John Chapter 19

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We're going to be in John chapter 19 this morning, John chapter 19.
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I remember before I was saved, besides other illicit substances, when
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I went to certain drinking establishments, I would order a shot of Jack Daniels and a
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Bud Light. That's just what I did. Bunch of drunks. I would order that.
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And that's what I drank. I don't know why. Or Jack and Coke. That's just what
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I drank. I'm not a very social media kind of guy.
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I'm just not. I do the Facebook because you people are on the
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Facebook. But I really don't keep up with a whole lot. But there's a thing on my
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Facebook page that you can watch videos. And so when
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I'm bored, I'll push that. I scroll through. Well, apparently, Anheuser -Busch decided a couple of weeks ago to decide to get an influencer.
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That's a new term for me. An influencer. Some of you people are such losers out there that you actually have to get people on the video machine to influence you.
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I don't understand what happened to you as a kid. Maybe you ate a lot of paint chips. But this particular individual is
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Dylan Mulvavy or something like that. But he's a dude that dresses like a girl.
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Yeah, whatever. And so it kind of intrigued me. It's kind of like a car wreck.
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I got to look. So I do this more. So I pushed the little page thing and looked up his name on the
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Google, and I watched one half of one video.
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And it was a dude, once again, dressed like a girl that was going, you know, doing that stuff.
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And the one side of me was just kind of like, really?
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The other side of me was like, mm. Distorting my mouth a little bit.
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It's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Y 'all, I mean, seriously.
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I'm trying to be honest here. Do some of you actually believe that, seriously, now think about this for a second.
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You actually believe that the entire universe was compressed into this little itty -bitty thing, and it exploded.
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And from that came every element under the sun. And some of that stuff clumped together and became a planet.
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And then some stuff on the planet decided, well, I want to be walking.
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And so it developed a flipper. And it was flipping around in the water. And then it decided, no, let's go up on that land stuff.
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So let's evolve lungs. Let me ask you a question. At what point in the evolution where you halfway had gills and halfway had lungs, you were still in the water and you didn't drown?
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How is the whole species still alive? It doesn't make sense. But we've swallowed that over the last 40 years.
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And Christians aren't outraged or even just like, it's just stupid. But enough scientists say it, so it's true.
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Well, today, the American Pediatric Association, the
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American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, actually is starting to tell us that there is no such thing as male and female.
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Now, right now, most of you are probably going, yeah, that ain't true. In another generation, it will be true in the minds of a lost and dying world.
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And I ain't talking hate. I'm just talking common sense. You got to understand, 54 years old,
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I woke up one morning and go, what is going on? Wear acid wash jeans.
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Wear a mullet. Y 'all got rid of that? You've been downhill ever since. Guys, we keep swallowing lies.
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I was in Washington, D .C. or somewhere. I was in a big city. I don't remember which one it was.
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Maybe New York. No, it was Washington. And they have a subway that is mostly up on top and sometimes on the bottom, but it's called a subway.
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And what was really cool about this particular subway, I guess it's for the deaf peoples or whatever politically correct word, hearing impaired,
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I guess. It would start coming to a stop and it would say, Orange Line Exit 3,
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Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument, whatever. And people would get off the bus or the train and go to the next station.
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Then it would go to the next one and it would tell you what's coming up. Guys, I want you just for a second to not be in church.
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I want you just for a second to get rid of the idea of a sermon. I want you just for a second to stop popping the blue pill and actually listen to some common sense because you are on a train.
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This culture and this country is on a train. But you as an individual are on that train.
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And some of you, you hear the warnings coming up. And you hear them as warnings.
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Next stop. Anxiety. Depression. Codependent relationships.
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Anybody who wants to get off and the doors open. And some of you get off the train yet the
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Word of God says, broad is the path to destruction and narrow is the path of righteousness.
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And you still get off. The next stop comes up and it says drugs, alcohol, self -grandizing understanding of who you are.
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Philosophy. Intellectualism. And you eat it up like candy. And while God's people, some of them are saying, don't get off the train.
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Your friends, your influencers, pull you off the train and you slip into the abyss of missing
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God's direction. The next stop comes up and then the next one and the next one.
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Oh, but the people of God. Those who want truth remain not in control, not under their own power, but by the faith of God and the grace of God they remain firm -footed, planted, absolutely will not falter or walk away.
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And Christian, there's a stop coming. There's a stop coming.
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With a door before it opens, you will hear rest from your labors. For there is no more tears, there's no more cancer, there's no more inadequacy, no more injustice.
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And as the doors open, you will hear these words, Welcome my child, well done, thou good and faithful servant.
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And you will walk off that train. And the peace of God that you have struggled in search for your whole life will be recognized fully and you will enter into rest.
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Guys, what do you do with Jesus Christ? What are you going to do with Him?
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Not in the future at the last stop. Because see, some of y 'all have grown up and you addicts in here, you know what
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I'm about to say. You have conned your way into destruction.
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You have in your apathy pushed away again the calling of God and it is built up with interest until it finally climaxes into a place where it can destroy your life.
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But you have conned, lied, and cheated your way through life to a point to where you think that's going to work on that day of judgment.
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I promise you this, and you will remember these words, some of you, as you slip off into the abyss of hell for eternity.
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There is but one God and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess
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Jesus Christ is Lord. The problem is, some of you are going to do it when it's too late.
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Jesus in John chapter 19 has been arrested in Gethsemane. He has now gone through five trials.
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Three of those trials will be religious. Three will be civil. At about 6 o 'clock in the morning,
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He has been brought to a place where the final judgment is about to take place.
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Read with me in John chapter 19 starting in verse 12. From then on,
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Pilate sought to release Him. But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not
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Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.
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When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat Him down in the judgment seat, the bema seat, at a place called the stone pavement.
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By the way, there's a picture of it on your piece of paper. In Aramaic, it says, it reads,
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Garbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.
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And He said to the Jews, Behold your King. And they cried out, Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!
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Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your King? And the chief priests answered and said,
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We have no King but Caesar. So he delivered Him over to be crucified.
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They took Jesus, verse 17, and when He went out, bearing His own cross to the place called the place of the skull, which in Aramaic is called
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Golgotha, there they crucified Him, and with two others on either side,
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Jesus in between them. What are you going to do with Christ? This morning,
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I don't care about your religious or your spiritual understanding. I don't care about it.
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The good news for you is, neither does God. I don't care about your background or if you were abused or you had a great suburban childhood and wore polo shirts like a little preppy sissy.
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I don't care about any of that. I don't care if you've asked Jesus Christ in your heart and you've walked down an aisle.
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I don't care how many times you have come to a place where you have given in to temptation.
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Maybe some of you in this room have had an abortion and you think you're beyond the reach of Christ. I don't care what you have done or where you are from.
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The calling of Jesus Christ is this question, who do you say that He is?
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What are you going to do with the grace of God that He is providing to you right now?
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Some of us in this room want to, but won't. You want to do what's right.
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You want to know peace. Here's how a lady put it to me one time, I have the desire to have the desire, but I have no desire.
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Do you identify with that? It says here in verse 12,
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Pilate sought to release Jesus. He was the largest, most powerful man, the governor of the state of Judea.
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He had heard all the evidence and he wanted to in his heart do what is right.
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Not because Jesus was the Son of God, he wanted to actually have justice.
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He actually wanted to be known as a fair man. He actually wanted to do what was morally and ethically right.
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You see, he wanted to release Jesus Christ. And if you look in chapter 18, it really starts all back there.
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When Jesus was arrested, the first place they took him was to the high priest Caiaphas' house.
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Then they brought him to Pilate. Pilate didn't know what to do with him. He hadn't broken any Roman law.
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So what did he do? He had Jesus beaten and whipped. Now Jesus is sitting before him, shaking from the adrenaline.
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Muscle fibers twitching. He can be seen through the ripped flesh. The pats and drops of blood are audible as it hits the stone pavement.
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The Gabbatha. And Pilate in his heart wants to do what's right.
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But there are things on the outside keeping him from following the call of the Holy Spirit.
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Some of you in this room, you feel and identify with exactly what
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God's Word is saying. You want to do what's right. You are being called to salvation today.
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You are being called to repentance today. But you measure God's call against what could be lost.
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As Pilate sits there and says, I can find nothing wrong with this man. The Jews use political pressure.
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They say to Pilate, Pilate, this man claims to be king.
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If you aid him and release him, you are no friend of Caesar's.
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You see, Pilate was in a place where the Roman emperor wanted two things.
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He wanted all of his subjugated territories to be at peace. Not because he cared about their peace, but it cost money to send an army down to crush a rebellion.
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And also Tiberius Caesar wanted this. He wanted his tax dollars.
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He wouldn't care about righteousness. The Romans lived by oppressing other people.
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There were more slaves in Rome than there were Roman citizens. And as long as they got their money and no one made a wave, they were happy.
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They appointed this guy Pontius Pilate to be the governor. Now he's sitting here and he's got the masses of people saying, crucify him!
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Away with him! Yet, in his heart, legally, morally, ethically, he can find nothing wrong.
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You see, he wants to do what's right. But the world's pressures keep him on a path that will give him a destiny of damnation.
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Listen, it says, as he was talking to Jesus for the last time, it says this, verse 13, when he heard the crowd, when he heard the chief priests saying, if you release this man, you're no friend of Caesar's.
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So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat in the judgment seat.
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Man, that was the longest walk of his life. The longest walk of his life.
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You see, he was suppressing and trying to ignore that which was beating in his heart as being right.
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And every step that he took, every step to that judgment seat was one step closer to the damnation that his soul is experiencing right now.
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You see, as we talk in this air conditioning room, in reality, there is a soul once known as Pontius Pilate with its mouth agape, screaming in pain, and there will be no parole.
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There's no recess. There's no vacation or weekend to look forward to. But second after second, minute and hour, year after year, century, millennia after millennia, that soul that chose the praises of the world rather than the submission to God is now burning in hell.
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Ah, that's just a Baptist hellfire and brimstone message. No, you arrogant idiot.
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It is the word of the living God for whoever rejects Jesus Christ, blasphemes the
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Holy Spirit of God, and there is no forgiveness for that.
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You want to, but you won't. Let me quote to you Matthew chapter 16 verse 26.
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Matthew 16 verse 26 says this, For what will it proffer a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?
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What is the price for your soul? Is it really a juvenile high school codependent relationship with someone who is bringing you down, leading you astray away from the
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Word of God? Is it really your emotional fears?
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You cannot find peace because you're afraid of this, that, or the other.
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Is it really the rejection and the applause of the world, the rejection of Christ?
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Is it really that big of a cost to look at the world and go, No more! You have scarred me.
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You have abandoned me time and time again. And like a dog returning to its vomit,
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I keep coming back. But no more! I don't want to just do what I want to do.
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I don't want to have just the desire. I decide today to follow
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Jesus Christ. Are you going to stay for the rest of your life ruining your life?
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Ruining your entire eternity? Ruining your children? Generation after generation?
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Or are you going to come to a point where you finally say, I'm getting off this crazy train?
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Pun intended. Psalms 1 .1
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says this, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
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I had a coach tell me one time, a long time ago, you have to understand, I constantly had guidance counselors, coaches, parole officers, everybody trying to look at me and they would say this to me,
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Jeff, it's like a speech, Jeff, if you were stupid, that would be one thing.
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But you're smart. You're throwing your life away. I see some of y 'all smiling. Y 'all had the same ones, didn't you?
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Oh, if you would just apply yourself. Oh, if you would just do what's right.
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And I would look at them and go, you're right. Oh, I'm so sorry. I really am.
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I mean, I feel guilty about this. And I would do my own thing.
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You see, what the Jews were really shouting was this, anyone who is friends with Jesus is an enemy of the world.
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Here's what they were really shouting. They were really shouting, we want what we want and we want it right now.
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Is your whole life revolving around satisfying yourself, righteousness, and the lust of your flesh?
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That car that you got that would just make you so happy. You washed it, cleaned it, got down with tweezers and picked the little gravel out of the carpet.
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Six years later you're eating a bag of Taco Bell throwing the paper in the back seat. Because familiarity breeds contempt and that which you thought would make you happy has turned to ash in your mouth again.
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You can't even enjoy, once you're a Christian, you can't even enjoy the buzz of alcohol.
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You can't enjoy the buzz of getting stoned anymore. For as soon as you reach that place that you thought would bring you peace, the conviction of the
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Holy Spirit walks right in and ruins it all. And instead of rejoicing in that and taking solace of that, you try to dive deeper and deeper and deeper.
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Then you start rubbing your teeth. Then you're going to be sitting in front of a toilet one day scratching the flesh off your bone, vomiting because you're addicted to heroin.
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Because you keep thinking that following the world somewhere, somehow, you're going to find an eventual peace and it can only be found in the submission to Jesus Christ our
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Lord. Oh, you don't know what you're talking about. You're just a religious fool. Hey, if I'm a fool for following the
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God who created the universe and said this is what's going to happen and it keeps happening, count me as a fool, dude.
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Because I want to be with the one who is going to win. I want you to think about this for a second.
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Verse 14, it says this. Now, it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour and he was using
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Roman time because of the purview of Pilate. He said, behold your king.
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Now, I want you to understand the sarcasm involved around this. Here's what a lot of people do.
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They will finally submit to something but then they'll become irritated about it.
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Some of y 'all are like, I don't know what you're talking about. Baby, the grass needs to be cut. Baby, the grass needs to be cut.
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Will you stop nagging me? I'm getting to it. Baby, you need to do this.
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Baby, you need to do that. Baby, oh my God, fine, I'll go do it. You get out there and you're pulling on the roof and the one kicking that sucker.
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Right? Or maybe this is just my experience. Gutter stomping that mug.
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You get out there and you start mowing it and you just run one more into the tree. You become angry because something or someone forced you to do what was right.
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That doesn't ever work with Jesus Christ. Never. No one will be able to coerce you, sell you, or force you to submit to Jesus Christ because there won't be submission.
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See? That's why so many people are going to go to hell who have walked down an aisle and prayed
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Jesus in their heart. They did it because their friends did it. Because their parents accepted it.
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Or the culture of their little suburban, yuppie church world asked them to do it.
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They grew up with no peace. They grew up in rebellion to the church. You can rebel against the church all day, the church can't save you.
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But you rebel against Jesus, you're screwed. It says here,
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Pilate does this. He adds there Jesus. And he finally says this,
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Behold your King! Here's your King! Broken.
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Bleeding. Convulsing. He sarcastically says, Behold your
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King! The Jews answered and say this, We have no King but Caesar.
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Now I want you to understand the religious hypocrisy of that statement.
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Jesus was on trial because he made himself equal with God and there is no one over the
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Jew except God. But what did the Jews say? We have no
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King. Not Jehovah, not Adonai, not Yahweh. But they claimed in the political expediency to get their way, we have no
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King but Caesar. You know, we are the greatest deceivers of the whole world.
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I remember, I'm not going to say his name. When I was growing up, there was a member of my family who was bet 500 bucks to steal the flag off the
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East Precinct off Mount Moriah. And he went, Okay.
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So you know what he did? He went and bought an American flag. And he brought it to the
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East Precinct. He walked it in. He said, My father, sheriff's deputy,
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Georgia, has killed line of duty. I want to give this, his flag, to you guys.
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And he got someone to take that flag down and to raise that flag up and won 500 bucks.
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We laughed about it so hard over our bong that had the sheriff's department say no to drugs sticker on it.
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Carburetor. Man, we were so smooth.
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Mississippi River lowered. Tugboats were stranded. He conned a sonar system from the tugboat as a maintenance precaution while the boat was down.
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And the idiot let him on the boat. And this person with a ratchet was...
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And that sonar system sat in our mom's house for 10 years.
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Gwen loves this story. A little frat boy. We used to sell a certain commodity to a lot of the frat boys in Memphis State.
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Them little rich preppy boys loved this product. It altered your mind.
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And they said, dude, we would really love a gas pump. A gas pump.
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Because we could hook it up to a keg and we could keep track of how many gallons of beer we drink.
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We all thought that was a pretty cool idea. Where do we get a gas pump? And this guy said, what do you mean?
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There's one on every corner. Let's go get one. And we did. And then they reneged on it.
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And the gas pump sat in my mom's house for 10 years.
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I remember my wife, first time she came over, she goes, why is there a gas pump in your house?
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Baby, you just don't understand. You know what we're so good at? Is deceiving people.
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But you know what we're great at? Is deceiving ourselves. You will actually believe after you say it long enough and loud enough and enough times, you will believe the bull crap that comes out of your mouth.
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You will. Oh, there'll be that point way down there in the bottom that's called
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God's conviction. Jesus saying, I am the way.
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I am the truth. I am the life. But you'll actually believe you got the answers.
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You see, what they were really saying, they really weren't saying we have no king but Caesar.
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Here's what they were really saying. We have no king but ourselves. And here is the culminating point of salvation.
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Many, many, many people, the multitudes, the vast majority of people say,
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I believe in God. Do you know the number one decreasing scientific thing in the world today amongst young people are, is evolution.
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Because finally people are like going, this just doesn't make sense. It really is that stupid.
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Now we'll believe that a guy can be a girl if he wants to, but we can't believe evolution.
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You see, we've come to a point where we come full circle that lies continually expose themselves, but we will live in the deniability because we're in control of the situation.
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You may be involved in a relationship that is beyond toxic. It's claws are pulling you down into the abyss of hell, but you will hang on because you don't want to be alone.
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You don't want to feel the rejection and the humiliation and the fear and you will hold on for dear life as that anchor drags you down deeper and deeper.
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What you're really saying is, if I hold on long enough and I'm in control long enough,
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I can make this work. Unfortunately for you and the Jews here today, there's only one person in control and that is
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God. I want you to read just a little bit more with me. Verse 16,
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So Pilate, he delivered Him over to them to be crucified. So they took
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Jesus and He went out bearing His own cross to the place called of the skull, which in Aramaic is
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Golgotha. Who delivered
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Jesus? Romans 8 .32 says that God delivered
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Him up for us all. In that moment, they thought they were in charge.
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In that moment, those chief priests, Pontius Pilate, the
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Roman soldiers, the church police, all thoughts, we have won.
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We are taking Jesus Christ to His eternal destiny, which is the grave. And as they marched
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Him out, it says, they delivered Him. But you know what's funny?
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Jesus wasn't kicking or screaming or asking for an appeal. You see,
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He had an eternal past destiny that was being played out right before His eyes, not by a concentric idea of culminating events based on luck and halfway planning.
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You see, He was a sovereign God that before the apple fell out of Adam and Eve's mouth,
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Jesus Christ was already destined to Calvary. You see, because God is sovereign, there is nothing that goes red alert for God.
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Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. That church is preaching heresy. Oh Peter, oh
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Paul, what are we going to do? Oh, they believe girls are boys and boys are girls. Oh my God, let's go protest and boycott
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Disney. That's what Christians do. Are you really that dumb?
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I don't drink, but I ain't boycotting Anheuser -Busch. I don't expect a heathen to act like anything else, but a heathen.
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Why do you get angry and rail against the sin of the world, yet sit in hypocrisy of your own?
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You want to change the world? Cleanse yourself, you sinners, before an angry and righteous
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God. James 4 gives you 10 things as a believer that you need to do.
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And none of them say, look at how horrible the world is. Cleanse your own hands.
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You want a strong family? Cleanse your own hands. You want a strong church? Cleanse your own hands.
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You want a strong community again? It ain't by railing against the homosexuals. It's by the church standing up and being what it should have been for the last 150 years instead of worrying about denominations and race.
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And then we enjoy the fruits of our failures and try to blame it again on something else.
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Ain't it funny how your own individual life mirrors the life of our culture? It's because we are, we are the causality of our culture.
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Jesus walked to Calvary. It says this in verse 18.
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Read it with me. There they crucified Him and with Him two others, one on either side and Jesus between Him.
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I'll let the music peoples come up. Let me ask you a question. Last Sunday I preached.
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Are you waiting to be convinced before you're committed? Are you going to really try to be convinced?
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Are you one of those millennial or Gen Z people that want more evidence for Jesus Christ?
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How much do you need man? How much do you need? You see the problem isn't with the evidence.
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What you're looking for is proof. But faith is devoid of proof. The reality is my faith is not blind faith.
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It is built on a preponderance of evidence that says Jesus was a real person.
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Jesus was crucified under Tiberius by Pontius Pilate. It's in Roman documents man.
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By people who have nothing to do with Christianity. So get off your keyboard and actually start researching other than something your smart friends say.
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I always love when I hear a mother whose son is in rebellion. They always come to me and they say yeah and he's so smart.
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And then I talk to him and I'm like you're so dumb. You really expect me to be impressed by your worldly knowledge?
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I had a guy come in my office talking about the difference between covalent bonding, chemical bonding. And I'm like hey crackhead, what's that got to do with your eternal destiny?
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You see you're throwing up the smokescreen. You're posing. You're flexing to try to show your intelligence.
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You're basing your life on your intelligence when the preponderance of evidence states that Jesus Christ was real.
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Let me ask you a question. Have you ever heard someone say how do you know you weren't there? I enjoy talking to these kind of people.
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It's like a highlight of my day. It really is. And I always make sure they know that I'm a high school dropout.
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It's a highlight of my day. Do you know George Washington was real? Well yeah we have some writings.
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What about Herodias? Descartes? What about these other people? Do you believe they were real?
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Oh yeah they were real. Oh absolutely. How do you know? Well this person talked about them. You ever read the scripture?
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Yeah I'm not so sure about that. Okay. You know what's funny? Stalin wrote his philosophy on communism but he never had to defend it with his life.
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He defended it with other people's lives. But he never had to defend it with his own. Yet yet sitting in front of you right now is an eyewitness written account by hundreds of people who it cost them their life to believe.
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I'm going to be honest with you. Tennessee Vols are the number one football team in the entire world.
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Entire world. And I really believe that.
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But I guarantee you this. You start beating me.
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Take my money. Take my wife and nail her to the wall to where she's screaming and begging for mercy.
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You start taking hammers and beating my children's brains out. You take my grandchildren and sell them into slavery.
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At some point during that I'm going to go okay,
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I made all of this up. For two thousand years the saints of God who decided to ride that train to glory have been going to the grave no matter what the cost.
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No matter what the penalty. Saying Jesus Christ is Lord. You want evidence?
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Open your eyes. Take yourself off the throne. Put Jesus Christ there because he's already there.
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And start worshipping something other than yourself. We're going to have a hymn of imitation. I ain't asking you to come to a
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Baptist church. I ain't asking you for your stupid money. I don't care about your belief system, thought process, philosophy or your mama was mean to you when you were a kid.
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I don't care if someone abused you, beat you, tricked you, lied to you.
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None of those excuses will work when you stand before the judgment seat that is coming.
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And Jesus won't be standing there. He'll be sitting there in that judgment. And all of your excuses, your con artists, the lies that the world have told you will be no account.
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You will hear these words, depart from me you worker of iniquity.
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For I never knew you. He ain't going to ask about no prayer.
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He ain't going to ask about what church you belong to or for some of you older Baptists, my letter's been in this church for 30 years.
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Ain't nobody caring. In here no one cares. I promise you
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God don't. So maybe find something to be proud of other than your letter. How about your ministry, your work, your sacrifice, your love?
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You see those things are all indicative that you really are a Christian. If you don't love your fellow brother and sister in Christ, you got a problem.
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John 14, Jesus said those who love me will keep my commandments. Not when it's convenient, but when it costs you your life.
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Where are you this morning? Some of you know that this sermon, these words, not mine, are for you in this room.
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Question is, are you just going to want to and won't? Question is, are you going to harden your heart again and again?
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Eventually that soft still small voice calling you to salvation will bleed off into a small whisper because you're eating the voices of the world.
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This is your chance. I can't save you, but I can show you someone who can.
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If you need to know salvation, I want you to publicly walk your rear end down here and if you are too ashamed, if you're too ashamed of that, you are not ready yet for salvation.
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You ain't ready. So keep your butt in your seat and look up at the screen and mindlessly mumble something.
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Maybe raise your hand in the air to show that maybe you really are a Christian and continue to believe the lies that got you in the place where you are right now.
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It's funny, man. I see Christians who worship worship as a sign that they're really
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Christians. You ain't worshiping God. You worship in your worship style. I hear people worshiping pastors and preachers and denominations.
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All that crap going to send you straight to hell. If you need to get saved, come down.
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Number two, if you're a Christian and you really are, but you keep wanting to get off at different stops instead of that final destination, if your hand has faltered and your steps have fluttered a little bit and you keep falling on your face, the best thing that I got to help you is not the fat guy praying over you.
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I'll pray for you. I mean, I'm here, but I got something better for you.
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I got the Word of God and then I got a room full of people, listen to me Christian person, who will hold you accountable.
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Who will get up in your face and yes, judge you when you are stupid and tell you stop being stupid.
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I'm just so miserable. I don't want to know what to do. Stop being stupid.
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You start doing different things. Different things will happen. You're 40 years old and you're still stupid.
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You need other people who used to be stupid who are not stupid anymore telling you that you're stupid and then you'll quit being stupid.
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It's not that hard. Come up and say, I'm one of the stupid. I need help from other people to stop being stupid.
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We do really good at stupid people here. So come on up. One more won't matter.
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If you haven't been like Amanda who actually didn't just say, dear
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Jesus, come into my heart and not do anything on the outside. If you need to be baptized, if you need to submit to something other than yourself and the world, come forward and say,
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I need to be baptized. And kids, what happened to you at eight days old in your Catholic church does not count as baptism.
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Nowhere in Scripture do they baptize children. But churches do it. You know why?
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Because I am king, not him. Guys, if you've not been baptized and if you need to join the church, bring yourself up here.
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I'm going to ask you to stand with me. Pastors, come forward. If God has spoken to you today, you come by obedience, not emotion.