What's Harder than Hating Evil?

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All right, let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for this opportunity to again be in Your house, to be about the business of studying Your Word, to focus this time and our attention upon the reality of what we have been called to do in walking the Christian walk, particularly those things which are most difficult for us to do.
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We pray, O Lord, as we engage this subject, that our hearts would be open, our minds would be open to the truth, that we would not allow our flesh to repel what the text tells us to do, for we know, O Lord, that the text does often run against the grain of our flesh and it can be uncomfortable to hear what Your Word tells us to do, but yet at the same time, O Lord, we are still commanded to be obedient to You.
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So we pray, Lord, not only for ears to hear, but also for a heart of obedience.
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And Father, I do pray for the lesson as You open my mouth to speak.
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I pray, Lord, that You would keep me from error.
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I pray, Lord, also that You would protect the congregation from error and that You would guide us all in the pursuit of the truth.
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And Lord, we pray again that all would be in accordance with Your divine Word.
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In Jesus' name we pray and for His sake, Amen.
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All right, if you want to open up your Bibles again with us, we're going to be back in Romans chapter 12.
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Back in Romans chapter 12.
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We have been looking at this chapter now for quite a bit of time, a few months, because we've spent a lot of time looking at spiritual gifts.
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Then a few weeks ago, we started looking at verse 9 and we've gotten down to verse 13.
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And what I made mention of is that verses 9 through 13 really deal with how Christians are to behave within the body, how Christians are to behave within the fellowship of believers and how we're to treat one another.
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One of the things I said is most difficult in the exhortations found between verse 9 and verse 13 is the exhortation to abhor what is evil.
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I want to just remind you why that's difficult.
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Abhorring what is evil is difficult because, quite frankly, there are things that are evil that are enticing.
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There are things that are evil that our flesh craves.
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In fact, that's the very reason why we do things which are evil.
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We do things which are evil because our flesh craves those evil things.
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As I said, it's easy for us to abhor things which we think are horrible.
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It's easy for me to abhor abortion.
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I think it's terrible.
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It turns my stomach to think that anyone would ever do such a thing.
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It turns my stomach to think that there are millions of dollars every year that are spent on such a thing and that there are countless doctors and women who are undergoing these, doing these things, practicing these things.
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To me, as I said many times, I think it is the holocaust of our age.
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I think it is a horrible thing.
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It's easy for me to think that's terrible.
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It's easy for me to look at something like homosexual marriage and say, how horrible, how terrible is this thing? To see the perversion of the family, the perversion of the role of mother and father, the perversion of the role of children having both dad and mom, and the perversion of the American idea of what a family is.
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Yes, I hate that.
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And it's easy for me to hate that.
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But then again, I know, and if I'm honest with myself, I know all too well that there are evil things that are enticing.
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And it's going to be different for every person.
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It's going to be different for you than for me.
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It's going to be different man to woman.
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It's going to be different between every person because all of us being wired a little bit differently, all of us have different things that drive us.
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And while one person may have a tendency toward anger, another person may have a tendency towards gossip, and another person may have a tendency towards lust.
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And all of these are the things that the flesh craves, and all of these are the things that we tend to love.
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And that's why I said, in fact, the sermon is on Sermon Audio and it's entitled, because I normally don't title Wednesday Night Sermons until I'm finished.
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Because we never know how long, how far we're going to get, things like that.
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And I tend to look at the sermon after I'm done and say, well, what was the major theme tonight? What did we focus on? This is it.
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Well, the title of that sermon two weeks ago was, The Difficulty of Hating Evil.
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Because really there are things that are just difficult to hate evil, the evil that entices.
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So, thinking on that same theme, thinking about what we've learned, my next question that popped into my mind today is, I was thinking about what we were going to talk about tonight, and the text we were going to go through, and how far we were going to get, was what is harder than hating evil? What is harder than hating evil? And Brother Irv said, when he came in, he said, I know the answer.
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What's harder than hating evil is loving good.
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And while I think that is a good answer, it's not the answer I have.
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And since I'm teaching, I'm going to go with mine.
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It's a good answer.
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You're right.
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Loving good is difficult.
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That's why it says, a poor what is evil, cling to that which is good.
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So yes, in that passage.
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But I think something that's even harder than loving good is loving evil people.
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So that's my answer.
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What is harder than hating evil? I'm going to put this.
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Loving evil people.
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That's really hard to do.
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In fact, I would say of all the things we as believers are called to do, of everything, taking up the cross, following after Christ, being willing to submit to all manner of torture, being willing to submit to all manner of disrepute, being willing to submit to all manner of lifestyle change, to pick up the cross and follow Christ, all of those things are incredibly difficult.
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But not to me the most difficult.
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To me the most difficult is that I have been commanded by Christ to love people who hate me.
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And that's the text for the evening.
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So let's read.
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We're going to read verses 14.
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We're going to read down to verse 21.
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Again, I don't expect us to get there, but I think it will help us get a feeling of the context of the passage.
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Starting at verse 14, it says, Bless those who persecute you.
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Bless and do not curse them.
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Rejoice with those who rejoice.
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Weep with those who weep.
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Live in harmony with one another.
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Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.
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Never be conceited.
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Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of God.
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If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
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Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.
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For it is written, Vengeance is mine.
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I will repay, says the Lord.
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To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
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If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
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For by doing so, you will keep burning coals on his head.
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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
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So beginning now, looking back to verse 14.
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We understand the context.
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We understand we have just been given a listing of very difficult exhortations.
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As I've said, I think this passage in chapter 12 of Romans is one of the most difficult to live out in our daily life.
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And here is the verse of verses.
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If you said, Keith, which verse do you think of the Bible is the most difficult to live out? I would say it is verse 14 of Romans chapter 12.
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Because verse 14 says to bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.
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How many of you remember when I say have said in the past that any time you see a word being used twice in a text or three times in a text, any time you see the repetition of a word that that word then becomes somewhat of a theme of that particular passage or that particular section of passages.
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For instance, we see that in many other places in scripture where you will see Jesus saying, I tell you the truth.
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I tell you the truth.
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I tell you the truth.
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That is an emphasis he is making.
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Well, here we see the Apostle Paul using a double emphasis on the word bless.
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He says, first bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.
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Now, because I don't carry a New American Standard Bible on me, I've got it in my pocket if you want to look at my cell phone.
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I've got all the versions on my cell phone.
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It's so funny, somebody asked me for my Bible the other day and I handed them my cell phone and they just went.
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Well, there it is.
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What does the new NASV say? Versus 14 you said? Okay, same thing.
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Double emphasis on the word bless.
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We see that word twice in the text.
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I wanted to make sure that it wasn't being left out in another translation.
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I wouldn't expect the NAS to do that.
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I don't know about the NIV.
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I know that some of you have that.
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Does everyone have the double bless, seeing the word there twice? Yeah, it does? Okay, good.
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And again, because I think that there's emphasis being made here.
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Because it is really, really easy to curse people who curse us.
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And I don't mean curse in the sense of we think of curse as curse words.
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Scripture is a little deeper than that.
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Curse words are what we call foul language.
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It's more than just that.
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In fact, I think one of the most...
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One of the things that I think is has become so confused in our language is blasphemy.
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Because people only think of blasphemy as one thing.
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What do people think of blasphemy? Somebody who has the audacity to use God's name and the curse word in the same construction and making it one word, which itself then becomes the curse word of curse words.
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Most of us know what word I'm talking about right there.
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And none of us would utter it, but you know exactly what I mean and you hear someone say it and it turns your stomach because you know it's bad.
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You know that's a blasphemy statement.
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But the problem is we have become conditioned to think that blasphemy only comes in words.
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We think that blasphemy is just something someone says.
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No, blasphemy is an attitude.
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Blasphemy is an action.
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You can blaspheme God by what you do.
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Likewise, cursing is not necessarily words.
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When he says bless and do not curse, he's referencing more here behavior than he is what you say because as most of you probably already know, maybe a hundred percent of you know this, you can say things with your mouth and do something different with your heart and your mind and with your hands and your feet.
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You can say things for instance, you know, we speak nice to someone.
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We speak well of them when they're with us and then they leave the room or they were somewhere else or we're out, as Jack talks about all the time, sidewalk gossip.
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You know, we get out on the sidewalk and they're not, we look over both shoulders and when they're not here anymore, now we can tell how we really feel because they're no longer with us.
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Right? And that's the issue here.
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It's not just about words, but it's about what's in the heart.
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And when he says bless those who persecute you, he's really taking it to the highest extreme because really in the arc of people that we associate with, if you think of people around you and people that you have a relationship with, I don't mean good relationship, I mean any relationship at all, people that you relate to in some way, this is usually how the arc goes out.
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Usually it's your immediate family who you love and you protect and you care for and you're with most of the time.
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Outside of that is your immediate friends that you're close to.
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Usually those people are even closer than extended family.
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Extended family goes outside of that because you see them even less.
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I know we do.
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We have friends that we see.
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I see most of y'all much more than I see my extended family.
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My extended family kind of comes next.
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Then we get out to acquaintances.
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You know, people that we see every once in a while.
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Facebook's kind of opened up the door to have thousands of acquaintances now.
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People have many people that they call their friends, but you have to put a little aside.
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You have to say they're Facebook friends.
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They're really not friends.
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They're just people that see me write stuff on Facebook and I see them.
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But then you start to get outside to other types of people that you relate to, but you don't relate to them positively.
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There are family members that you don't relate to positively.
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I know I have family members, people that don't particularly believe the way I believe.
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People that don't have the same values.
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We have the same blood, the same genes.
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We both came from the same grandmother, grandfather, same uncle, whatever.
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But we have different perspectives on life.
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Thus, they become further out.
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Why am I telling this? I'm drawing a mental picture for you for this reason.
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If you had to put people into a category of the people that you relate to and say, who would be the furthest from what I would want to relate to? It would be people who persecute you.
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It absolutely would.
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It would be people who mistreat you.
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Particularly people who mistreat you because of your relationship to Christ.
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I don't know about you, but one of the things that so hurts me inside is when someone mistreats me because of my relationship with Christ.
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And the reason why it hurts me so much inside is twofold.
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Number one, it hurts me because of their spiritual condition.
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When someone mistreats me because I'm following Christ, I know where they are and they're not in Christ.
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Thus, we're looking at a person here who hates the Gospel, who hates the truth, who hates God and yes, the Bible does say there are people who are God haters.
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It says we all were until God saved us.
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I'm looking at someone whose only hope in life is that when they die, their spirit just ceases to exist.
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That's their only hope because outside of that is an eternal hell.
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So yes, I hurt for them when they persecute me for Christ's sake.
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I hurt for them because I know where their spiritual condition lies.
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But also, I'm offended for Christ.
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I know that when someone has blasphemed Christ by persecuting me, there's a pain that goes towards thinking, here is a person who God has given life.
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Here is a person whom God has blessed.
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Here is a person whom God has given intelligence, intellect, will, compassion, love.
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They have a family that they love, but yet they hate the God who created them.
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And for them, my heart breaks and I hurt.
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And I'll add another.
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Sometimes they make me mad.
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Can I be honest? Can we all be honest with ourselves and say that a person who is running headlong into hell and has offended my God angers me.
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Yeah, the audacity of their behavior angers me.
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And that's why this passage is so difficult.
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But you know what? The first two things that I said should be what drive me, not my anger.
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Because my first one is compassion for them.
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My second one is love for God.
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My third one is the flesh.
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You see that? The first thing that upset me was their spiritual condition.
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I love them.
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I don't want them to go to hell.
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That should drive me.
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The second one, I don't want God's name blasphemed.
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That should drive me.
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But the third one is I didn't like the fact that they were talking about my God and that became a slight at me and now I'm taking it personally.
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And it's becoming a personal offense.
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And at that point, I start behaving in the flesh rather than in the spirit.
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And you know what? I've been there.
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Yeah, it becomes sin, doesn't it? It becomes sin because I'm no longer acting out of love and compassion for God or for them.
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I'm acting out of love for my flesh.
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Because my flesh was offended and I didn't like it.
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So what am I to do? I am to focus on those first two virtues.
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If someone is persecuting me, the first thing I need to realize is number one, they're not persecuting me because of me.
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They're persecuting me because of Christ.
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And if there's anyone in the entire universe who is worth being persecuted for, it is Christ.
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If there's anyone in the universe who is worth being hurt for, who is worth being assaulted for, who is worth being hit for, cut for, killed for, it is Christ.
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As such, I need to understand this person who hates Christ, who hates what I'm doing because of Christ, they are persecuting me because of the sake of Christ.
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I know this.
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The Bible says that there is blessing that associates that type of persecution.
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In fact, let's read it because I think it reminds us of a very important truth.
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Turn to Matthew chapter 5.
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Hold your place there.
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We're going to go back.
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Hold your place in Romans and go to Matthew 5.
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Most of you remember this.
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In Matthew chapter 5, it begins three chapters of Jesus' most complete sermon.
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What we call the Sermon on the Mount.
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Matthew gives us a play-by-play of Jesus' most complete sermon in the text of Scripture.
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Certainly He preached it more than one time and certainly He preached multiple sermons throughout His ministry.
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This is the most complete that we have of a sermon by Christ.
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That's what makes it so special.
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Not just what it says, but what it is.
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It's an actual written-down version of one of Christ's sermons.
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The perfect preacher preaching the perfect sermon.
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Here we have it.
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At the beginning we have what are called the Beatitudes.
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It comes from the word beatific, which means to bless.
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I used to think when I was a kid, I thought it meant the Beatitudes meant those are the attitudes you're supposed to be in.
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I mean, you know, it's just simple and you know what? It's not a bad way of thinking of it for a child because it says the attitude of poor in spirit, the attitude of being meek, of being, you know, of mourning, all these things.
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And I thought the Beatitudes, those are the attitudes you're supposed to be.
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Kind of simple.
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But really it comes from the idea of beatific or blessed.
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That's where we get the word.
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And when it talks about in verse 11.
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Actually, let's look at verse 10 because that's where persecution begins with persecution.
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Verse 10 says blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
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For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are you.
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Notice Jesus changes His focus because up until that point, He's blessed of the pure in heart.
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Blessed are the peacemakers.
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Blessed are those who are persecuted.
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He's speaking in sort of generalities.
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Now He's pointing a finger.
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Blessed are you.
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When others revile you.
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And persecute you.
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And utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
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Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.
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For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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Beloved, all Paul is doing in Romans chapter 12 when he says, bless those who persecute you.
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Bless and do not curse.
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All he is doing is reiterating this passage from the Sermon on the Mount.
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All he's doing is reminding us of what Christ has already said.
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When someone persecutes us, all we are doing is we are sharing in the line, the lineage of the prophets who have already been persecuted for their faith in God.
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We're just one more in a long line of people who because of their faith in Christ and their faith in God have had to deal with persecution.
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Persecution is not easy.
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Persecution is very difficult.
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But at the same time, persecution carries with it a sense of blessing.
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Now, on top of that, before we get to how to bless someone who curses us, I want to address one other thing.
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We can go back to Romans 12 if you'd like.
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I want to talk about something that I think is very important to bring out and this is one of those things that I hope is actually spread further than this room because such a small group, I hope more people hear this on the internet and stuff because I think this is an important thing for us to hear.
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There is such a thing as and let me see if I can make it make sense.
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There is such a thing of what I would call false persecution or people who are looking to be persecuted when they're not really being persecuted so that they can sort of reap the benefit of what they think the persecution is bringing them.
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For instance, when a church behaves in such a way that they are not behaving in a godly way, but they are insulting the name of Christ by their actions and then the world says to them, you're acting foolish and they say, oh well we're just being persecuted by the world.
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No, you were acting foolish.
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You weren't being persecuted, you were being foolish and the world called you out on it.
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I think some of you are having some pictures in your mind.
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You know exactly who I'm talking about, exactly what I'm talking about because there are folks out there there are religious groups that call themselves Christian that are nothing of the kind and every time they do something crazy and somebody calls them out on it, other Christians call them out on it and they say oh man, that's just being persecuted we're just being persecuted, we're going to sit here and enjoy our persecution.
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You're not being persecuted if you're not following the word of God and somebody calls you out on it.
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You're simply being foolish.
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That's an example.
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That's an example.
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What is the benefit? Somebody may say, well, they're standing against the homosexual movement because that's the whole idea behind what they're doing.
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They're protesting the funerals of gay soldiers and that's how they, oh, we're protesting homosexuals and thus we have this thing.
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And here though is the, here's the defining moment.
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Exactly what are you doing to demonstrate the truth of the gospel by doing that? Yes, by doing what they're doing, they're not demonstrating the truth of the gospel.
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They're demonstrating their own foolishness.
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I remember one time I don't know I don't know if you like this author some of you will, some of you won't you all know who Tim LaHaye is, right? Tim LaHaye wrote the Left Behind series with Jerry B.
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Jenkins' very long set of books about a dispensational, pre-millennial view of the end times.
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It's not what they called it, but that's what it was.
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That's why I don't write I guess.
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The title would be too long.
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Jerry B.
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Jenkins was on Larry King and his, no I'm sorry, Tim LaHaye was on Larry King and so was his wife.
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They were sitting there talking to Larry King.
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Billy Graham's son was on there as well, Franklin Graham, he was via satellite so they would cut to him every few moments.
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And I saw there a demonstration of something I had never seen before but it was like, Jennifer remembers this, remembers the night it happened.
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It was like the antithesis of, you saw right and wrong.
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You saw right and the antithesis of right, which was the foolishness.
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Tim LaHaye's wife was there.
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She is not a pastor, she is not a speaker but she's related to him and I assume that's why she was there.
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I don't know what she does, but at this moment it would have been the best moment in the world for her to have just not spoken.
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Sometimes what we should have said was nothing.
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Larry King threw out the question of homosexuality.
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When a Christian is asked about homosexuality we have the right to say what the Bible says.
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We have the right to say that the Bible says that it's unnatural.
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I am fully in support of Kirk Cameron who stood up and said it's unnatural.
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It's not something that he can support as a Christian and I support him and I'm going to mention it on Sunday because it's part of my sermon talking about how he took a stand and I think that's a great thing that he took a stand.
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However don't be foolish because this is her answer to the question Larry King asked.
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Larry King said, well you don't believe in gay marriage.
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Her response, and I quote, well Larry don't you know those people carry diseases? And they quit asking anyone else any questions.
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They just kept asking her questions because they knew she was digging that very horrible trench.
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As I've said many times, sometimes what you should have said was nothing.
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Because here's the antithesis of that.
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Here's the antithesis of that.
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Franklin Graham who has a great ministry, Samaritan's Purse, they do wonderful things all over the world.
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Every time they cut to Franklin Graham they tried to bait him.
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Because those are baiting questions.
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By the way Kirk Cameron, when he went on that show he was there to talk about a movie that he's doing, Monumental is the name of the movie which I encourage people to go see.
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Talks about the history of the United States and the Christian history.
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He was there to talk about that.
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Homosexual marriage wasn't even part of it.
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Piers Morgan brought that in because he wanted to staple something to him that would be more important than the movie.
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And he did.
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And he did a good job.
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However, again I stand with Kirk.
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I think this is a time when he's enduring media persecution and things like that.
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Hey, you know what? I think he will reap the blessing in the end, no matter what.
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But getting back to the thing, every time the camera cut to Franklin Graham the guy would ask a question.
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And he literally, and it made me laugh because they did it three times and they just quit cutting to him.
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Because every time they would cut to him, they would say Franklin, well, what's your take on that? And he'd say, well, Larry there's a lot that the Bible says on that subject, but the most important thing the Bible says is that all men are sinners.
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That all people need to be saved and that Jesus Christ is the only Savior.
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And old Larry King said, alright, that's good.
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He'd coach somebody else.
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He'd come back and after about the third time, they just quit cutting to him because he wasn't doing anything else.
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He wasn't feeding into their questions.
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He wasn't feeding into that garbage.
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He just spoke the truth of the Gospel.
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He didn't hide it.
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He didn't say all people are good and we just need to be made better.
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He said no people are sin and Jesus is the only Savior.
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He was very clear and for that I give him the greatest amount of encouragement in the world.
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I think that was good.
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But again, false persecution is when we do do things that we ought not do in the world or say things that we ought not say or behave in ways we ought not behave.
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And if the world comes down on us and the church comes down on us, that's not persecution.
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That's called reaping what you sow.
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And the Bible says very clearly, we do reap what we sow.
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In fact, I remember one of my seminary professors made it very clear.
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He said, remember this, you always reap what you sow.
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You always reap later than you sow.
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So if you're reaping evil or you're sowing evil, you're going to reap evil.
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You're going to reap more evil and it's going to come later, but it's going to come and be sure.
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So a lot of these folks, I mean, there's a myriad of places and things that you can mention out there.
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But just know this, real and genuine persecution is this, when we are following Christ and the world hates us for following Christ.
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That's what persecution is.
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Christ, when we have stood for Christ and the world has rejected us as a result.
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And it will.
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And that's okay.
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So he says, bless those who persecute you.
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That's the first half of the sentence.
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And the second part, he reiterates the word bless and then he says those words, bless and do not curse.
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Now you may think, you know, well that's just antithesis.
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One is bless, one is do not curse.
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It is.
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But it really goes to the real heart of the matter.
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Because when it says do not curse, that's in the imperative.
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That's a statement of what we are not supposed to do.
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Do not do this.
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Because that is so easy for us to do.
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It is so easy for us to want to turn on those who have persecuted us and share with them back what they have given to us.
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Now starting at verse 15, verse 15 and 16, I think I want to take them out and set them aside because I want to deal with them directly.
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Because I think verse 14 and verse 17 go together very well and obviously I'm not telling Paul how to do his job.
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I mean obviously the Holy Spirit knew how this was supposed to be and I think they all fit together in the grand crux.
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But I think there's an aside at verse 15.
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Because he says bless those who persecute you, bless those who do not curse and then he starts talking about rejoicing with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, live in harmony with one another, do not be haughty, but associate with the other.
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He's talking then about an internal attitude.
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When we see someone hurting, we should hurt with them.
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If we see somebody rejoicing, we should rejoice with them.
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We should never consider ourselves better than other people.
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That's the idea of being haughty.
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That's an attitude that we shouldn't have.
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But then he goes right back to those who do us evil.
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He jumps right back in verse 17.
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Repay no one evil for evil but get thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
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What's honorable in the sight of all? Go back up to verse 15.
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15 and 16.
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That's what's honorable in the sight of all.
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That's how it all fits together.
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Verse 14 and verse 17 go together.
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Verse 15 and 16 go together and they're all this.
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Don't do this, but do this.
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It's showing you both sides.
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But the key to what we're not supposed to do is repay anyone evil for evil.
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We are not supposed to do that.
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But that is the most natural thing for us to do.
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Somebody does bad to you and your first response is, how can I make them pay? Yeah, ball up your fist.
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Peter said, how many times do I got to forgive? Seven, because I'm at eight times.
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I'm going to let them have it.
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And then Jesus said 490 times and Peter said, oh, all the wind was out of the sails at that point.
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Man, that's too many to count.
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But the reality is that when people are doing bad to us, we want to know what can we do? In fact, we plot.
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How can I return this evil thing and get away with it? We look for loopholes in Scripture.
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Well, hey, you know, the Israelites fought back.
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I mean, anything.
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We look for ways to be able to return that evil for evil.
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And as hard as it is to do, we are commanded to not seek to be repairs of evil.
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Again, if you follow down in the text, it's clearly that is God's job.
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Look down in verse 19.
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Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.
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For as written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
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That's the key.
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Because whenever we take the responsibility of paying someone back who has done us wrong, whenever we take that responsibility, we take the role of Eve in the garden.
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What's he talking about? What enticed Eve to eat the fruit? You will be like God.
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What do we do when we demonstrate the wrath and return and not leave it to the Lord? We desire to be in the position of God.
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Right? Because the text clearly says it's God's right.
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It's God's responsibility.
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It's God's prerogative to return.
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It is not our prerogative to return.
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So, if we say, no, I'm going to take the wrath, you know, I've heard people say, well, God's the one giving the wrath, I'm just a delivery boy.
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Or whatever.
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If that's the attitude that we take, I'm going to be God's deliverer of justice in this regard because I've been wronged, thus I've got to wrong someone else or wrong that person back to even up the score.
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When I do that, what I've done at that point is I've said God is not efficient, fast, and strong enough to satisfy what I want to have done.
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Absolutely.
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And what I want to make clear because I want to build on something that you're referencing there.
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I do want to make clear that this verse does not abrogate justice.
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This verse suspends revenge.
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Hear that again.
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It does not abrogate justice.
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It suspends revenge.
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Because the reality is justice is what maintains people who are totally depraved from demonstrating their depravity.
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The Bible says we're all totally depraved.
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The Bible says the doctrine of total depravity, that all men are dead in their sins until God gives them a new life in their spirit.
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And we have seen what happens when totally depraved people prove it.
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Look at countries that are under laws which are not governed by democracy and republic ideals and countries that are governed by people that are tribal and that behave monstrously towards one another.
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Look at our own country.
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When the police were forced out of New Orleans during the time of Katrina, people began to behave in their depravity.
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And they raped one another and they killed one another and they stole from one another and they hurt one another.
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So yes, justice is still very important.
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And if someone persecutes me and harms me, while I have a responsibility in my heart to not seek evil against them, I can have the desire for justice.
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You remember in Romans I'm sorry, we're in Romans, in Revelation where those who had died for the sake of the Gospel, I believe it's in Revelation chapter 5, what did they cry out for day and night? Justice.
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It said the souls of those who had died for the sake of the Gospel cried out to the Lord day and night, when will you bring justice? So we can certainly cry out for justice.
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And we certainly have that desire in our heart.
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But here's the thing that I think Paul has in view.
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I don't think Paul has justice in view.
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What I think Paul has in view here is revenge.
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When someone harms us, we want to harm them back twice as much.
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Do you? Yes sir.
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We justify it to ourselves that we are God's children.
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God's busy.
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Yeah, we're going to take it out.
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As I said, I'm the messenger boy.
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I'm God's messenger of justice.
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And we do.
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We make it right in our own heart and in our own mind.
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We can do this and we can do this wrong and it's going to be okay because we're just fulfilling God's will.
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God wanted them to be punished for what they did.
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I'm just going to be the one who does the punishing.
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It's very true.
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And I think this passage very clearly tells us it's not our role.
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In fact, one of the things that I find most interesting is one passage I think many people misunderstand.
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And this is where we'll finish tonight because I think we're close to the end time now.
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Oh, well we're close to the end time.
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Yeah, close to the end of our time.
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I don't want you to think I'm Harold Camping.
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Most of you are familiar with the verse that says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth hand for hand and foot for foot, right? We're familiar with that, right? And we know that that has often been used by unbelievers and even by believers to justify revenge.
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However, most people do not know the context of that particular passage.
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I've heard some people say, well, that's Old Testament.
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That's not even applicable to today.
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Don't have that attitude because you become a very precarious perp when you do that.
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Here's the reality of it.
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There is still today, right now, a place where a hand and hand a foot for foot, eye for eye and tooth for tooth still finds its perfect placement in society.
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And it is in the place of law and order.
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Law and order demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot.
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That is why, as we've seen, most of you are familiar with the liberty, Lady Liberty, who holds the scales of justice and her eyes are always, what? Covered.
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They're blind.
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Because it's about justice and equality and that's what leads to liberty and freedom and the ability to live in a free justice leads to being able to live in a free society.
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And here's what I'm trying to point out.
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When that text was given in the Old Testament, that text was given to a specific group among the Israelites.
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It was given to those whose responsibility it was to make judgment.
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To make law judgment.
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It was given to the judges.
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When you judge, you are to judge with equality.
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Eye for eye, hand for hand, foot for foot.
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Because if somebody took my eye, my flesh would probably want to take their life.
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If somebody took my hand, I would probably want to take their life.
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Eye for an eye doesn't tell you that it's always right to get yours.
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Eye for an eye sets up a limit within the law that this is what is just.
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And it's not yours to get.
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God ensures justice.
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And if not justice here, He ensures justice in eternity.
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We will never in eternity look back at anything that's happened here and say, God, that was unjust.
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Because God will ensure that every right, I'm sorry, every wrong will be righted and every unjust act will be vindicated.
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But we have to trust God.
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Yes? How about when you say eye for eye, in today's justice system, you take a person, He kills the person.
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We bring Him to justice.
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We take His life.
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Yes? No, I think that's correct.
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Genesis chapter 9 spells out the first instance of human government.
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In Genesis 9, right after Noah came off the ark, and right after Noah came off the ark, God instituted human government by saying, this first thing, human life is the most precious thing under heaven because it's made in My image.
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And any person who takes that has forfeited their own.
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It says, he who sheds blood by man shall his blood be shed.
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That's what the text says in Romans chapter 9, I think it's verse 5.
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And God makes that thing to Noah.
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He says, if a person commits murder, not kills on accident or knocks somebody off a ladder.
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I know you know what I'm saying.
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That's one thing that a lot of people confuse is thou shall not kill.
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It's nowhere in the Scripture.
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It's in King James and a few other texts.
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It's actually the word murder which is why God could command the Israelites to go and fight and to kill and it not be unjust.
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That's why a soldier who's in battle can fight and it not be unjust.
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Yes ma'am? He even instituted the cities of refuge for them.
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Yeah, that was another thing.
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If you look through the Old Testament, God sets up these cities of refuge and what they were basically was, say you had killed my friend and I was angry with you.
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I want justice.
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I want revenge.
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But you didn't mean to do it.
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You have, you can go to this city and this city was established just for you to have protection while all of the legal things were worked out so I couldn't kill you.
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The avenger of blood.
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That's my job.
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I would try to kill you because you killed my friend, you know, or my family member.
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Yes sir? Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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And God delights in justice.
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And that's, you know, that's one of the most dangerous things about our current political and judicial system is that when our judicial system mocks the truth of the Word of God which calls for justice, we are mocking the very God who established justice itself.
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And that was an addendum to the sermon but yeah, a little social commentary there.
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Next week we are going to look specifically at verses 15 and 16 and we're going to tie them to verse 18 because verses 16 and 17 I'm sorry, 15 and 16 talk about how we're to behave, weep for those who weep, rejoice for those who rejoice and then I love verse 18 because it says this if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all and what we're going to talk about is how much it depends on us.
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It won't be next week.
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Thank you.
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But next time we meet, next time I preach Byron's preaching next week because I'm going to be at a conference or not a conference wherever I'm going to be is where I'll be.
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Award ceremony.
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But we're going to address verses 15 and 16, see how they tie into verse 18 and then we're going to try to finish out this chapter the next time we meet.
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Alright? Let's pray.
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Father, thank you again for this time of study.
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Thank you for all that you have taught us from your word and we do pray Lord that we would be encouraged to continue to study to continue to grow and continue to be fed by the word as we just seek to love you and love one another.
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In Jesus name Amen.