles today, liberal church circles, is they say something kind of really nonsensical like this.

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Well, look in the gospels and you'll see that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality.

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Yeah, it's not true. My sinful flesh wants to do this and say, put your face in this.

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You're going to know, what did Jesus just say? How did we get here? Creation. God made us what?

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Male and female. Then he goes on. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.

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Did Jesus say anything about homosexuality there? Yes, he did. That God created us male and female.

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And according to the way God has made us, that means that Adam and Steve is not a marital combo.

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It is contrary to the very creation itself. And over and again, we sit there and say, that fellow's a man, that woman is a gal.

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When children are born, the doctor says it's a boy or it's a girl. There's pink balloons and there's blue balloons.

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There are no other colored balloons. There are no other options. Yeah, that's silly.

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Hmm. Give me a second. I want, I'm going to digress for a second.

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Have you all ever read the Chronicles of Narnia? You saw some of the movies, all right?

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They haven't made all of the books into movies, by the way. One of the books, let me see if I have it in my library really quick.

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Marilyn, you bring up a point that things are changing. I'm going to argue nothing has changed.

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It's as if humanity has been bewitched. That's the best way

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I can put it. Let me see here. The people of authority. You're right.

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So what do we as the church have to do? We got to stand up for the truth. In the story,

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The Silver Chair, it is a story of a prince who is supposed to be the king of Narnia, who's been bewitched by an actual witch.

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And the way her spell works, her words have the ability to create mental pictures in people's minds so that they deny reality and believe in alternate reality.

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This is how the devil operates. And C .S. Lewis was a Christian. And I want you to hear part of this portion of The Silver Chair.

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And in it, you're going to see how she tries to take over two of the heroes of the story who are trying to set the prince free.

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And she's trying to bewitch them into believing that what they know to be fact is not.

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Listen to how this works. The witch said nothing at all, moved gently across the room, always keeping her face and eyes very steadily toward the prince.

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When she had come to a little ark set in the wall not far from the fireplace, she opened it, took out at first a handful of green powder.

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She threw it on the fire. It did not blaze much, but a very sweet and drowsy smell came from it.

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And all through the conversation which followed, that smell grew stronger and stronger and filled the room and made it harder to think.

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Secondly, she took out a musical instrument, rather like a mandolin. She began to play it with her fingers, a steady, monotonous thrumming that you didn't notice after a few minutes.

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But the less you noticed it, the more it got into your brain and into your blood. This also made it hard to think.

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After she had thrummed for a time and the sweet smell was now strong, you can kind of see the picture.

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This is how it's unfolding. She began speaking in a sweet, quiet voice.

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Narnia, she said. Narnia, I have often heard your lordship utter that name in your ravings.

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Dear prince, you are very sick. There is no land called Narnia. Yes, there is, though, ma 'am, said

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Puddle Glum. You see, I happen to have lived there all my life. Indeed, said the witch.

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Tell me, I pray you, where that country is. Well, it's up there, said Puddle Glum, statly pointing overhead.

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I don't know exactly where. How, said the queen with a kind of soft musical laugh.

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Is there a country up among the stones and mortar on the roof? No, said Puddle Glum, struggling a little to get his breath.

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It's in the overworld. And what or where, pray, is this? How do you call it, overworld?

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Oh, don't be silly, said Scrub, who was fighting hard against the enchantment of the sweet smell and the thrumming, as if you didn't know.

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It's up above, where you can see the sky and the sun and the stars. Why, you've been there yourself.

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We met you there. I cry, you mercy, little brother, laughed the witch. You couldn't have heard a lovelier laugh.

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I have no memory of that meeting. But we often meet our friends in strange places when we dream.

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And unless all dream alike, you must not ask them to remember it. You see what she's doing?

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This is a satanic enchantment that has come to our country, into our world.

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When somebody can physically see that that person is a male and say, that person's not a male.

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Who are we to assume their gender? Male, female, God? That's all a dream.

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That person is whatever they feel they are inside of their heart. This is witchcraft. Mm -hmm.

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Okay. Okay. I've heard that if you state the truth, you should not be accused of bullying.

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Mm -hmm. I know the truth hurts sometimes. People should be sensitive to others. But when it gets down to confusion.

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Yeah, you're right. They need to hear it. We speak.

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We have to speak. We have to speak. Yes. Right.

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I know all about that. Yes. I'm going to be blunt.

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Sinners do what sinners do because sinners are sinners. This is not a communistic liberal conspiracy.

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This evil that we're seeing is humanity's sin going to seed.

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And there's only one cure that I know of against this. And that is the preaching of John the

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Baptist. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And I'll be blunt.

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I'm going to be blunt. They took it out of the churches long before they took it out of the schools. I cannot even begin to tell you how many emails

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I've received over the years telling me what a hick and a redneck I am because I use the word repent.

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It's an offensive word. Nobody wants to change. Everybody wants to just remain comfortable in their sins.

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What they want you to do, what people want me to do as a pastor is set the jacuzzi at like 96, 97, just warm enough and just put some bubbles into the bathtub and let them relax in their sins.

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And every single time a pastor says, repent, this is sinful, it's like taking a large barrel of cold water and messing up their jacuzzi.

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They don't want to feel guilty. No. Nobody wants to feel guilt.

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Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So can

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I just be blunt here? Jesus told us that they would hate us because of him.

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Okay. So what you're describing is Jesus going, you're going to say this and they're going to hate you.

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So did Jesus say, so just keep your mouth shut? Jesus said, say it anyway.

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The apostle Paul had his head cut off. Peter was crucified upside down, took him three days to die.

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Other Christians have been thrown to the wolves and the lions and others have lost their jobs.

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Do you think these cake bakers in Colorado are going to win their case? Yeah, it would take a miracle.

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And I'm going to put the blame at the foot of the church because I'm going to be blunt.

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150 years ago, the church became unnerved because some people came up with a theory that Isaiah didn't actually write

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Isaiah, that there were four authors of the prophet Isaiah and that the gospels were not actually written by eyewitnesses.

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They were written later in the second century. But you know, when some drunk monks decided to get around and say, let's talk about this legendary guy by the name of Jesus.

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It's called higher criticism. You know where they taught it? They taught it in the seminaries. And the people coming out of the seminaries who went into the churches, rather than tell their people to believe the

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Bible and trust the word of God, told them, you don't have to believe the Bible. It's just manmade stuff.

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And they turned God's word into Aesop's fables. Nobody believes in the tortoise and the hare, but we found a good moral in that one.

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So we're going to do that with the Bible too. And what ended up happening is people were not brought to repentance.

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They were not trusting in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. And they came to church and believed that everything was hunky -dunky between them and a loving

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God. Because God is just some senile old grandpa in the sky who likes to pat his little bratty children on the forehead and tell them how wonderful they are.

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And now we have churches that affirm gay marriage in their sanctuaries before the altar.

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Churches that were historically planted by believers. They have men and men and women and women exchanging vows before God in the house of God.

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Do I sound a little upset? The only way this is going to stop is if we don't shut up.

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And I promised you that it's going to cost you everything if you speak up.

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It'll cost you friends. It'll cost you family. It could cost you your job.

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It could cost you your life. We are losing this country.

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And it's the church's fault. Because the church hasn't been salt and light.

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Sinners do what sinners do because they're sinners. We are all shocked because sinners aren't behaving like saints.

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How are they supposed to bear the fruit of the Spirit without being brought dependent in faith in Christ? You want a just society?

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How are you going to achieve that with a bunch of reprobate, unregenerate sinners who's so enslaved to sin that they have nothing more than a growing appetite and sickly so for it?

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Do you think Harvey Weinstein is an anomaly? Or Conyers or Franken?

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Would this have been put up with even for a moment 60 years ago in this country?

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No. Right. Is anyone here without sin?

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I'm not. And all of this, I'm sorry, this is all the fallout of the sexual revolution.

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I don't know a single family that is not a casualty of the sexual revolution. So we must say, no,

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God created us male and female. There is no such thing as non -binary humans.

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Marriage is between a man and a woman. That's how God made it. And the two become one flesh.

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You don't like it? Argue with Jesus. And you notice Jesus is a young earth creationist.

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He affirms the account of Genesis. Of course, he was an eyewitness to the whole thing. You know why?

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Because Jesus is the one who took the rib out of Adam. Jesus is the one who lovingly, caringly fashioned

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Eve. And not only that, the picture we see in Genesis is beautiful because there you have

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Adam post -op standing up and Jesus himself giving the bride away to Adam.

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It's beautiful. It's absolutely stunning. And to believe otherwise makes this whole life thing to be completely purposeless.

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People think that somehow they can just create their own reality. It's a spell. This is nonsense.

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And when you speak the truth, it takes them out of the spell. Even for a moment and they begrudge you for it.

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But we speak law and gospel. Sin and grace, repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

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And I've seen it happen over and over again. There's a whole bunch of people who hate you.

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And then there are those who in hearing the good news, God opens their hearts and their minds, gives them a heart of flesh, takes out their heart of stone, and brings them to penitent faith in Christ.

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What keeps them from coming around? They persist in sin and unbelief. They resist the work of the

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Holy Spirit. They know that what you're saying is true. Yeah, hard, hard. But they know what you're saying is true.

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I pointed this out last week, I'll point it out. Do you notice that nobody when they're cursing, no one ever says,

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Oh, Buddha. No one while cursing sits there and says, Shiva, Vishnu.

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Nobody ever says that. Do you think it's an accident or a coincidence that when people cuss, they use the phrase

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Jesus Christ? You know why they do? Because every single human being not only knows that God exists, they know that Jesus is that God.

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You don't even have to tell them. They already know. Isn't it strange that this is the battle now over whether or not you are just a man or a woman?

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But this is the basic building block of any marriage. And Christ himself affirms it.

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The pastor in Australia who helps out with Aletheia, his name is Pastor Joel Klein.

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And this week, Australia, the government, voted to recognize same -sex marriage.

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The Lutheran Church of Australia, their top bishop in their denomination, basically made it clear that each individual congregation within the

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Lutheran Church of Australia would have the right to decide whether or not they were going to commune and recognize homosexuals and same -sex marriage.

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It's based on a congregation by congregation. It's the ELCA all over again.

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It's the ELCA all over again. And at some point, you guys who were in the

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ELCA, does it stay congregation by congregation for long? No, eventually it becomes polity for the whole body.

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The handwriting's on the wall. Yeah. But I mean, how can somebody claim to be a

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Christian and say that God blesses same -sex marriage or that homosexuality is not a sin?

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They can't do it without denying the word of God. Responsibility off his shoulders.

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Yeah. And say that this is an abominable sin.

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Yeah. Now you remember it was during the summer, the pericope for one of the gospel texts had to do with being a man under authority.

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Remember the concept? I'm a man under authority. I have no commission or authorization to teach you anything here other than what scripture says, period.

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I'm not authorized. So if I start teaching you something that is my opinion, am

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I authorized to do that? No. When I do that, I have stepped beyond my office.

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I'm acting in a different office. Would it matter if I were the bishop, the chief bishop of the

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AALC? Could I then give you my opinions? Nope. I'm still a man under authority.

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So when the presiding bishop of the LCA in Australia says, y 'all can decide on your own.

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Don't think for a second that's him just basically trying to dodge responsibility. It's more than that.

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That's him claiming that he has authority to say you guys can sort this out rather than saying

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I'm a man under authority. And God said now, remember Manasseh today in the sermon.

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I mean, you read that guy's life history. The vast majority of that fellow's life was spent as a rank idolater.

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And by the way, that's what this is. That's what this is. It's idolatry. He was a rank idolater and God turned him around.

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It's a beautiful story of repentance and forgiveness. And you also remember that when

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Hezekiah prayed, Isaiah was there. He delivered the message, you're going to die. Hezekiah faces the wall, prays and he's weeping.

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Isaiah hasn't even left the royal court. He hasn't even left the royal court. And God says to Isaiah, head back, go tell him this.

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God immediately heard his prayer. We must never forget that God hears our prayers.

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And as our epistle text says, God is not slow as some reckon slowness.

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He's being patient because it's not His will that any should perish.

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So what are we to do? Pray. Pray for their repentance. Continue to pray for our own repentance.

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So that we are not prideful in saying, well, we've got our act together and they haven't got theirs. So that makes me the bee's knees and they're just a bunch of rank sinners.

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No, we're all penitent sinners. Remember, even John the Baptist, the preacher of repentance, recognized he was unworthy to untie

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Jesus' sandal laces. So we must continue to maintain that same repentance ourselves, which requires us to recognize that we are sinners saved by grace.

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And then we must fear Christ more than man.

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Because the person who refuses to say the truth, because they know they're going to get thumped for it, fears man more than Christ.

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And this is a temptation that we all face. And if you decide to speak up and they pummel you, come talk to me.

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We'll have a pity party together because I've been pummeled so many times, I could show you the scars.

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That just goes with the territory. And Jesus said it would be this way. And the apostles tell us that when you are persecuted in that way, consider it all joy.

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So when we sing that song, I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart.

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Where? Down in my heart. You have that joy in you right after you got the snot kicked out of you for speaking the truth.

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I feel like Patton. The way you win a war is not by dying for your country.

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You make the other fellow die for his country. Yeah, because every single pastor, including yours, is a sinner.

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Every single one of them. And they are tempted in all kinds of ways. And I'll be blunt.

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One of the things I struggle with is depression. And when I get pummeled and I get attacked and slandered, sometimes it sends me into clinical depression.

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And it takes me a while to come out of it. That's just how this is done.

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And so here's the thing. There are guys who, how do we put it?

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As parents, we reward good behavior and we punish bad.

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When you grow up, society rewards bad behavior and punishes good.

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You have to understand, culture and society condition you based upon rewards and punishments.

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This is how it works. And so although there are no laws that say you

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Christians can't say mankind, you can't use these pronouns or whatever, and you have to recognize these things.

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There are no books, no federal laws or state laws that require this of you. But all of this is enforced culturally through rewards and punishment.

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And you have to see it for that. So when you speak up, you will be punished because society is telling you to shut up.

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And if you remain quiet, they will reward you. Oh, you are being a good boy.

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You're keeping your Christianity to yourself and not telling me about Jesus. Here's a raise.

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Here's a bonus. We're going to send you to Tahiti for a vacation. Very good.

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And through the fellow who actually says the truth, he loses his job, loses his business. He's shamed by society.

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It's reward and punishment. That's what it is. So as Christians, we are members of the kingdom of God.

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We bear fruit in keeping with repentance. That requires us to understand what God's law says is sin.

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And we cannot say otherwise. I have no authority and you have no authority to say otherwise.

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So we speak the truth. God has told us to go and make disciples. And Christ has said to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in his name to every nation.

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So you have to speak the truth. And society is set up the way it is.

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Since we are a post -Christian society, speaking the truth, you will be punished. Remain silent.

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You will be rewarded. I refuse the rewards of the world. I'll go ahead and take the punishment.

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Thank you. Because I know in speaking the truth, God's word doesn't return to him void and that some will be brought to repentance.

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And we are to consider it a precious thing, something that we are to have joy over when we are suffering shame for the name.

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Let me give you a text since I'm off topic. Acts 5. Many signs and wonders, verse 12, were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles.

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And they were all together in Solomon's portico. By the way, Solomon's portico was a portion of the temple complex.

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And it was a covered portico that you can get shade in and people would gather there.

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And oftentimes the disciples would teach. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

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More than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.

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Notice there's binary human beings here in the New Testament too. So that they even carried out the sick into the streets, laid them on cots and mats as Peter came by.

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At least a shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and the afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

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You'll note that in this context here, it's talking about how the people held them in high esteem.

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But the people were kind of remaining quiet about them. They wouldn't say one thing or another.

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But if they had somebody who needed to be healed, they brought them out. The high priest rose up and all who were with him, that is of the party, the

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Sadducees. I always love the play on words there. The Hebrew word is actually

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Zadakim. The Sadducees, they didn't believe in the resurrection. That's why they were sad, you see.

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I didn't write that one. But anyway, so they were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles, put them in the public prison.

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Now, does that make any sense? In what we just read in this context, the people held them in high esteem.

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There are people being healed of sicknesses. People who are lame, who are walking.

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This is all good stuff. But who were the apostles preaching about?

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Christ. So they put them in prison.

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During the night, an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, brought them out and said, go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.

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Not some, all. By the way, worst prison break ever. Usually when you spring out of the clink, if you get, you know, you need to run.

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Get out of town. These guys are told by the angel, I'm going to let you out of the prison and go and keep preaching.

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So they heard this. They entered the temple at daybreak and they began to teach. When the high priest came and those who were with them, they called together the council, all the

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Senate of the people of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison.

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So they returned and reported. We found the prison securely locked. Guards standing at the doors.

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But when we opened them, we found no one inside. Now, when the captain of the temple of the chiefs heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to.

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And someone came and told them, look, the men who you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.

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Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force.

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They were afraid of being stoned by the people. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council.

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High priest questioned them saying, we strictly charged you not to teach in this name.

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Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

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In a similar way, we're not being brought before the magistrates or the officials.

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It's not on the cultural level. But when you speak the truth and people oppose you, it's as if they are saying to you, we strictly told you to stop talking about Jesus.

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Stop saying homosexuality is a sin and stop insisting that God has made us male and female.

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The parallel stands. Watch the response. Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey

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God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

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God exalted him at his right hand as the leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

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And we are witnesses to these things. And so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.

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So when they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.

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Have you ever had somebody get so angry that their face turned red and they were spitting in your face because you dared to tell them to repent of their sins?

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Been there, done that. Frightening thing. They were enraged and they wanted to kill them.

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But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, teacher of the law, held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

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He said to the men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days,

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Judas rose up claiming to be somebody and a number of men, about 400, joined him. He was killed and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.

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After him, Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him.

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He too perished and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men.

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Let them alone. For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail.

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But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing

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God. So they took his advice. And by the way, when we speak the truth and people oppose us, who are they really opposing?

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God, right. Gamaliel was right here. You might even be found to be opposing

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God. So they took his advice. And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus.

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And then they let them go. This is probably a caning or something similar to it.

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I assure you, painful. Then they left the presence of the council. Listen, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

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Whose name? Christ. And every day in the temple, from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the

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Christ, the Messiah is Jesus. I don't know about you, but, you know, if they were to cane me, the last thing

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I would be doing would be leaving the caning going. Yes, I've been found worthy to suffer in the name of Jesus.

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This is the best thing ever. I'd be going, oh, I need a medical assistant. I need help. Does anybody have a sedative?

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This is just come down to this. We have to speak the truth. It's going to cost us.

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We will suffer for it. And scripture teaches us to take that suffering and rejoice.

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Now, if you're suffering because you're a moron, if you're suffering because you're a jerk, if you're suffering because you're a thief, well, then you deserve to suffer for these things.

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But if you're suffering because you're speaking the truth and proclaiming Christ, then that is a suffering that is worthy of rejoicing over.