Being Honest About Evil in a Deceived Society

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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November 7, 2015

00:00: You may be seated.
00:01: I want to invite Brother Sonny to come up and pray for our second session.
00:10: I'd like to offer a word of prayer for every one of us right now.
00:14: Now, prior to opening up in prayer, let me share with you something that's very special to my heart.
00:19: Just recently, I just went through family worship with my son, and we were reading a little book called Prayer by E.M.
00:27: Bounce.
00:28: And some of the things he says is that preaching is not the performance of the hour, it is the outflow of life.
00:35: He even said that it takes 20 years to write a sermon, because it takes 20 years to make the man.
00:42: And that right there just really stood out to me.
00:44: So let me open this up in a word of prayer, reminding us of the primary work of God's people.
00:50: Let us pray.
00:54: Father, you have reminded us in your word to not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving to let all of our requests be made known unto you.
01:08: Father, we lift up our prayers to you, Lord, in fear of you and in prayer that you will not forsake them.
01:16: Oh, Father, we're reminded in the word of God that you had took Abraham, Lord, and placed him outside and said to a number of the stars, which Abraham could not do, but Lord, you know each and every one of them by name.
01:29: How much more you know each and every one of the needs of your people.
01:35: We pray, Lord, today that the preaching of your word would subdue your people, that would drive them out of themselves, draw them unto Christ, conform them to your image, Lord, as revealed in the face of the Savior.
01:51: We thank you, Lord, for this hour.
01:54: We thank you, Lord, for the preaching of your word and for our next preacher, that he would just speak truth for you, Lord, just as a mouthpiece, just as the messenger, that your people will respond with faith.
02:07: In the name of Christ we pray.
02:09: Amen.
02:11: I'd like to introduce Pastor Keith.
02:14: He probably needs no introduction for the majority of you here that sit under his preaching every week, but it is an honor for myself to introduce this dear brother of mine, and I'll just read off the paper here.
02:27: Keith Foskey is pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church.
02:32: He is a graduate of Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary.
02:36: He is married to the love of his life, Jennifer, for 16 years, and together they have four children, Ashley, Cody, Hope, and Justice.
02:47: I hope I got the last name spelled, pronounced correctly.
02:50: Let us introduce our dear brother.
02:56: I'd like to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to Isaiah chapter 5, and hold your place at verse 20.
03:07: Now I'm going to begin by committing the worst of faux pas in regard to a Reformation conference.
03:15: I'm going to quote a Methodist.
03:20: William Booth, himself a Methodist preacher and the founder of the Salvation Army, once said, The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.
03:49: He may have been a Methodist, but he got that one very right.
03:53: And regarding his prediction, I think we're seeing it firsthand.
04:00: Because of the spiritual decline that we are seeing all around us, we have reached a time in history where many truths once held as commonplace, especially here in our land, have been pushed into the shadows.
04:16: Consider just the simple idea of a belief in some type of God.
04:22: Certainly there have always been men who have suppressed the knowledge of God, yet now it seems that self-proclaimed atheists are the most exalted above all men.
04:34: Men like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and Dan Barker and others are heralded by the world as brilliant and free-thinking, while men of strong convictions regard their faith, or rather are regarding themselves as those who are to be pushed into the shadows.
04:54: It seems these days a man outspoken about his faith has no place in our society, and especially in areas of leadership and government.
05:02: Such a man is unelectable.
05:04: In business, such a man is unemployable.
05:07: And in social circles, such a man is undesirable.
05:11: Now you might say, well, I think you're being a bit drastic.
05:14: Well, you just look at the presidential field.
05:16: There are so many of them who call themselves Christians.
05:19: I ask you one thing.
05:21: How long would a politician's career last if he stood before the people, his constituents, and told them that unless a man repents of his sin and trusts in Jesus Christ the Savior, he will spend an eternity in a lake of fire? Just how long would his political career last? We've arrived in deceptive times.
05:45: The times in which we live, and the title of my message is being honest about evil in a deceived society.
05:51: We are a people who are accustomed to deception.
05:56: We expect to be lied to.
05:58: And we expect to lie.
06:01: It has been estimated that in the first ten minutes of meeting a new person, the average person will lie three times.
06:11: Whether it's in exaggeration, or the holding back of something, or falsely agreeing with something that they don't truly believe.
06:24: Makes you wonder how many people have you met at this conference and you've talked to them for ten minutes.
06:31: We know the Bible condemns deception.
06:35: Revelation tells us all liars will have their place in the lake of fire.
06:40: Proverbs 12, 22 tells us that God detests the lying lips.
06:44: And of the seven things that God hates, one of them is a lying tongue.
06:52: Honesty and truthfulness are paramount in Scripture.
06:56: God is a God of truth.
06:59: And He expects His people to be a people of truth.
07:02: This includes being honest about the gospel and evil in the world.
07:07: We cannot conceal the truth of the gospel, neither can we downplay the evilness of sin.
07:11: We must be a people who speak the truth, even when it is unpopular or even dangerous to do so.
07:21: Much of what has already been said, I just want to reiterate and remind you of today as I take us to Isaiah chapter 5.
07:34: In a time of moral decline in Judah, there was a prophet, Isaiah, who was willing to tell the truth, even though it was not popular.
07:44: And I want to read just one verse, and we will go back later and catch the context, but I would like us to stand as is our custom here at SGFC to give honor and reverence to the Word of God and read verse 20, one that I imagine many of us have memorized, but looking at it again.
08:06: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
08:26: Father in heaven, I thank you for your Word.
08:28: I thank you for the calling to preach your Word, and I pray that you would keep me from error, as I am certainly fallible and capable of preaching error, that you would protect me from that for the sake of your people and the sake of my own conscience.
08:47: I pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would speak today, for apart from the Holy Spirit, all this would be in vain.
08:59: And I pray that you would give us clarity to understand what your Word says, that you would draw your people close to you through the preaching of your Word, that you would convert sinners to Christ under the proclamation of the Gospel, and that you would use this time to glorify yourself.
09:17: In Jesus' name, amen.
09:29: In 2013, our current president stood before a group of representatives from Planned Parenthood, and he said these words, and I quote, As long as we've got to fight to make sure women have access to quality, affordable health care, and as long as we've got to fight to protect a woman's right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you've also got a president who's going to be right there with you, fighting every step of the way.
09:59: Thank you, Planned Parenthood.
10:01: God bless you.
10:04: End quote.
10:07: It wasn't long after he made those statements that a group began to expose the terrors of Planned Parenthood.
10:19: And those of us who already knew that abortion itself was evil were given a glimpse as to how far the atrocities actually go.
10:29: And even some who formerly supported Planned Parenthood were pushed into realizing just how depraved that organization is, just how deadly and devastating that organization is, and yet, not the president.
10:45: The Obama administration has doubled down on its support of Planned Parenthood, and in July of this year has announced another $5.6 million in contributions to that organization.
11:01: Even in light of the horrors which rival those of the Nazis, they have doubled down in their support of the butchering of the unborn.
11:13: That is the epitome of calling evil good.
11:18: Not only good, but something worth funding.
11:20: And not only worth funding, but something worth funding out of the public treasury.
11:27: We are certainly a nation in peril.
11:33: Well, in the fifth chapter of his writing, Isaiah is prophesying to a nation in peril.
11:39: They have been given all of the blessings of God only to spurn His goodness.
11:48: So God is now ready to bring judgment upon them.
11:53: The reward of their disobedience is coming.
12:01: And that's where we are in Isaiah chapter 5.
12:04: The context of Isaiah 5 is actually quite interesting because it begins by describing the blessings of God to Israel.
12:11: And it comes as a song.
12:13: If you'll turn with me back to verse 1 of Isaiah 5, you'll see that the beginning of Isaiah 5 is a song.
12:20: Isaiah is singing to God.
12:22: He's singing a hymn of praise.
12:24: He says, Let me sing for my beloved, my love song concerning His vineyard.
12:32: My beloved has a vineyard on a fertile hill.
12:36: He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines.
12:39: He built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed out a wine vat in it.
12:44: And he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
12:50: And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
12:56: What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.
13:14: I will remove its hedge and it shall be devoured.
13:19: The hedge was a picture of protection.
13:22: I'm going to remove the protection that I've given it up until now and it's going to be devoured.
13:27: I will break down its wall and it shall be trampled upon.
13:31: I will make it a waste.
13:32: It shall not be pruned or hoed and briars and thorns shall grow up.
13:37: I will also command the clouds that they rain no more upon it.
13:43: For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel.
13:49: And the men of Judah are His pleasant planting.
13:53: And he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed for righteousness.
13:58: But behold, an outcry.
14:04: He tells us in these first seven verses that because of the blessings that Israel had received from God, because of the blessings that had been given to that chosen nation, they should have borne fruit.
14:20: But instead, they produced wild grapes.
14:25: Now that's the ESV translation.
14:29: The Hebrew that underlies that word wild grapes is actually more of the line of something that is worthless.
14:39: Something that is sour.
14:41: You've heard the term sour grapes.
14:44: Something that is smelly or stinky.
14:47: One commentator said it is equivalent of calling it poison berries.
14:52: I've given you all of this goodness that you might bear fruit, and instead you give me back poison berries.
15:00: You give me back sour grapes.
15:06: And the lesson is simple.
15:08: It doesn't take a great mind to understand what Isaiah is saying.
15:14: Because of God's goodness, they should produce good fruit.
15:19: Instead, the fruit which is produced is rotten, it's stinky, and it's unfit.
15:28: Isaiah describes what these wild grapes are beginning in verse 8.
15:33: And he describes them in a series of woes.
15:38: Now, most of you are probably familiar with this, especially if you've ever sat under the teaching of Dr.
15:43: R.C.
15:44: Sproul, when he explains what a woe is from Isaiah chapter 6.
15:48: And he explains that a woe is the judgment of God.
15:52: It's not just something where someone might say, oh, a woe is me, and we think it's not much of anything at all.
15:57: But a woe that is proclaimed from God unto people is a judgment, a statement, a declaration of the judgment of God.
16:08: In Matthew 23, Jesus has a series of judgments for the scribes and the Pharisees, and each one begins with that same word.
16:16: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! It is a statement of judgment.
16:24: Luke 10.13, Jesus pronounces the same woe on Chorazin and Bethsaida.
16:29: He says, woe unto you, cities! For if the things done on you had been done in Sodom, they would have repented.
16:38: Woe! It's a statement of judgment.
16:39: Isaiah pronounces it on himself.
16:41: Isaiah chapter 6, when he sees the Lord seated upon His throne, he says, woe is me! We know what a woe is.
16:52: And in verses 8-30, we see six woes.
16:56: Each woe is attached to some sin of the nation.
17:01: Verse 8 gives a woe regarding greed.
17:05: Verses 11-12, a woe regarding drunkenness.
17:09: Verse 19, a woe regarding self-indulgence.
17:12: Verse 21, a woe regarding pride.
17:16: And verses 22-23 is a woe regarding corruption.
17:22: But the one that I want us to focus on, if time would allow, and certainly it will not today, I would want to go through each one.
17:32: But because today I want to limit us to pinpoint accuracy of one thing, I want us to focus only on the woe that comes in verse 20.
17:41: It is the woe of distorting the truth.
17:47: The one who would exchange the truth for a lie.
17:55: So let's look again at verse 20.
17:56: It says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
18:04: This is in the midst of a series of woes that any of us could understand and apply, but this one seems exceptionally relevant to our culture because it is so prevalent.
18:14: It is the idea of having ourselves deceived at our very core, and it is the idea of calling something, something else, or putting something in the place of something else.
18:28: You can call something good, but that doesn't make it good.
18:32: You can put darkness in the place of light, but that doesn't make it light.
18:35: You can put sugar for something, or you can put, rather, lemon juice for something sweet, and it doesn't make it sweet.
18:47: I'm from the South, and I love sweet tea.
18:48: I imagine, Jeff, you probably don't know what that is.
18:52: Jeff is from Jersey, but down here we love sweet tea, and some people prefer unsweetened tea, and they need to get saved.
19:04: It's a terrible joke.
19:07: But when you pick up a drink marked sweet tea, and it's lemon juice, it's easy to detect.
19:18: It doesn't take long for you to tell the difference.
19:20: It's when you put it up to your mouth, you take a big swig, you expect sweet tea, and you've got lemon juice, you know the difference.
19:28: It would take self-deception for you to keep drinking and take those parched lips and force a smile and say, yeah, this is great.
19:38: But you see, that's what we do.
19:40: This passage is built on the idea that people are willingly self-deceived.
19:47: They understand right from wrong.
19:51: That knowledge is given to them innately by God.
19:57: But there is a willingness to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and replace the truth for a lie.
20:06: Make no mistake, the one who replaces evil for good is doing so with full knowledge of what they have done.
20:14: That has got to be understood.
20:17: It's not deception.
20:20: It's willingly self-deceived.
20:24: There is a difference.
20:26: It's not confusion.
20:29: It's suppression of truth.
20:33: Think about how this works in modern society.
20:35: Just think for a moment of what we even allow into our vernacular.
20:40: Shame on us that we allow someone to say murder is choice.
20:48: See, that's taking the evil and calling it good because choice is good.
20:54: But that's murder.
20:58: We take fornication.
20:59: We call it living together because living is great.
21:08: We take sodomy.
21:09: We call it being gay.
21:12: Gay used to mean happy.
21:15: What is shame? This passage is a condemnation of anyone who will replace that which is virtuous with something that is evil.
21:29: And it's a condemnation upon that.
21:33: It is a condemnation of being willingly self-deceived.
21:40: And it is also a condemnation of something else.
21:45: This passage is a condemnation of something called moral relativism.
21:50: If you don't know what moral relativism is by name, you know what it is by practice.
21:59: Moral relativism is the view that ethical standards, morality, and positions of right and wrong are culturally based and therefore subject to a person's individual choice.
22:12: I want to read to you a quote from moralrelativism.com.
22:17: Yeah, there's a whole website devoted to this ideal.
22:21: This is what it says, and I quote, We can all decide what is right for ourselves.
22:27: You decide what's right for you and I'll decide what's right for me.
22:31: Moral relativism says, It's true for me if I believe it.
22:36: End quote.
22:39: That's what it is.
22:43: Studies indicate that 75% of American college professors, that would be secular college professors, and I imagine, unfortunately, some seminary professors too, currently teach that there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong.
23:02: Rather, they treat the questions of good and evil as relative to individual values and cultural diversity.
23:14: Now, most of us understand that there are some truths which are relative to an individual.
23:22: Earlier I talked about sweet tea.
23:24: I think it's the best drink in the world.
23:26: You don't even know what it is.
23:29: So, that truth is relative to me, even though I'm right.
23:37: Romans 14 tells us that there are certain things that are up to the conscience of the individual.
23:42: Dietary restrictions, holy days, are left to the believer's conscience.
23:48: And Paul says we shouldn't bind another's conscience based on what ours is bound on, on these secondary things, on these things that are relative to individuals.
23:59: But the problem with moral relativism is that it says that all truth, all truth is relative and subjective.
24:13: In moral relativism, there is no transcendent truth.
24:19: Experience becomes the arbiter of right and wrong, and man becomes the determiner of all truth.
24:28: And as a result, you end up with moral chaos.
24:34: I want to share with you from the debate with Greg Bonson.
24:41: How many of you guys know the Bonson-Stein debate? A few of you.
24:46: Back in the 80s, Greg Bonson, Christian pastor and teacher, debated a man by the name of Gordon Stein.
24:56: It's considered to be one of the best atheist-theist debates in history, and an example of presuppositional apologetics.
25:04: In that particular debate, Bonson asked Stein, this is the Christian asking the atheist, Can you tell me why what Adolf Hitler did was morally wrong? Can you tell me why what Adolf Hitler did was objectively evil? And Stein's answer was ridiculous.
25:35: I want to read it to you.
25:37: This was his answer, and I quote, Germany is part of the Western European tradition.
25:46: It's not deepest Africa or some place on Mars.
25:50: They have the same Judeo-Christian background and basically the same connection with the rest of the developed world, so therefore the standards of morality that have been worked out as consensus of that society apply to them too.
26:03: You see what he's saying? Because that's what society says.
26:07: That's the only thing that makes it wrong.
26:09: That he killed six million Jews.
26:10: That's the only thing that makes that wrong.
26:12: It's because everybody else said it was wrong.
26:15: But he goes on.
26:19: Quote, They can't arbitrarily, Hitler can't arbitrarily say, Well, I'm not going by the consensus that genocide is evil or wrong.
26:27: I'm just going to change it and make it right.
26:29: He has not the prerogative to do that.
26:33: Mr.
26:33: Stein says who? You just made a statement of absolute truth that Adolf Hitler can't do that.
26:41: By whose standard? Yours? You just gave in to my world view.
26:48: Because you said there's something higher than Hitler and society.
26:52: You said there's a standard, sir, that he cannot abandon.
26:59: You see, they can't live by this world view either.
27:03: They have to borrow from our world view.
27:05: They have to live under our rules because their rules don't allow for civilization.
27:12: It's foolish.
27:19: But notice what Stein is saying.
27:22: He's saying that what Hitler did was not inherently evil.
27:31: That's powerful.
27:35: It's powerful to think that someone could reach that conclusion.
27:40: But that is where we have come in our society that we can't call evil.
27:45: Think about ISIS.
27:47: They're cutting off the heads of children.
27:50: They're strapping bombs to people with mental deficiencies who don't even know what they're doing.
27:56: They're sending them into crowds of people to blow them up.
28:03: And they're talking heads on television.
28:06: Well, we can't call them evil.
28:09: We must.
28:12: We must call evil, evil.
28:18: The danger of moral relativism is this.
28:23: It claims neutrality, but it doesn't maintain it.
28:29: It begins with exalting fairness and equality, but eventually it descends into the exaltation of evil.
28:36: That which God says is virtuous is eventually called evil, and that which God says is evil is eventually called virtuous.
28:42: It doesn't become you have truth and I have truth.
28:45: It becomes my truth, which is the exaltation of evil, must suppress your truth, which is the exaltation of that which is right.
28:52: It's not neutral.
28:54: And don't you let some person from a college tell you, well, I just believe that we're all neutral in this.
29:01: No, you're not.
29:02: You are actively suppressing the truth of God in your heart.
29:08: So I talked to a kid the other day.
29:10: We have an evangelism ministry called The Fishing Hole.
29:14: And we stand out and hand out gospel tracts and talk to people as they go by.
29:17: And we're at the fair in Callaghan.
29:20: A little boy came up.
29:22: He says, I don't believe what you're saying.
29:23: I'm an atheist.
29:23: I said, no, you're not.
29:26: I said, you believe in God.
29:27: You know God exists.
29:28: God has put that knowledge in you.
29:29: You are actively suppressing the truth that God has placed in you.
29:31: You're not an atheist.
29:32: You are actively suppressing truth.
29:35: I've never heard that before.
29:36: That's what the Bible says.
29:37: And that's what I believe.
29:38: I'm not taking your statement for granted.
29:41: You believe that you're an atheist.
29:43: I don't.
29:45: Because God has given you enough knowledge that when you face Him, you will be without excuse.
29:50: That's what Romans 1 says.
29:52: When you face God, you will be without excuse.
29:55: I don't accept your claim as to what you are.
29:57: I'm telling you what you are.
29:58: You're a person who suppresses the truth.
30:02: Why can't we be honest with people? Well, you might have hurt that little boy's feelings.
30:06: He wouldn't have prayed the sinner's prayer.
30:11: I love that Ichabod Spencer book.
30:14: That's the one...
30:15: What's it called? Sketches? Where the guy came up to him and he said, oh, woe is me, I'm such a wretched sinner.
30:22: And Spencer looked at him and he said, you're much more wretched than you realize.
30:25: And that's all he says.
30:27: You're much more wretched than you realize.
30:30: He didn't give him the gospel.
30:31: He didn't tell him about Jesus.
30:33: He just said, you are worse than you think.
30:35: And a few days later, he comes back to him.
30:38: And he said, you know what? I came to you prideful over my own thoughts of my wretchedness, but when you finally showed me who I truly am, I recognize my sin.
30:47: Are we willing to tell people the truth? The danger, again, is I don't know that we are.
30:59: We've given in to a culture.
31:02: We've given in to political correctness.
31:03: We've given in to talking like the world.
31:07: I hate it when somebody calls somebody who believes in abortion pro-choice.
31:12: I say, stop.
31:14: Call what it is.
31:16: They are for the murder of babies.
31:19: That's too harsh, Pastor.
31:20: That's the truth! I want to move from Isaiah 5.
31:33: I just want to show you something in Romans 1 and make a connection for you.
31:36: Can I do that? Can I take you now to Romans 1? Because Paul in Romans 1 is also dealing with a people in decline.
31:45: But in this section, he's not addressing Israel specifically.
31:49: He's dealing with mankind in general.
31:55: And in Romans 1, we see that God gives to all men the revelation of His glory and His presence and nature, yet men reject that revelation and instead choose to worship other things including themselves.
32:11: And when that overtakes a people, it becomes the norm.
32:13: God gives them over to their lustful passions.
32:16: And I want you to listen.
32:17: Starting at verse 24, we're going to read to the end of the chapter.
32:19: I want you to listen and I want you to just mentally compare.
32:22: Paul is talking about his day, but think about our day.
32:24: Think about what happens in our nation and what is happening in our nation.
32:28: And you just listen to verses 24 and on.
32:33: Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie.
32:47: And they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.
32:52: Amen.
32:54: For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
32:58: For their women exchanged natural relations for those which are contrary to nature.
33:02: And men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.
33:12: Verse 28, And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
33:24: They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.
33:29: They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.
33:33: They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
33:46: And though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.
33:50: Stop right there.
33:51: Though they know that these things are wrong.
33:56: Remember what I said earlier.
33:57: They're not confused, they're self-deceived.
34:00: Though they know that these things are wrong and though they know that the people who do them deserve to die, they not only do them, but do what? They give approval to those who practice it.
34:22: Now just in your mind I want you to connect what Isaiah said and what Paul is saying.
34:26: Isaiah says, Woe judgment upon those who would call evil good, who would replace light for darkness and bitter for sweet.
34:38: And then he comes over here.
34:40: We go to Paul.
34:41: Same Holy Spirit.
34:44: And he says, They know that these things are punishable by death, and yet they not only do them, but they approve of their having been done.
35:02: There are things in this world, there are things that are transcendently evil.
35:09: They are evil because they violate the very law and nature of God.
35:17: It's not just because society says they're evil.
35:21: It's not just because you think in your heart that they're evil.
35:24: It's evil because they are violations of the nature and holiness of God.
35:30: And to call them good is to give in to willful deception.
35:37: To give approval to them is to engage in willful depravity.
35:42: This is what we learn from the text.
35:47: Now having seen that, I want to make a few points of application.
35:52: As is my custom, I like to read the text and explain the text and then give an application.
35:59: So I have three thoughts for you today and hopefully these will be of encouragement to you.
36:07: Number one.
36:09: We must stop allowing political correctness to have authority over our conversations.
36:19: I'll say it again.
36:21: We must stop allowing political correctness to have authority over our conversations.
36:29: As unpopular as it is, we must become the voice of dissent in a disintegrating culture.
36:40: Now I'm not saying that we need to be intentionally shocking or offensive in our person.
36:48: This is what I think some have confused.
36:51: They have made themselves the spectacle by the God hates this or that slogans which bring about some type of foolishness on a banner that they stand out at the grave side of men who have fought for the country.
37:06: I think that we can say that is intentionally shocking and offensive and God has not called anyone to be your holy Howard Stern.
37:19: But we cannot shy away from the truth.
37:23: We should be preaching on the streets.
37:25: We should be entering into the markets.
37:28: We should be telling the world.
37:31: We cannot hide.
37:31: I loved it last night.
37:32: I hope I don't take something from your sermon, brother.
37:33: When you said we play show and tell with doctrines in the church.
37:36: If you're going to say that, I'm going to say, okay.
37:38: I heard you say that on the way out.
37:39: I said, that's going in the memory bank.
37:40: He said, he's right.
37:43: Brother Jeff goes and he preaches on the streets.
37:46: We have a guy in our church, Brother Mike, he does the same thing.
37:50: Are we willing to go out into the highways and the hedges and call people to repentance and faith? Or do we just sit around in our holy huddles and play show and tell with our doctrines? When the world calls evil good, we must be willing to say, no, it's not.
38:17: Do you know why we don't speak the truth? When we're sitting in a room, and you've all been there, you're sitting in a room, maybe it's with people at work, maybe it's with some friends, maybe you're in a social situation, you might even be in a group of church folk, and somebody says something, you know it's wrong.
38:34: You know it's shameful.
38:36: You know it's God dishonoring.
38:39: And yet you say nothing.
38:41: Why? Well, because of Andy's sermon last night.
38:45: Because you fear man more than you fear God.
38:50: And do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.
38:53: Isn't that what we learned last night? But isn't that what we do? We allow political correctness.
38:59: We allow this group around us to cause us to violate our very conscience, because we go home that night, and you know we say, I wish I would have said something.
39:11: But I didn't, because I was more afraid of man than I was of God.
39:21: We've got to stop letting society dictate what is right and wrong, because they can't.
39:27: God has determined what is right and wrong, and we have to be the voice of dissent, even if it makes you unpopular.
39:34: Woe unto you, if your concern is your own popularity.
39:44: Number two.
39:46: This one may ruffle a few.
39:49: That's okay.
39:50: You can get them straight later.
39:52: I'll ruffle them now.
39:53: You can straighten them out later.
39:56: We have got to come to grips with the fact that God is under no obligation to bless America.
40:03: We have got to get the grip in our mind that God is under no obligation to bless America.
40:12: God's chosen nation, Israel, fell to the Babylonians when they rebelled.
40:18: How much more could America be subject to the judgment of God for our collective sins? If you think God could not bring America to her knees, your faith is misplaced.
40:32: And I would encourage you, get on your knees before God and repent of that idolatry.
40:36: Because your God is America and not God.
40:41: As long as America continues to call evil good and good evil, never say God bless America without adding the words, with repentance.
40:55: I don't want to hear it.
40:56: People come up, oh, God bless America, with repentance.
40:58: I always, I'm the jerk.
41:01: God bless America with repentance.
41:05: For there is no deserving of any blessing apart from that.
41:18: God is not obligated to us in any way.
41:23: And we have certainly lived under the bounty of His blessing for a long time.
41:30: A bounty of security, a bounty of protection.
41:34: And we are seeing now, much of that go away.
41:38: I was listening to Dr.
41:41: John MacArthur as he was preaching his sermon, We Will Not Bow.
41:46: I don't know if you may have heard that, but it was after the Supreme Court ruling about same-sex marriage.
41:51: And he took to the pulpit that Sunday night after that and he preached a very powerful message.
41:55: And he was just kind of relating some of the things that are coming.
41:58: And he made a point.
41:59: He said, do you realize that insurance companies that provide liability insurance for churches against lawsuits are now saying, if you get a lawsuit because you will not provide a homosexual marriage, which we will not, we won't protect you.
42:27: Something to think about, isn't it? We are being abandoned by the culture.
42:32: You see, for a long time, there was something called cultural Christianity in America, where everybody was a Christian because, hey, mama was a Christian, papa was a Christian, I grew up in church, so I am culturally Christian.
42:48: You know what is the highest rising religious group in America today? Nuns.
42:58: And I don't mean the habit, not the nuns.
43:03: N-O-N-E-S.
43:05: Those who ascribe to no religious affiliation is the highest rising and fastest, rather, rising religious group in America.
43:20: It's no longer culturally Christian.
43:22: And that really isn't a bad thing.
43:24: Because all those cultural Christians, they went to hell thinking they were going to heaven.
43:28: They were Matthew 7.
43:29: They faced God at judgment and He said, I never knew you.
43:33: Because all you had was mama and papa's faith, you didn't have your own.
43:36: You had a church relationship, not a relationship with Christ.
43:40: So, it's not necessarily bad that cultural Christianity goes away, but it does do something with some of the rights and privileges we have enjoyed for a long time, which may go with it.
43:50: We've got to be ready for that.
43:54: I need to move on to number three.
43:56: So, we've already seen it.
43:57: We've got to stop allowing political correctness to have authority over our conversations.
44:01: We've got to come to grips with the fact that God is under no obligation to bless America.
44:04: Number three.
44:05: We must remember that the hatred people have for Christ will spill over to His representatives.
44:14: The hatred people have for Christ will spill over to His representatives.
44:21: If you live out your call to be an ambassador for Christ, you will be hated.
44:28: The Bible says in John 15, 18, If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you.
44:36: 1 John 3, 13, Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
44:43: Why do they hate you? Do you know why they hate you? Very simple.
44:48: You represent that which they suppress.
44:52: You represent, as a Christian, that knowledge that they suppress in their hearts.
45:00: You see, every man knows God exists.
45:02: We already talked about this.
45:03: Romans 1 tells us that they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.
45:06: It's like a spring.
45:07: They're having to hold it down all the time.
45:08: And you come along and you whisper truth in their ear.
45:11: It agrees with that spring that's trying to push up.
45:16: So they have to suppress it all the more.
45:18: So they hate you.
45:26: Given the opportunity, this world would crucify Christ again.
45:31: You ever think about that? If Christ was here today, He would undergo the same hatred, same torment, same punishment, same cross as He did 2,000 years ago.
45:39: We have not come any further as a civilized society.
45:44: We've just created new ways to kill people more quietly.
45:50: They can't crucify Christ.
45:51: He's in glory.
45:52: He has satisfied the Father's wrath and He now sits at the right hand of the Father.
45:56: They can't crucify Christ, but you'll do.
46:01: You'll do.
46:02: You're a good substitute.
46:05: Now some people get all upset.
46:07: They'll be, oh, that pastor, he's so fixated on persecution.
46:17: But the reality is this is a real concern.
46:20: And if you're not really concerned, you're not really listening to what's going on around you.
46:25: I sat in the parking lot of our church the other day.
46:26: I had a conversation with my 15-year-old son.
46:28: I said, Do you know that your daddy could be in prison one day for the gospel? Do you know that? I said, One day we may have to have this conversation between two panes of glass.
46:41: Do you know that? Are you ready for that? Am I ready for that? Are you? Those who demand tolerance for all kinds of evil will call for our heads for speaking the truth.
47:05: Isn't that an amazing thing? Isn't that irony of ironies? That those who demand tolerance for every type of evil will call for our heads for speaking the truth.
47:17: You say, Pastor, that's down the road.
47:19: No, it's here.
47:21: Don't you never mind.
47:22: It is here.
47:28: Some of these you've heard of.
47:29: Some of these I'm sure you haven't.
47:31: But I want to give you just a few things that have already happened.
47:33: A Christian photographer was forced by the New York, or excuse me, New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to pay $6,637 in attorney's cost after she refused to photograph a gay couple's commitment ceremony.
47:44: It was illegal in the state to have the ceremony.
47:46: It was illegal to get married.
47:48: She wouldn't photograph the wedding.
47:50: She got sued successfully.
47:56: A psychologist in Georgia was fired after she declined for religious reasons to counsel a lesbian about her relationship.
48:03: Fired! Because she wouldn't counsel a lesbian about her relationship.
48:07: Christian fertility doctors in California who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient were barred by the state Supreme Court from invoking their religious beliefs in refusing treatment.
48:19: A Christian student group was not recognized at the University of California Law School because it denies membership to anyone practicing sex outside of marriage.
48:26: If you're having sex outside, they didn't even identify anyone being gay or anything.
48:29: If you're having extramarital sex, you can't be a part of this group.
48:33: No! That's discriminatory.
48:39: Assistant State's Attorney for McHenry County, Illinois, Thomas Carroll said this, quote, you can be charged with a hate crime if you make a statement or take an action that elicits injury or incites a breach of the peace based on a person's race, creed, gender, or perceived sexual orientation.
48:58: In June of last year, Salt Lake Police Officer Eric Moustas was suspended for asking that he not be required to take part in a gay pride parade.
49:07: He said, I just don't want to be there.
49:08: Put me somewhere else.
49:10: No, you have to be there.
49:12: You have to go.
49:19: We all know about the gay wedding cake.
49:23: $100,000 fine, loss of a business because they wouldn't bake a cake for a couple having a marriage, a gay wedding.
49:36: I hate to call it, I'm not calling it a marriage, for a couple wanting to profane marriage.
49:47: Just this past week, Dr.
49:50: Al Mohler mentioned in the briefing from the New York Times, and I quote the New York Times.
50:02: In a letter sent Monday, the Office for Civil Rights for the Department of Education told the Palatine, Illinois School District that requiring a transgender student to use private changing and showering facilities was a violation of the student's right under Title IX, a federal law that bans sex discrimination to student who identifies as a female but was born male and he's still a male.
50:26: I added that.
50:27: Should be given unfettered access to girls' facilities.
50:34: That's where we've come.
50:36: They used to get on to us for talking about the slippery slope.
50:38: It's not a slope, it's a cliff.
50:44: News reports are now saying that a daycare worker has been fired for simply refusing to call a six-year-old little girl a boy.
50:52: Six-year-old little girl.
50:55: Her parents, two men, demanded that she be called a boy.
51:01: Cut her hair like a boy.
51:03: Gave her a masculine nickname.
51:06: The Christian worker at the daycare would not obey.
51:10: Fired.
51:17: The fearful thing is not just that our nation calls evil good, but that it will require by force that we do too.
51:33: Will we stand? Will we be honest about evil? Or will we turn belly up and give in? It's not easy, but we have been called to the truth.
51:52: I want to end with a prayer from, of all places, West Point.
52:02: This is the cadet prayer of West Point.
52:08: It's repeated every Sunday in chapel services.
52:11: And I quote, Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.
52:23: And never be contented with half truth when the whole truth can be won.
52:31: Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice, and knows no fear when right and truth are in jeopardy.
52:49: Let that be our prayer today.
52:52: That we would choose the harder right rather than the easier wrong.
53:02: That we would choose to speak and live the truth and not give in to a culture which is willingly self-deceived.
53:14: Let us pray.
53:17: Father, I thank you for the opportunity to again preach your word.
53:21: I pray that this word has been a word of warning.
53:26: That we would take up the armor of God knowing what is coming and has already come.
53:39: That we would put on the helmet of salvation.
53:41: That we would put on the breastplate of righteousness.
53:43: That we would shot our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
53:47: That we would bind it together with the belt of truth.
53:50: That we would take up the shield of faith and always and forever hold forth the sword of the word of God.
54:02: For it is only in this will we be able to stand when wickedness comes.
54:11: Thank you, Father, for the truth.
54:15: May it bless your people and convict the lost and draw us all to Christ.
54:23: In Christ's name, Amen.