Biblical Sexual Morality (The Church's Course of Action)

Here I Stand Theology

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Back and looking at the context of course, but stand with us if you would this morning for the reading of God's Word.

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Second Chronicles chapter 32 verse 7 and 8.

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This is the word of the living God. Be strong and courageous.

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Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him, for they are more with us than with him.

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With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the

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Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.

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In verse 20, Then Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, prayed because of this and cried to heaven.

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And the Lord sent an angel who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria.

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So he returned with shame of face to his own land. When he came into the house of his

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God, some of his own sons struck him down there with the sword. So the

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Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, and from the hand of all his enemies.

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He provided for them on every side. Let's pray. Our Father, as we come before your throne, we come with a grateful heart.

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Come thankful this morning, God, for this great privilege to come boldly unto your throne of grace.

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Dear God, I thank you for sending your son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sin, that he shed his blood to be the propitiation for my sin.

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I praise you for your love, for your mercy, for your goodness, for your grace.

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And God, today I praise you for your wrath. I praise you for your judgment.

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God, I praise you today because of who you are.

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I praise you today because you are God alone and not a man as we are.

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That you are perfect, true, and righteous in all of your ways, for that we are thankful.

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And my request this morning is this, from your word, number one, show us

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Christ. Number two, Lord, I would ask this morning for you by and through your

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Holy Spirit, through the preached word of God, that you today would bring encouragement, consolation, hope, joy, and strength in the name of Jesus, where we pray all these things in your holy, holy, holy name.

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Amen and amen. So if you would keep your

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Bibles open there, again, we're going to be looking at the bulk of this chapter really down through verse 22, 23, but we do not want to preach just those verses without any kind of context or without giving any kind of explanation as to why we chose this particular passage of Scripture.

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So today, if you're taking notes, we're going to begin with an exposition of these verses, verses 1 through 23, and then we want to follow with some words of encouragement, with words of exhortation, as well with an explanation as to why today we are going to be addressing the topic of biblical sexual morality and how we as Christian men and women can and should apply the principled approach of King Hezekiah in our daily lives.

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So let's begin by looking at the text. The Scripture says in chapter 32, verse 1, after these things and these acts of faithfulness,

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Hezekiah was a good king, he was a godly king, and he was very faithful in the

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Lord. In your time in reading this week, I encourage you to go back and read chapter 31, which leads into 32 where we're at today, so you'll have a better and a truer and a more full context of what we're talking about.

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But after these things, speaking of the acts of faithfulness by King Hezekiah, the

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Bible says Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came and invaded Judah, and he encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them for himself.

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It's very important as we just read that first verse for all of us as Christians to have a balanced understanding of what is taking place here and a balanced understanding in the big picture in general that God is sovereign.

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God gives good kings and God gives bad kings. God sets up wicked kings and God sets up righteous kings, but they are all under the authority of the holy

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God that made the heavens and the earth. So we have here the wicked king, Sennacherib, and the godly king,

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Hezekiah, and the Scripture says in verse 2, when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and intended to fight against Jerusalem, he planned with his officers and his mighty men to stop the water of the springs that were outside the city, and they helped him.

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So we see here in verse 2 and 3, Hezekiah saw what was coming and he began to make a game plan, if you would have it, and his game plan was to stop the water from flowing in the city so that as a kind of a contingency plan, if you would have it, if Jerusalem was lost, it wouldn't be a game for Sennacherib because there would be no water.

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And everybody understands, right, when you don't have water to drink, you die. We need water.

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Verse 4, a great many people were gathered and they stopped all the springs in the brook that flowed through the land saying, why should the king of Assyria come and find much water?

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He set to work, speaking of Hezekiah, he set to work resolutely and built up the wall that was broken down and raised towers upon it and outside it he built another wall and he strengthened the milo in the city of David.

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Milo were fortified mounds, mounds of dirt and stone in which you could be barricaded behind and protected.

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And the Bible says in verse 6, he set combat commanders over the people and gathered them together to him in the square at the gate of the city and spoke encouragingly to them.

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And this is where we read from. So Hezekiah gathers the men of the city together, preparing them for battle and the scripture says he spoke encouragingly to them and the encouragement, our encouragement as Christian men and women today, our solace, our peace, our hope should be in the word of the living

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God. And the word of God says that Hezekiah said to them, be strong and courageous.

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Don't be weak and a chicken, but be strong and courageous.

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Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him for there are more with us than with him.

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With him, there is certainly an arm of flesh. He has a great army behind him.

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But with us, Hezekiah states, is the Lord our

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God, is Yahweh Elohim, the self -existent

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God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. With us is the

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Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.

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And the people took confidence from the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah.

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So that in that first section is what took place here, beginning in verse nine, really down through verse 19, we have the threats of Sennacherib.

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After this, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who was besieging Lachish with all his forces, sent his servants to Jerusalem, to Hezekiah, to the king of Judah, and to all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem.

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And this is what they said, thus says Sennacherib, king of Assyria, on what are you trusting that you endure the siege in Jerusalem?

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Is not Hezekiah misleading you that he may give you over to die by famine and by thirst when he tells you the

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Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria? Now the enemy's tactics, the world, the flesh, and the devil, the enemy's tactics have not changed when it comes to the people of God.

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We see this going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It is always the devil's responsibility, the devil's task, the devil's approach to cast doubt on the word of the living

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God. Now, the good news is this. The word of God has been proven time and time and time again.

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The word of God stands when everything else collapses. The word of God is a rock.

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The Lord is a strong tower. The Bible says the righteous run to him and we are saved.

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So the king, Sennacherib, sends his messengers to cast doubt on what God has said, on what

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God is doing. In verse 12, he said this, has not this same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars and commanded

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Judah and Jerusalem before one altar you shall worship? And on it you shall burn your sacrifices.

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Here in verse 12, Sennacherib cast light on the righteous work that Hezekiah had set to to destroy all the idols and to destroy all of the false worship and to focus on the one true and the living

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God. He's saying this, surely, surely you do not want to put all your eggs into that Christian basket.

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I would say this to you today. This is a statement coming from me. I am glad to have all my eggs in the

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Christian basket. I am glad to rest in Jesus Christ. I am glad that Christ, the creator of the heavens and the earth, is able not only to keep this world that he made, but he's able to keep those who are his and that he is able to reserve unto the judgment and damnation of fire of hell, those who will be there.

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I am glad to have my faith and my trust in the true and the living God. Verse 13,

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Sennacherib goes on. Do you not know what I and my fathers had done to all the peoples of the other lands?

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And notice what he says here. Were the gods that the Hebrew that's used for the little gods here and speaking of the true and the living

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God is the same word is Elohim. However, we notice that there is a distinction made.

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It is a little G God. He says, were all the gods of the nations of those land at all able to deliver their lands out of my hand?

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Verse 14, who among all the gods of those nations that my father's devoted to destruction was able to deliver his people from my hand, that your

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God should be able to deliver you from my hand. Now, therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you in this fashion and do not believe him.

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For no God of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my father's.

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How much less will your Elohim deliver you out of my hand?

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So he's casting doubt again on the true and the living God. He's casting doubt on the people's hope.

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And the scripture says in verse 16, and his servants said still more against the

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Lord God, against Yahweh Elohim and against his servant Hezekiah.

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And he wrote letters to cast contempt on Yahweh, the God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying like the gods of the nations of the lands who have not delivered their people from my hands, so the

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God of Hezekiah will not deliver his people from my hand. That was a big statement of boldness that's being made.

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But the Bible says, and they shouted it with a loud voice in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall to frighten and to terrify them in order that they might take the city.

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And they spoke of the God of Jerusalem as they spoke of the gods of the people of the earth, which are the work of men's hands.

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We find throughout the Old and the New Testament that God is not found in pieces of wood and stone, graven by art and man's device.

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We are not pantheists. We do not worship nature. God is not a tree. God made everything that is, but he is not a tree.

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God is to be God is a spirit. And the scripture says in the scriptures that he is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

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And truly, as God's people, we have an object of worship. The object of our worship is the person of Jesus Christ.

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For he came, he bled and hung on the cross for our sins. He was buried on the third day.

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He arose and he ascended to the father where he ever lives.

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We have a definite object and the Holy Spirit makes intercession and he makes intercession for us with those groanings which cannot be uttered.

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And the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of the living

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God. So we see these threats, these comparisons that Sennacherib is making here.

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And then in verse 20 really is the key to everything that we've read thus far.

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It is the key to understanding and looking at and and kind of articulating and thinking about the things that are going on in our world concerning biblical sexual morality.

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The Bible says in verse 20, Hezekiah, the king and Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed.

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They prayed because of this and they cried to heaven, church, our recourse.

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Our point of action is to pray, to see the true and the living

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God and to trust him with the results. So the scripture goes on.

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The Lord sent an angel who cut off all the mighty warriors and all the commanders of the officers in the camp of the king of Assyria.

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So he returned with shame. He's returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he came into the house of his

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God, little G God, some of his own sons, some of his own people struck him down there with the sword.

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He was killed by his own people. So the Bible says the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, king of Assyria and from the hand of all his enemies.

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And he provided for them on every side. So we see here what was won.

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And I want to be very intentional with my speech and my language today. What took place was not a political victory.

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It was not a political victory. It was a biblical, spiritual victory won by the true and the living

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God. It was not accomplished at the hand of Hezekiah, it was accomplished by the hand of God.

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The strong hand of the Lord accomplished this. So moving from that exposition of the text, let's begin our kind of looking at the encouragement, the exhortation and the explanation as to why we're talking about biblical sexual morality today.

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This sermon was intended to be preached last week. As some of you know,

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Roger and Joyce found out when they got here last week that Joe realized last week that we had canceled church.

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We thought the weather was going to be bad. But in any case, January 16th, last Sunday, it was a day set aside by churches here in the

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U .S., across Canada as well, to stand in solidarity together concerning some laws that have been passed in Canada.

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And we're seeing these laws trying to be worked through here in the

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United States. In any case, in Canada, men who stand and preach biblical sexual morality, biblical creation that God created, male and female, and that God intended for a husband and wife to be

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God's idea of marriage, what is intended in marriage. These men in Canada actually legally from January 8th forward could very well go to jail for preaching such a message.

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Today, all that might happen with me is I might get my hands smacked. Some of you may think you never should have brought this up in church, but friends, we must be aware of the things that go on and we must be aware that the battle is not ours, it is the

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Lord's to fight. We must trust in the true and the living God. So let me say this, if you're taking notes, the church, the church of Jesus Christ is not, is not a political entity.

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The church of Jesus Christ is not a political entity, although we do have a responsibility to live, act and conduct ourselves in accordance with Christian principles and morality.

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And we do have a right to expect these same principled actions and conduct from those in the political sphere who profess to be

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Christians. I would also add that it is unreasonable for us as Christians to expect that lost people, lost politicians would act in accordance with the scriptures.

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You cannot expect a duck to bark like a dog.

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You cannot expect a goat to act like a sheep and you cannot expect lost people to act like saved people.

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We need not be surprised when we see godlessness and sin promoted from the political sphere.

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As well, we ought not to faint or lose heart when sinful men and women, women seemingly have or having their way in the world.

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Do not lose heart, church. Rudy Hayward wrote this, the way a church community is led must be just, it must be just in its finances, it must be kept in order.

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But a church should not be dominated by politics, whether internal church politics or as a policy pressure group, nor should it become a business.

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Be certain of this, God has appointed, again as a reminder, God has appointed good kings throughout history and he has appointed bad kings.

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The Lord raises up righteous and the Lord raises up the evil kings as well, all to this end, that he is working all things together for the good of those whom he has called according to his purpose.

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Be encouraged. So I want to speak a word of encouragement to you as Christian men and women today.

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I want to address both the young and the old. Sarah, that means you as young all the way to the oldest person in the building,

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Miss Lincoln. I want to address both the young and the old. Our aim and our goal today is not only to equip you with the word of truth, but also to inform you.

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Speaking on behalf of the elders, our responsibility to you as individual

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Christians here in this body, is to make sure that you not only get the whole counsel of God preached and taught to you every single week, but also that we ourselves are able to demonstrate and to communicate to you how to make a right application of the truth that is set before us in the scriptures.

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So our text today, as we went through that, our text is the biblical historical account of Sennacherib, an evil king, and Hezekiah, a godly king.

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In this accounting, we read of the pride of the evil king Sennacherib demonstrated by his tactics of intimidation against the people of God.

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This is the same tactics that the world has today. We see in this text also the response of King Hezekiah.

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We see the good and the proper response. Let me accentuate that, the good and the proper response of King Hezekiah.

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In this verse, in verse 20 there, we see the principled approach to ungodliness in the sphere of the political arena.

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We are not called to charge in like bulls in the china shop and try to take things over.

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We ought to take them to the Lord. This is why in Sunday school, when we have our collective prayer time, that we lift up those leaders in our nation and we pray very specifically,

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God, save them if they are lost. Why would we pray such a thing? Because if their works are demonstrating that they are lost, they need to be saved.

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And except they get saved by the grace of God, there is no hope for them.

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In other words, we see how we as Christian men and women are to respond, how we are to react when we are made aware of these evils that are taking place before our eyes in the political arena.

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So again, the church is not a political entity. The church is the gathering together of God's elect with the express purpose of magnifying and exalting the name of the

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Lord, our God. Ecclesia, the word for church, means the called out assembly of the saints.

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We are in the world, but we are not of this world. Even though, again, we recognize that we are not a political entity, that does not mean that we should not bring to light the political issues and the ramifications that we as Christians will undoubtedly encounter.

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Our brothers and sisters in Canada, preachers were put in jail simply because they had church during COVID.

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And now, as we'll see shortly, we'll get to the definition of that bill that's been passed in Canada.

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Now, as we see, they are likely going to be able to be incarcerated and imprisoned simply for taking the biblical stance on sexual morality.

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And brothers and sisters, when and if that comes here to us in the

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United States, we're going to do one of two things. We'll stand or we'll fall. We'll rise or we'll wilt like dead plants.

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But the good news is this. Jesus Christ is the root.

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He is our source of strength. He is our hope. He is our joy.

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He is our peace. He is our life. The church of Jesus Christ has never been any worse or any better than it is today because it is his church.

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The church of Jesus Christ is alive and well. Al Mohler said this, every

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Christian and every Christian ministry will come to a reckoning. We must all decide here and now where we stand.

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He said this, will we pivot or will we hold fast to faithfulness and the hope of the gospel?

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As Christian men and women, we must stand fast and we must trust in the

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Lord our God. As Christian men and women, we are not called to incite a revolution against the country in which we live.

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We are called to live godly and peaceable lives. We are not called to go around picking fights.

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We are called, however, to fight the good fight of faith. Some of you might be thinking right now, sounds like he's talking out both sides of his mouth.

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No, I am not. We are not called to pick fights, but we are called to fight the good fight of faith and to lay hold on eternal life.

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What I mean by this is this, when the fight comes, we do not run, but we stand.

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Rooted, grounded, established, and settled in the word of the living God, knowing that he shall not fail.

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Throughout history, we have it recorded as a matter of fact, literally as a matter of fact, that Christians have stood toe to toe with kings and queens on issues concerning life and godliness.

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Since the fall of man in the garden, we've been witness to the reality of our fallen nature.

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We see it all around us. Certainly, God has given us governmental authority, and as Christians, we are to respect those in authority over us, seeing that God has made this an ordinance in his word.

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The issue that the church has generally encountered with the world is this, that the sphere of governmental authority has overstepped its own appointed bounds given by God himself.

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Again, you can go all three ways with this. The government has overstepped its bounds.

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The church, at times, has overstepped its bounds because man's pride gets in the way, and the family has overstepped its bounds many times.

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My friend, we must understand this truth. So in reality, there are three spheres of authority, if you're taking notes.

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Those three spheres of authority are the sphere of state authority, the sphere of church authority, and the sphere of family authority.

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The sphere of church authority, state authority, and family authority, in any order you want to take those.

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Now, what I've just described to you is what Abraham Copper referred to as sphere sovereignty.

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God has ordained authority in each of these spheres, each one, each sphere, the government, the church, and the family, to be self -governed.

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So state authority has no mandate or power over the church's authority or over the family's authority.

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In other words, the government, the church, cannot dictate what the church should do, what the church should teach, how the church should act.

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The government has no place in that. And let's flip the table there, as was demonstrated historically.

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The church has no place running the state. Sphere authority.

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So in particular, the church has never been called to bow to the state nor to acquiesce.

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That's a fancy way of bowing down to it. The church has never been called to bow to the state or to acquiesce to the state's ungodly mandates and edicts.

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So again, let me be clear again, we are not talking about rebelling against the government. But rather, we're talking about being obedient to and holding fast to God's word.

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It's a matter of standing fast. When the winds from the political sphere blow at us, and for us as Christian men and women to understand and to know that our allegiance is to Christ and to his kingdom and not to the ungodly edicts that are being set forth in the world in which we live.

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But our mandate, the church's mandate, is given quite clearly in the word of God.

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Matter of fact, let's just quote Jesus in Matthew chapter 28, 18 through 20. Jesus said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth.

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He's not talking about Claude. He's not talking about Sir. He's not talking about William. He's talking about himself.

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Jesus, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. Jesus Christ is king.

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All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, because of this, because of this reality, because of this fact, because of this truth, go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to do what?

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Instructing them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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Where do we find the commandments of God? In his word. They do not come from my mind or your mind or any other great minds.

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They come from the word of God. The laws of God are fixed.

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They are stable. And we are called to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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That is the church's role. That is the church's responsibility. In an

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InterVarsity article from 2014, Dan Jesse wrote this about how some folks view the church.

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He said what matters in some churches is that there is no debt and that it's turning a profit.

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Instead of trusting in God's providence, they trust in the providence of the stock market. Some churches measure their success not in how they proclaim the gospel, but by the number of people their marketing has brought in.

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He said this, the church in these cases is no longer a church.

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It is a business. One only has to look to the practice of selling indulgences before the reformation.

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Matter of fact, if you want to go further back in church history, go back to when Jesus went into the temple and cast out the money changers out of the temple.

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Now, Jesse said this, there is a place for making money and profiting, but that place is not the institution known as the church.

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Let me reaffirm what I stated earlier, the church's responsibility in the world is to do this, to go forth and to preach the everlasting, unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ.

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It is not our job to convince. It is not our responsibility to convert this lost and this dying world.

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Jesus Christ has it under control. With all of that being said today, as a church, we are not inciting a revolution.

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We are simply taking our stand upon the word of God concerning biblical sexual morality.

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Today, the clear biblical teaching of creation that God made man in his own image.

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This is biblical sexual morality, by the way, if you want a definition for it.

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Biblical sexual morality is the biblical teaching of creation that God made man in his own image, male and female.

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For reference, see Genesis chapter 1. But this is being denied and it's being outright done away with in the governmental sphere.

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In doing so, the government is assuming that it has the authority to impose its ideas into the church and the family sphere.

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This interposing is being accomplished by laws that have been passed in Canada and laws that are in process here in the

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United States of America. But we must remember this, that the biblical definition of creation is just as accurate as the biblical definition of sin.

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First Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9 through 11, the apostle Paul states this to the church there at Corinth.

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Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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Now there is a very clear list set forth here. And as the church of Jesus Christ, we are not called to deviate from the truth, the full truth of God's word.

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We don't need to soft peddle it. We are not like many of those, as Paul stated in another place, who peddle the word of God.

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We are not trying to make it more palatable for folks when they hear it. Our responsibility is to not make the word of God palatable.

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It will be bitter to the man, woman, boy, or girl who is lost and separated from God.

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But to the man, woman, boy, or girl who is saved by God's grace, God's holy word will be sweet as honey straight from the comb itself.

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These three spheres are completely separate, and yet all three spheres are under God's sovereignty.

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So on January 8th in Canada, a law was put into effect and was unanimously passed stating that it was illegal to promote conversion therapy for homosexuals.

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The bill defines conversion therapy as this, straight from the bill itself in Canada. What does it mean?

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It means this. Conversion therapy is referred to as a practice, treatment, or service designed to change a person's sexual orientation to heterosexual, change a person's gender identity to cisgender, or to change a person's gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth.

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It's designed to repress or reduce non -heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior, to repress a person's non -cisgender identity, or repress or reduce a person's gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to that person at birth.

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Everyone, the law states, everyone who knowingly causes another person to undergo conversion therapy, including by providing conversion therapy to that person, is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years.

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Similarly, everyone who knowingly promotes or advertises conversion therapy is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years.

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We have heard it said for years, you can't legislate morality, you can't legislate righteousness, right?

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But what is being done is sin is being legislated. And what is evil is being called good.

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And what is good is being called evil, just as it has been from the beginning until now, and it will be to the end.

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Nevertheless, that does not negate our responsibility to church to stand fast.

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I'm always said this, the moral revolutionaries will come, they will come with rhetoric designed to lead your institutions into full retreat and surrender.

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They will tell you, think about how many more students your school will be able to teach if you adopt our policies on gender and sexuality.

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They'll coerce you and they'll say this, we will not partner with your ministry if you continue to hold these convictions.

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So in the name of serving others, just abandon your beliefs about homosexuality and transgenderism.

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1 Peter chapter 4, verses 12, actually verses 12 on there from 1

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Peter chapter 4, the apostle Peter encourages those saints scattered abroad, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though some strange thing were happening to you.

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But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

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If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

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But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.

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Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let it glorify

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God in that name. For it is time, Peter states, that judgment begin at the household of God.

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And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel of God?

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And if the righteous scarcely are saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?

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Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.

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While doing good. While doing good. So Peter exhorts the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed.

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Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you.

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Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

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And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

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Boy, that's not an encouragement to preachers of the gospel. There ain't an encouragement there. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

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Be sober minded, he says. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

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Resist him. Firm in the faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brothers throughout the world.

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And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus with himself, restore, confirm, strengthen and establish and settle you.

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And then he closes by saying this, to him be the glory and dominion forever.

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Amen. So today, the world in which we live, we are having a view and an ideology that is ungodly being thrust upon us.

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And it is this view and ideology of biblical sexual morality. We're having this thrust upon us.

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The government is attempting to pass a bill called the Equality Act here in the United States. In March of last year, it passed the

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House and waiting to go to the Senate. Now, what this act does, it would add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under the

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Civil Rights Act. Categories that the authors of the law would not have had in mind when it passed

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Congress in 1964. So they're trying to tack on to that. And again, you might be saying, again, if we're not a political entity, why are we hearing this?

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Because we still need to be informed. You need to be aware of these things and to know what the

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Bible says so that you are able yourself to take a stand. I love you, little man.

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This bill, this is an actual quote from the bill. You can find this on congress .gov

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if you want a proof checkmate. This bill prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in a wide variety of areas, including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and jury system.

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Specifically, the bill defines and includes sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity among the prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation.

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We all know that it's wrong to discriminate against somebody because of their race, color, or creed.

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But here, you're going to see something. Notice very carefully what's stated in this bill, in this law that's trying to be passed here in the

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U .S. The bill expands the definition of public accommodations to include places of establish or establishments that provide exhibitions, recreation, exercise, amusements, gatherings, displays, good services or programs, and transportation services.

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The bill allows the Department of Justice to intervene in equal protection actions in federal court on account of sexual orientation or gender identity.

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It is literally the same thing that has been passed. And by the way, in Canada, in case you're wondering, there was no fight put up to stop that bill from going through.

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Both the conservatives and the liberals unanimously voted that bill through, making it illegal to promote conversion therapy.

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What is conversion therapy? Again, it's teaching men and women the biblical view of sexual morality, that God made man and woman.

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This bill goes on to do this. Prohibits an individual from being denied access to shared facilities, restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity.

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Just because they think they're a man, they think they're a woman, that they should be able to go into the women's locker room.

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Right? That's not the case. God made them male and female. So in closing, moving to a close here,

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Moeller said this, this pressure, however, is a recipe for the absolute dissolution of Christianity in the

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United States. It is an attempt to erase our witness, not only in the public square, but even within the confines of our own ministries.

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The demand to pivot will undoubtedly come, but we will not surrender before the fight.

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We will see the fight through all the way to the end. If we have to leave the building to the bats, so be it.

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That's a stand right there. And that is the stand of Rev. Marta Baptist Church.

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We ought not, nor should we ever even think about, thinking about, backing up on God's word, on God's fixed and established work that he has done since creation.

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He goes on to say this, we'll leave the building to the bats. We'll shut it all down before we surrender our commitment to Christ, to the gospel, and to the unfailing truth of God's word.

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By God's grace, this is where we must stand. We are about to find out which institutions, which schools, and which churches, and which denominations will stand, and who will pivot and abandon the faith.

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By the way, can I remind you what the word of God says? We are not like those, or of those who fall back, but we believe to the saving of the soul.

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The good news concerning the doctrine of perseverance of the saints is that our keeping, our being kept in Christ, our being kept in grace, is the work of Christ.

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It is not in any way dependent upon us. He has done the work. So, why are we communicating this today?

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Why are we communicating this in such a time? Because this is a time where even church membership and commitment to a local body is more than simply coming up to the front and saying,

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I'd like to be a part of this group. I want to join up, because that's what happens in most churches throughout the years.

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They like a little bit of this and a little bit of that until things go wrong, then they leave. Friends, folks ought to know where Reformation Baptist Church stands on biblical issues.

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Where do we stand on the Bible? We stand on every bit of it. If you've got a

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Gideon mini New Testament, we stand on that whole thing. If you've got an

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ESV study Bible, we stand on the whole thing. If you've got one of these giant pulpit

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Bibles, we stand on the whole thing. We hold to the inspired, inherent, authoritative, sufficient

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Word of the living God. So, church membership means more than just saying,

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I want to join up. Church membership is a commitment. It's a commitment based on three things.

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One, your relationship to Christ. Church membership is for the redeemed of God.

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It is for those who have been saved by the grace of the true and the living God, who have been born again by the

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Spirit. Church membership, too, is about your commitment to the Bible, to God's holy

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Word. And church membership, number three, is about your commitment to your brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Are we going to be able to be committed to each other, to love one another through the good times and to love one another through the bad times?

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To love each other through bad haircuts, right? Or smeared makeup. To love each other despite hell or high water, that we are in this to love one another.

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To care and to seek out for the good of one another. So, commitment is not conditional, but it is unconditional.

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Commitment is not saying, I'll be here so long as I get my way, nor is commitment to be a half -hearted and seldom seen to notion.

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Commitment is an absolute giving of oneself to Christ. And to his church.

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Because that's what it boils down to. Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the head of Reformata Baptist Church.

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The elders here, Sir, Kenny, myself, we have no power, we have no special authority.

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We are servants to you, the congregation here at Reformata Baptist Church. And our primary task and our primary goal is simply, each week, faithfully, week in, week out,

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Sunday morning, Sunday night, whenever else we meet, to give you the whole counsel of the word of the living

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God. So, you'll either be all the way in, or you'll be all the way out. The church must be united in our stand against the world and for Jesus Christ.

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Stand with us, if you would. As you're standing, I want to point you to Philippians chapter 1, verse 27 through 30.

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The apostle Paul makes this statement to the church at Philippi. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent,

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I may hear of you, that you are standing firm, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

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And not frightened in any way by your opponents, for this is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but it is of your salvation and that from God.

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For it has been granted unto you on the behalf of Christ, not only that you should believe in him, but that also you should suffer for him.

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Engaged in the same conflict that you saw and heard in me, and that I now hear, and that I still have.

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So in the account of Hezekiah and Sennacherib and the people of Jerusalem, they were being attacked, they were being threatened.

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By all natural means, by means of understanding, they were outgunned and outmanned.

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However, one with God is always the majority, as you've probably heard some old -timers say.

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And my friends, it's not one of those cases where the world is surrounding the church and we think that we should just collapse, but we ought to look back at them square in the eye,

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Pat, and we ought to say, there might be 10 million of you and only 25 of us, but we've got you right where we want you.

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And we fire the gospel gun. And we trust God with the results.

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And how do we best trust God as a Christian? It's simply this.

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We pray. We pour our hearts out to the Lord. And so what

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I want to ask you to do, if you would, gather, let's all gather here in the front for a time of corporate prayer.

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If you're a Christian, it's not about being a church member for this, this is about being a Christian. I want to ask you today, if you are a

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Christian, gather with us together. And in just a few moments, I'm going to ask

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Greg, if he would, to lead us in corporate prayer. But as you gather here today,

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Christians, as we gather here today, remember that we have a great privilege afforded to us in taking this to the

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Lord in prayer. Spurgeon said this, prayer pulls the rope below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God.

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Some scarcely stir the bell for they pray so languidly, others give but an occasional pluck at the rope.

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But he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and who pulls continuously with all his might.

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The old hymn says this, prayer bells of heaven, oh, how sweetly they ring, bearing our message unto

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Jesus, our King. When you are burdened down with trouble and care, ring on and on, my brothers and sisters, for God will answer your prayer.

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Brother Greg, do you care to lead us to the Lord? Heavenly Father, most gracious God, we praise you this day.

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Bless your name, sanctify it, Lord. For you are holy, you alone are set apart from all your creation,

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God, and by your power, we, your church, are set apart from this fallen world. Lord, I pray this day that you give us strength in these times and in these days.

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Lord, that you give us a joyful heart to be counted worthy to suffer as Christ.

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For we are not above our master, and as the world hated him, so they will hate us for your sake and on account of his name.

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Lord, we do pray for those who are our leaders in the civil realm. We pray also for our leaders in the spiritual realm,

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Lord. God, we thank you that you have ordained law and that you have ordained order.

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Lord, you do hate anarchy and rebellion, you hate chaos, since you are law, you are justice.

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Lord, I pray that we have the same zeal for such things in this world as well. Lord, cause us to submit to our civil leaders as we are citizens of this kingdom of earth.

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But, Lord, let us never forget that we are also citizens of the kingdom of heaven and that your law, your moral rule, is superior to all.

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So, God, should there ever be a conflict when evil men that you may have appointed over us in this civil realm may violate and deviate from your moral law,

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Lord, let us submit solely unto you and obey you, no matter the cost. Lord, I ask that you give us the strength to forsake this world, for this is not our home, this is not the kingdom of Christ, it is not of this earth.

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Lord, we are sojourners and pilgrims here. Have us be a witness and a testimony, a light in this world, and Lord, let us submit that we do not cause your gospel to be profaned by those who are unbelieving.

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Lord, give us courage and comfort no matter what, and should our life and liberty and land be taken, so be it if it be in your name, and let us rest in the assurance of our salvation.

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Let us know fully that our names are written in the book of life and that we are etched in the palm of your hand, and we can never be lost, no matter what men may do to our bodies, they cannot harm us thereafter.

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Lord, we commit to you all that we hold valuable and precious. Lord, all things are yours and in your hands.

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Let us rest in your sovereignty. Lord, let us proclaim your gospel in this world, but let us also know that as the world destroys that light, that they bring judgment down upon themselves, that as they may silence us and silence your word, they do nothing more than commit themselves to greater darkness and judgment.

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So, Lord, be they saved by your mercy, let us praise you. Be they condemned by your justice, let us praise you.

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Lord, no matter what, remind us that it is your church that perseveres. It is your church that is eternal, that no nation can compare to one that exists on this earth.

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For mighty nations rise, but they all fall. Lord, but the gates of hell shall not overcome your church.

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we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Yes.