What Happens in Vegas Stays In Vegas?

Apologia Studios

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00:14

Well, Las Vegas is a pretty amazing place, I mean if you look behind me, that lion is actually bronze.

00:22

It's 50 tons of actual bronze, most people didn't think that, most people think it's made of something else,

00:28

I did for so many years, but it's actually a 50 ton bronze statue of a lion, and it's the biggest bronze statue in the nation.

00:36

You know, in Las Vegas, every single day people consume 60 tons of shrimp, and if you were to stay in each room available in Las Vegas, it would take you 409 years, but you have to spend about 18 million dollars.

00:50

Las Vegas is a pretty amazing place, and I think if you think about Las Vegas, the first thing that jumps out is the lights.

00:57

To make up the lighting in all of Las Vegas, it's about 15 to 20 million miles of neon tubing, and if you've ever been to the

01:04

Luxor, the Luxor has the strongest beam of light on the planet, you can actually see it from space, and the guys in the satellites, the guys actually in the

01:13

Hubble, or the space station, say that the brightest place on earth is

01:19

Las Vegas from space. But, even though it's an amazing place, people come to have fun, they've been doing it for decades, don't let it deceive you,

01:27

Las Vegas is actually, even though bright, and even though popular, and even though a very, very regular place for people to go to have a good time, it's got a very, very dark, sinful underbelly to it.

01:39

I mean, what happens here on a daily basis, you can't even speak of in many ways. It's a dark, dark, dark place.

01:46

Sex is for sale here in Las Vegas, and it's open for business 24 -7.

01:53

So what we've come to do, and what we want to challenge the church here to do, is to come out and be a light in this dark place.

02:02

Forty -one million people visit Las Vegas every single year. It's a staggering number.

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And 63 % of that 41 million people have sex with multiple partners.

02:13

I mean, Las Vegas doesn't even try to hide it. You can walk down the street, and you might be interrupted by a couple ladies in some very scantily clad clothing, and if you pay them some money, you'll get a picture, pay them a little bit more money, maybe something else.

02:29

I mean, as you walk down the streets, you look on top of taxi cabs, you see half -naked women, and then as you go in between intersections, you'll quickly be handed a three -by -five advertisement for a legal escort that will make you have a great time.

02:46

And if you give her a little bit more money, you might get a little bit something else. The fact of the matter is, listen, prostitution is rampant in Las Vegas, and because prostitution is so prolific, sex trafficking is absolutely everywhere.

03:03

Sex trafficking is the slavery of our day. The fact of the matter is, and the sad thing, is so many people get locked in the world of sex trafficking and didn't even intend to do it.

03:15

I've read, and I can tell you story after story of soccer moms, housewives, church -going women and men who never thought that they'd enter this world, but they did.

03:27

And one of the gateways was Las Vegas. How did they get into this world of sex trafficking?

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How did they get in this world of sexual enslavement? Well, it's just as easy as taking one of those advertisements you get on the street and calling the number.

03:41

It's just as easy as as you're walking down the street, you see a naked lady on top of a taxi cab with a number attached to it, calling that number.

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These are the doors that these women and men walk down or walk to, and they never would have realized just a short time later that they were actually enslaved to pimps and enslaved in the world of sex trafficking, not only doing it themselves, hiring out their bodies sexually, but now trying to recruit men, women and children of all ages.

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It happens here in Vegas. One of the most deceptive things that people say in Vegas is whatever is done in Vegas stays in Vegas.

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But that's just not the case. It isn't. Because what happens here is people come to Vegas, they hook up with somebody, a baby is conceived, they fly home, and then they kill the baby at the abortion clinic.

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They come to Vegas, Sin City, where everything is on the table, they hook up with a sexual partner and they destroy their marriages.

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And also, they go to one of the many strip clubs around here, which are just hubs of sex trafficking.

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I can't even tell you, not to abuse you, I can't even tell you the details of what happens inside of a strip club.

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It's absolutely atrocious. But strip clubs are the hubs. There's 20 ,000 strippers working here in Vegas at any given moment.

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You go into the strip club, and again, that is the gateway into prostitution and into the world of sex trafficking.

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So the question you have to ask yourself is, what do we do about it? Do we just come here and continue and indulge in Sin City and act like it doesn't bleed out?

05:26

No, that's what sin does. It doesn't stay localized in Las Vegas, even though we want it to.

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You can't quarantine sin in Las Vegas and believe that it's not going to have an effect on you and the rest of the world.

05:39

Sin begins small and it bleeds out into everything else. So the challenge to you is to do something about it.

05:48

What do we need to do in light of this sexual slavery happening in this city? Well, we need to go to these strip clubs.

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We need to be the light that Jesus has commanded us to be in this dark place.

05:59

Folks, if we are not the church active, the church militant, the church in the marketplace with the gospel in our mouths, with love in our hearts towards these people, then the darkness of this place just becomes compounded and even more compounded.

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The darkness gets dark. So we as the Christians, we as God's people, we have to come out of the salt shaker.

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We have to be the light of the world, a city on a hill as Jesus has called us to be. We have to go to these strip clubs, stand outside, talk to the people going in, preaching the gospel to them, warning them of the sexual slavery that they are about to enter into.

06:37

It is the job of the church to be the light of the world. And so my challenge to you, Las Vegas church, come out here, preach the gospel as you're walking down the streets and some guy hands you a little three by five pornographic advertisement for an escort, hand them a gospel.

06:54

Let's be about rescuing our neighbors who are caught up in this absolutely atrocious, this absolute bondage of sexual slavery.

07:05

Go to the strip clubs, let's get to preaching the gospel, let's be a light in this city of sin.