Contrary To Nature

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Lord Jesus again, we have come to open up your word to study so that we might rightly understand it as we continue to understand

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What you have revealed in your commandments Regarding the extent of what it means to not commit adultery

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We ask that we would embrace what your word reveals That we would apply it to our lives and as your word says glorify

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God with our bodies all of this we ask through our crucified and risen Savior who has washed away the filth of all of our sin and has made our

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Robes white in the blood of Christ. We ask in Jesus name. Amen All right, real quick question here

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I want you to think along with me if you would in the ancient world before Christianity Started were the ancient civilizations known for their sexual purity or something different You don't know

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You don't get out much, okay Well, this is one of those this is

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One of those things where it lets us say this is a topic that is well covered Pompeii y 'all heard of Pompeii Pompeii was is a town that was literally frozen in time

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Mount Vesuvius blew its top a pyroclastic flow came down and Literally covered

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Pompeii and it wasn't until recently kind of recently in human history that they rediscovered

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Pompeii they've excavated the site gotten rid of all the ash and guess what was on the wallpaper

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Not so nice things Stuff that is not safe for work is the best way I can put it

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So that Romans were not known for their sexual purity. How about the ancient

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Greeks? No ancient civilizations. They're not known for this Right just read a

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Greek comedy now in our Bibles We have we have two letters that are written to a church in Corinth if they are first and second

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Corinthians We're gonna do a little bit of geographic study here Corinth is right here in the middle this is the isthmus of Corinth right there and it separates the

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Ionian Sea and the Aegean Sea and in the ancient world the idea of actually cutting across This and cutting off a large loop would be an important thing kind of like when people want to circumnavigate the globe

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It's good to go through the Panama Canal then go under South America Same thing by the way in the

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Mediterranean and I'm going to show you this as we zoom in present day

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Greece in Corinth there is a waterway that is a canal the

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Corinthian canal it was actually begun by the Emperor Nero Wasn't finished by him, but it was begun by Nero but prior to that canal being finished the way that they would

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Make this shut the shortcut between the two seas was that the say they would sail a ship right up into the port

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They would take it out of the water and they had a causeway that you know with kind of logs as rollers where they would literally take these ships and Drag them across the isthmus now this didn't happen quickly

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It would take a few days for that to happen and I don't know if you've noticed this there's lore about sailors and their morality

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Sailors and the language they use our sailors. We're gonna say are salty folks

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Yes, they are salty now I have a I'm going somewhere with this, but I want to show you one of the features in Corinth Does anyone know what what that is?

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You know what that is. That's a mountain. That's called the Acre Corinth in the ancient world in the ancient world

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There was a complex at the top of the Acre Corinth and it was a temple to Aphrodite And so the sailors while they were in port for a couple of days waiting for their ship to cross the isthmus

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They would go and have a religious experience at the Temple of Aphrodite Which involved temple prostitution?

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Which wasn't limited to male females. It was males and females quite the mess Now I want you to consider something when the gospel breaks out and People are brought to penitent faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and They have the

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Holy Spirit dwelling in them Do you see a rise or a dramatic decrease in sexual immorality?

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huge decrease Huge and I want you to consider this Rome was known for its sexual debauchery.

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I mean off the charts It's legendary again see

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Pompeii for details if you don't want to see the details, that's probably even better give

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Like well, they call prostitution the world's oldest profession Prostitution still around to this day, but currently in our society.

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It's still Illegal, it's still under the mat if you would

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Rome it was brothels everywhere and You know, it's just a mess

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But I want you to consider this is that we're gonna look in Scripture and we're gonna look at the fact that sexual immorality at least open

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Rampant sexual immorality and there's a phase that follows that According to Romans chapter 1 is an actual visible

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Manifestation of the wrath of God. I want you to consider that so as Christianity spreads open sexual immorality tanks

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You go into the medieval ages you go into the Renaissance you go into the time of the Reformation Divorce is difficult to get rightfully.

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So sexual immorality people can actually go to prison or die for committing adultery or homosexual acts and in the 1960s all of that comes undone the rebellion against all of these sexual laws.

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Where do these laws come from from? Societies that were heavily impacted by the morals of Scripture by the law of God in Scripture and as Christianity has had less and less influence

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Because people are not preaching the gospel. They're preaching nonsense as Christianity has had less and less influence pagans have gone from the minority to the majority and Pagans want to do what pagans want to do because they're pagans and we're gonna see that there's an actual

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Slope that we're on and I want to show you this turn with me to the Romans chapter 1

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Romans chapter 1 We're gonna start in verse 16 because it's fun to start with the gospel here, but I want to read something from Ephesians chapter 3

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You don't have to turn there. I'll just read it for you note this regarding Christians Ephesians 5 1 says be imitators of God as beloved children because you are that in Christ Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among the

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Saints So, you know the standard for Christianity for churches is that sexual immorality is not something that's named among us

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It's not something we do Now granted we're all guilty of breaking these commandments and there is forgiveness for us

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But recognizing that it is sin that we repent and are forgiven and bear fruit in keeping with repentance and as 1st

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Corinthians says honoring God with our bodies sexually that makes it so that within the

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Christian Church sexual immorality is Not something that is part of our everyday experience as Christians It's a rarity if you would and that's it.

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That's the idea But take a look now at Romans 1 and I want you to see this progression verse 16

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I'm not ashamed of the gospel It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

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Jew first also to the Greek For in it in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written

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The righteous shall live by faith so that you don't think for a second that our sanctification is

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Because of our self -righteousness or our right standing before God is because of our progress in sanctification that's ruled out

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It's the gospel. It's the good news that Christ has bled and died for us that he is crucified

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Buried raised again on the third day for our sins and for our justification That is what saves us and gives us a right standing before God and now clothed in the righteousness of God We then want to reflect the nature of God and be imitators of God and God is not somebody who condones sexual immorality

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But instead has made our bodies for specific purposes and we remember what we read last week that our bodies do not belong to us

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They belong to Christ. You are not your own so your

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Master your God your Savior says no, and He has a right to say no because he's bought you you belong to him.

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You sit there and go But there's no but Now I want you to watch the progression here and we'll do a little bit of an excursus on this topic in our day we as Christians and We as pastors

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I'll speak as pastors There's a lot of pressure being put on us by society to tell us to tow the line regarding same -sex marriage and And unfortunately a lot of that pressure is coming now from within the visible church and we're going to take a look extensively at what scripture does reveal regarding same -sex passions same -sex intercourse

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This is you know, it will keep it PG, but we're gonna see what scripture says on this and we'll debunk some of the false rhetoric that's being used to somehow justify the church recognizing and Blessing same -sex marriages, you can't do that, but we're gonna start by noting what scripture reveals

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Romans 1 18 now The wrath of God is revealed from heaven

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Against all ungodliness. So here's your thesis sentence for this portion of Paul's argument which he begins here the wrath of God is revealed now

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If you listen to the wingnuts, you know who claim to be prophets and they have their own YouTube channels and stuff like that They're always trying to interpret weather events and natural disasters and stuff like that to say that's the visible hand of God proving the wrath of God I Understand the move that's the wrong place to look

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Romans actually tells us the place to look you want to know those societies that are under the wrath of God There's a manifestation that you can look for and I'm gonna make it make a point and it begins with sexual immorality

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Being out in the open and it progresses to way worse than that and we'll talk about what the way worse is and you'll kind Of understand where we are in this process

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The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth

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Yeah, that's what we do by nature What can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes

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Namely his eternal power divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made

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So that they are without excuse for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him

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But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened Claiming to be wise they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal

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God for images Resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. So you're gonna know that Humanity made in God's image

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Thinks himself wise became a fool Rejected the true God who is and exchanged the real

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God the glorious God the one who is for gods of their own making and Back in the ancient world.

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I like to say it this way idolaters were hardy fellows. They would actually go out and Chop a tree down or hack a stone out and carve it into an idol and then bow down to it today's

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Idolaters are really lazy. They just invent a God in their head and don't even bother making

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You know an image of it anymore and they always end up naming their false God Jesus It's weird how that works, but their idolaters nonetheless

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So because they've done this therefore God Gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and Worshipped and served the creature rather than the

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Creator who is blessed forever remember the thesis statement is that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and How is that wrath manifested

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God going full Burger King on them and giving it to them their way fine You want to continue you want to dishonor me you want to don't want to believe in me

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You don't want to trust in me. You're gonna exchange the truth of me for a lie an idol of your own making fine

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I'm going to turn you over to sin For the dishonoring of your bodies, so you'll notice the

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Holy Spirit Within the believer convicts us of sin and unbelief when a

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Christian sins Sexually, do they feel guilt? Yeah, the

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Holy Spirit is going what are you doing? That is sin. You have transgressed my holy law

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Christians have a tough time living with themselves with the Holy Spirit screaming inside of them.

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You can't do that You should not do that Does the pagan have the

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Holy Spirit telling them that? They have the law of God written in their heart, but they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness

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And finally God says fine you gonna you don't want to believe in me. You don't want to trust in me You want to be a fool the fool is the one who says in his heart.

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There's no God I'm gonna turn you over now to your sin for the dishonoring of your body

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He's he's given them over He doesn't give up but he has given them over and so you're gonna note

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This is describing a slope and it's that you can call a slippery slope But in this case

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God's the one who basically says that without me This is where you're gonna end up and so God takes his hand off and where do they end up?

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No, it's not God's fault it's like telling a kid don't put the fork in the electrical socket and The kid goes and grabs the fork and sticks it in the electrical socket and now their hair is like this for a week

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It's not the parents fault So God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity the dishonoring of the bodies among themselves

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Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie They worshipped and served the creature rather than the

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Creator who is blessed forever And for this reason watch God continues to give them up. God gave them up to dishonorable passions

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Important note here. What does this phrase dishonorable passion mean? Let's continue the passage and then we'll come back to it

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But I want you to pay attention We're gonna drill into that that phrase for their women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature and the men

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Likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another men committing shameless acts with men and Receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error

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What's being described there? Homosexuality note it meant it mentions two types female on female male on male and you're going to note that God is the one who gives them up to these dishonorable

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Passions and I think it's important for us to take a look at what this what a dishonorable passion is

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Consumed with passion tay or ed say let me pull this up in my here's the

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Greek word. It's the one in red or reds this and here's what it means a condition of strong desire

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Longing desire. It's a passion. It's a lust Consider the implications

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What are people saying about why we need to recognize and bless same -sex marriage answer?

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It's real simple We shouldn't condemn two people who? love each other

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Huh No, it's love no, it's not love Scripture makes this clear.

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This isn't love This is or rates this this is a sinful passion you see people justify it because I have these feelings for this person

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How many times have we heard or know of somebody who is having an affair?

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Because they say this person's my soulmate Yeah, okay interesting

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Let's consider it a win for the truth of God. Yeah, Josh Yeah Is this is this a biblical category or some kind of a legal precedent

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Yeah, see this is where we have to keep the two kingdoms separate currently American jurisprudence says that the only illegal sexual intercourse is though is that type of intercourse that occurs when one person is not consenting and Currently the law is to find consenting in a narrow way that would exclude a minor child to be able to consent

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But they're trying to undo that so that's something to keep in mind But that is not what but it's so in the left -hand

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Kingdom You can talk about this and say this is something worth as Christians working to fix

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Because the purpose of the government is to punish the evildoer not to support them But as Christians in the right -hand

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Kingdom remember we're proclaiming the gospel which requires us to preach law gospel sin grace our message to those who are caught up in these kinds of sins is

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Not merely and listen to what I'm saying. It is not merely God condemns this This is a sin you're sinning.

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You need to repent our message continues with and Christ has bled and died for those sins and He's offering you full forgiveness and pardon and a right standing before God So repent be forgiven and reconciled to God that that's our message now

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Marilyn had her hand up Oh, it's just as bad

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Yeah Yeah Remember thou shall not commit adultery assumes heterosexual

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Thing so don't think for a second that if you have you know a fellow over here Who's given into the sin of homosexuality and a fellow over here?

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Who's been sleeping with his secretary that somehow the guy sleeping with his secretary is less sexually immoral than this guy over here

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They're both sexually immoral and if you really want to nail this down the guy who's never physically cheated on his wife

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Who's looking at porn is the same as both of those? Let's be blunt So I mean, that's what we're talking about here

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We're not trying to pick one sin out and drive that one and say this is the one thing that it's just Reprehensible and over the top instead what we're trying to do is preach

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God's law in all of its all of its splendor which then makes us all see that we're all sinners and That's phase one for hearing the good news that Christ has bled and died for our sins

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We actually have good news to preach to people not merely bad news, but you have to preach the bad news

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So the good news makes sense Right Yeah Here's the thing the person who is a slave to sin of any kind Has already been turned over to because sin is their slave master

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They have to be set free by Christ from that So in in one sense when you're talking about slavery and the domination of sin

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Anybody who's not a Christian is dominated by sin, even if they're they're living morally upstanding lives

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You know you think in our society, you know back the World War two generation

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Not all of them were Christians. Not all of them were Christians and you had a lot of people who?

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Civically were upstanding citizens. They were faithful to their spouse. They raised their children paid their taxes helped out at the

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Rotary Club Civically, they were decent people and they weren't you know given over to a debasing

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Immorality out in the open if they may Sins, you know quietly secretly in their closet or something but they kept it under wraps and At least put on the facade of but they're still under the dominion of sin even that person is under the dominion of sin just not in this particular way and it takes

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Christ and the Word of God to set them free from that and transfers from them from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light and There was a one theologian years of decades ago decades ago who actually pointed out if Satan really truly were to take over a society in the truest sense.

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It wouldn't be a Society where there would be super rank immorality, but it would be kind of like the

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Stepford Wives It would be the white picket fences and everyone would say hello and yes, sir No, sir, but nobody believed in Jesus.

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I think the devil has a little bit more order than we do Because he doesn't have a sinful flesh quite like we have but that's a different story altogether

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But yeah, I think the idea then here is when we're talking about now a society as a whole in our lifetimes

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You know except for maybe some of the younger kids here in our lifetimes that you know We watched our society go from a majority

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Christian nation to a minority Christian nation And we've seen the ever increasing rise and the constant push

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For more and more Toleration and acceptance of blatantly sinful behavior

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You know and it just seems like there's no end to it. No it starts with you know accepting same -sex marriage now we have to believe that a guy who self identifies as a woman is a woman and and the pedophiles are working hard to get the minor consent laws changed so that they can have

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Relations with young children. It just never seems to stop Yeah Society churches and society are accepting

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Homosexuality Working with young adults as I do

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They've been experimenting For hundreds and hundreds of years to try to see what they get away with just trying to see what that's that's part of growing up Right what we're seeing now in the schools is

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Okay dating to me dating means Boy Yeah going to going to a restaurant in a movie and right

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No But what we're seeing in the school what we're seeing at Activities what we're seeing it is being put out on Facebook and was being put out on Instagram and all this stuff is them experimenting and Dating Same sex.

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Mm -hmm, and they're putting it out there on Facebook. They're putting it out there on Instagram All this stuff that they how they date each other and it's okay

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If it's acceptable with our youth Because everybody's doing it everybody's talking about it, it's okay

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And we're experimenting You you were on the cutting edge though that was cutting edge at the time

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Not only is it okay, it's wrong to speak out against it

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When my wife and I were dating in high school we got in trouble for being too close to each other during the lunch hour

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We were reprimanded for a PDA Public display display of affection you don't do that I Give them credentials to write this

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With that they do not These people are smarter than me, we're gonna let them teach our kids

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Nowadays you're expected to be yeah So there's all kinds

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We Speak in the truth will require you to not act like a

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Norwegian And that that's always the axe

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I'm gonna grind on I hate to be the bearer of bad news But the situation is actually even worse than what you were describing

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Janet because now now if you ask them if they're a boy or a girl

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They'll just say no Yeah I'm not a binary, I'm neither one

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And of course if you say if you say anything against that they'll come after you with the hate speech laws Because if like the ridiculousness of this of this they have what we like to call the oppression

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Olympics All right whereby they paint people who are straight

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Christian Men or women that are white or whatever that's we are part of its social

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Marxism is really what it is Because what they'll say to us is that we are the oppressors and that the people who are not white who are not straight

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Who are none of these things that you would have normally I guess Non -gender conforming, they're the oppressed minority and they need to be protected and for coming out and saying

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I'm gay or I'm non -binary That's brave That's so brave of you to stand up against the bigots and the children are actively encouraged

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To oh, do you think that you're oh, you're a little boy and you like to play with dolls? Well, let's get you on hormone blockers

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Oh Yeah Now let's return to the Word of God because I think it's important to see the progression that God's Word gives now

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Before we had our little discussion We were talking about the fact that the dishonorable passions themselves consumed with passion for one another.

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That's not love and This is a sinful passion that Scripture makes it clear just because you feel something inside of you does not make it, right

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I hate to say this just because you have a feeling doesn't mean your feeling is right or that it's good

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How dare you judge my feelings or how dare you judge me now? No, notice how this game is played and we have to point out the self -defeating nature of this.

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We must point this out Let me give you an example over here and then we'll apply it over here

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Have you ever heard somebody dogmatically and emphatically state there is no such thing as absolute truth the way you flip it around as you note the hypocrisy here because the person who made that statement is

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Assuming that their statement is an absolute truth the person who says don't judge me

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What are they doing? They're judging you You have to do the jiu -jitsu move on them and point out the obvious You must do that.

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So look for those self -defeating Arguments where there's a double standard because you're gonna note the people who are the most vocal about tolerance are the most

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Intolerant people when it comes to God's law So you got to note that but coming back to the text for this reason because of their idolatry

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God gave them up to dishonorable passions their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion or Idzay for one another men committing shameless acts with men

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Receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. It doesn't stop there

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I want you to listen to this next part and I want you to think ask yourself this question

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Does this describe the Political discourse and what's happening in our nation, especially on social media?

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The next part of it is the part that comes after homosexuality becomes the big thing watch and Since they did not see fit to acknowledge

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God God gave them up to a debased mind To do what ought not to be done.

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They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness evil covetousness malice full of envy murder strife deceit maliciousness

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Gossips slanderers haters of God insolent haughty boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents foolish faithless heartless ruthless

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Facebook Twitter Yeah, no boundaries and do people get along nowadays

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No, we're more divided than ever is the rhetoric in our country one of let's sit down and let's

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Discuss these things out and have a rational conversation No, not at all The discourse in our nation is you're an evil white oppressive bigot

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Christian You need to have your rights stripped from you or as one

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One very famous woman says this country's not going to change until a lot of white people die

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Things like that you'll notice and the rhetoric by the way, it's both it's terrible on both the right and the left

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Don't think that this is that the right somehow is as clean as the wind driven snow No, it's bad on both sides and there's no end in sight for this

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Does it sound like our nation? All right Come back to our thesis statement for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness

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Is what's happening to our nation the favor of God or the wrath of God according to this text?

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wrath As a friend of mine used to say we are in deep kimchi He was a

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Korean war vet. He liked it. I've tried it. It's not that great. So Yeah, I get it

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You know as some people that it really grabs them me not so much Yeah, yeah

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Yeah, I I cringe at the thought sometimes of some of you wandering onto my Facebook wall because there's some

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I mean when I Make statements. I mean people come out of the woodwork to Take me on Josh that's there goes red meat.

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No, no, it's At times it can be really awful and we end up having to delete comments and stuff like that because just how over -the -top and hateful

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They are But we are in trouble. We are in trouble It's only getting worse and the only solution

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I know that can solve a problem of this magnitude and of this type is the preaching of the gospel and I'll make the point and I've made it many times

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Where is the Christian Church you think about many Lutheran churches who embrace same -sex marriage

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Who affirm and bless? Transgenderism, this is not God's favor.

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This is this is the wrath of God. These people are idolaters They're not speaking the truth and then you have whole swaths of Evangelicalism today where they are listening to teachers who don't teach anything

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Constantive within the scriptures. They just kind of flit along the surface and barely touching any of it over and again one of the one of the

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One of the feedbacks I get from people who listen to a Kongsvinger sermon for the first time

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They'll say they get more Bible in one Kongsvinger sermon than they hear in a year at like many of the big box churches and that's not hyperbole

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That's not hyperbole Yeah Yeah, that's right,

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I totally just rip off that Bible stuff, you know, I'm telling I got good material God makes me really look smarter than I am

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Yeah, and then you have in a large portion of the visible church that they are all about signs and wonders and prosperity they think

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Christianity is about having your best life now and you need to hear from God and find out what your dream destiny is and God wants you to be wealthy.

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He wants you to be healthy he wants you to be powerful and influential and you're going to change the world and So we got a problem and that is is there's only one message that can actually change the world

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And that's the good news that Christ has bled and died for our sins And then we need to repent and be forgiven and reconciled to God That is the message because notice the power of God is in the gospel.

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The power of God is in the preached word Believe me. I have no special powers or abilities to change you or your life

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I don't it is above my pay grade to convict you of your sins It is above my pay grade to have you bear the fruit of the

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Spirit. I know though that the Spirit works through the preached word and unfortunately, there are a lot of people who are listening to a lot of voices today that are telling them things that are contrary to and unfortunately, there are people that we have to contend with who literally are within the visible church who are celebrated and applauded and their works are

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Published and far and wide and shared everywhere to bake You know that this is the new

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Christianity that we need to embrace y 'all familiar with Jen hat maker at all That yeah, you know about her.

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This is a woman who's got you know, she's on reality TV but she claims to be an evangelical Christian and She is out there trying to undo what scripture says and say that Christians need to embrace and affirm and celebrate same -sex marriage and She's an evangelical starlet

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I mean, that's where we're at and let me give you some of the arguments that people give have you ever heard this one?

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Jesus when he was alive on earth, he never said anything against homosexuality.

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You ever heard that one? Yeah Well, here's here's the problem

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Jesus is he a mere man? Who is he? He's God. He's God in human flesh.

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So he's the Son of God in human flesh Who inspired the Old Testament to be written?

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Yeah God, right and Jesus is that God so if we see a prohibition against Homosexuality in the

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Old Testament, who's the one speaking? Christ you can make that argument because he's

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God so all of Scripture is the Word of Christ You could literally say the whole Bible should be read letters

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You should you can really make that argument And so this group calls themselves red -letter

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Christians and they'll say because we don't see any prohibitions against Homosexuality in the red letters and those have more weight than the rest

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What have they done? Remember what we read in Revelation taking away from the book of the prophecy

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They're taking away from it or have you ever heard this argument? There's only seven clobber passes passages in the

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Bible that would appear to condemn Homosexuality and considering the sheer magnitude of all of the numbers of verses out there if there's only seven

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That's just a small amount Why are you putting an overemphasis on those seven verses and ignoring the rest of the

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Bible you ever heard that one? Yeah Right Well, basically what it comes down to is is not that they want to feel good

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It's that they refuse to be convicted of their sin and feel bad or sorrow for it

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Yeah They can just go along their merry way Just go along their merry way and do their thing

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Yeah, I mean it sounds like when the twins play the

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Dodgers, you know Sorry But the reality is this how many verses does it take how many clear passages scripture does it take

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For us to say no scripture actually says that's a sin One you just need one.

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I Mean, how many times does God need to repeat the crossing of the Red Sea in order for it to be a real historical event?

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Five times do I hear six? Does anyone hear six? Give me a seven. Give me a seven. It's ridiculous

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You see what I'm saying here is that God doesn't stutter and he doesn't need to constantly repeat himself

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How many times does the commandment thou shalt not steal get brought up in the

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Bible Literally about the same amount of times as homosexuality is talked about Not much more.

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So if we were to use that argument and basically say listen the Bible only condemns stealing like, you know, maybe a dozen or so times and there's like 60 ,000 verses in the

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Bible and you're talking about only seven Come on, you can't condemn me just because I took your

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TV from you. You've man be pamby. Why don't you just grow up? You see what

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I'm saying? The argument doesn't work. Mm -hmm.

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All right. Now that is a more subtle argument So here's what they'll say. Here's the other argument

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So did you know that the Old Testament? condemns wearing clothing with mixed fabrics

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I want you to look on that little tag in the back of your shirt and does it say caught cotton and polyester?

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You're sinning You're sinning. See see see see That's right, that's right

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I Wearing spandex is as wait a second. Hold on. I'm wearing Wearing a cotton blend shirt is just as sinful as homosexuality according to the

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Bible you sit there and go I know there's something wrong with this, but I don't quite how to put this together Or they'll sit there and say did you know that the

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Bible condemns the eating of oysters? Have any of you ever gone to Red Lobster during their lobster fest?

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Oh You sinners are going to hell and you're sitting there going man That was the best thing ever a little butter and garlic sauce and whoo.

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I can't wait to sin that way again You sit there and go wait. Well, wait a second. Wait a second that has to do with the

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Mosaic Covenants Dietary laws and see what ends up happening is the person who makes that argument refuses to make proper biblical distinctions and We know in the

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New Testament like when you read the book of Galatians What is the status right now of the

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Mosaic Covenant? It's finished. It's it's been fulfilled Christ has fulfilled the

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Mosaic Covenant is the Mosaic Covenant still in effect right now No, it's not

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It is absolutely not in effect and so here's the idea is that you have to make a distinction between your covenants and Within the

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Mosaic Covenant you have to recognize that there were three types of law given in the Mosaic Covenant there was moral law

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Ten Commandments and parts of Leviticus are Commentary in an additional drilling down of the details of parts of the moral law

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There were civil laws that applied only to the nation -state of Israel as a theocracy in the ancient world and That had to do with civil penalties for particular crimes and then there were ceremonial laws ceremonial laws that were part of Really the tap the tabernacle which became the temple and all of that was type and shadow that pointed to Christ So the question then comes up the prohibition against wearing mixed fabric moral civil ceremonial

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Which is it? Civil and this is a this is for the theocracy of ancient

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Israel the law against eating Lobster and bacon which by the way those two go really good together

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Whoa, the the laws against eating bacon and lobster Moral civil or ceremonial ceremonial

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Ceremonial and their type and shadow of sin. That's what that's that sin and unbelief and things like that And in in as New Testament, we're under the new covenant

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We have clear explicit texts that say that we're no longer under that so they don't apply the law that says you must sacrifice a

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Sheep as a sin offering on the Day of Atonement Moral civil ceremonial, which is it?

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Ceremonial so we don't do that the law that says you have to go to Jerusalem once a year for Passover Ceremonial thou shalt not kill

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Thou shalt not kill which is it? moral and Here's the interesting thing when you pay attention to those distinctions

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You will see that in the New Testament in the Ten Commandments all but one of the

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Ten Commandments is picked up in the New Covenant and is Explicitly taught as binding on the consciences of Christians moving forward

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The one that's missing the Sabbath the Sabbath is a ceremonial law in the

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Ten Commandments Fulfilled in Christ and it's a type and shadow of salvation by grace through faith So the idea then is this is that all ten of the

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Commandments Technically are binding on Christians. The Sabbath is fulfilled We'd learn this from Hebrews 4 by trusting in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of your sins

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That's the Sabbath rest the Sabbath rest of the Old Testament pointed to our Sabbath rest in Christ again

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Hebrews 4 bears that out very clearly So then the idea is this weak as Christians we can point to the back end of epistles and the back end of those epistles

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Over and again will reiterate stuff that we hear in the Ten Commandments about not stealing about not coveting about not having sexual relations with those whom we ought not to have sexual relations with about you get the idea and those are all

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Second table, but then we're also told first table then is fulfilled in Christ by grace through faith

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And so the person who argues well Shellfish in the Old Testament's forgive is an abomination to God.

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And so that means homosexuality is okay This is a person who clearly does not understand the

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Bible nor are they interested in it at all? Now another argument that you will hear another argument that you'll hear that sounds like it has some plausibility

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Behind it is that in two passages in the New Testament? there is a word that is used that is unique to the

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New Testament and the word is arsenicoytai, have you ever heard this argument and it's a it's a weird word because If you kind of break it into its component parts, it means man better or male better And the better the bed

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BED that's referred to has to do with marriage bed So people will sit there and say well, we're not exactly sure

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What the word arsenicoytai means and so you can't kind of legalistically say that this is a prohibition against homosexuality

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And our new and our modern English translations that translate arsenicoytai as homosexual

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They may or may not really be getting that right. Have you ever heard this argument? Let me show you where the phrase comes from Let me show you where it appears and I'll show you where it comes from so you can see what's going on here

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Let me show it to you in its original senses in first Timothy chapter 1

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First Timothy chapter 1 is one of the instances where this word shows up Starting in verse 8

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We know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully understanding this that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless for the disobedient for the ungodly for the sinners for the unholy the profane and those who strike their fathers and mothers breaking of The fourth commandment for murderers the sexually immoral men who and here's your

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English translation men who practice homosexuality, but the Greek word for describing these men is the

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Arsenicoytai which again? It's a weird word it's Practically only appears in the

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New Testament in the ancient world And the question is where did Paul get this word from the male?

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Better B -e -d -d -e -r and by better we're talking marriage bed. Where did that phrase come from?

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That's one instance. Hold your thought Dave Second one is in 1st Corinthians 6 and here's where the second time this appears

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Technically the first in the New Testament, but do you not know verse 9 that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God Do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral

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Nor idolaters nor adulterers and here's the phrase nor men who practice homosexuality and here it describes.

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There's two words used for Homosexuals the Malakoi are the effeminate receivers.

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We've talked about this and then here's your arsenicoytai again the male better Where does this word come from?

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I'm gonna ask another question Does anyone know in the ancient world in the time of the

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Roman Empire if you were not a Hebrew speaking Jew? How would you read the

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Bible? There was a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek the name of that Translation is the

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Septuagint as the story goes there were 70 scholars who put that together hence the name of the

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Septuagint and the Septuagint was the common

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Bible used by Jews in the time of Paul who were Greek speaking or Who didn't know

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Hebrew and so when Paul would make his missionary journeys? They would read out in the synagogue in the synagogues from the

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Septuagint Now I want you to take a look with me in English right now, let's take a look at Leviticus 18

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Leviticus 18 specifically verse 22 I'm going to start in 20 for our

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Context and by the way If you really want to drill down into all of the gory details about what's prohibited when it comes to obeying

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The commandment that says you shall not commit adultery Leviticus is your place to go Drilling down into the prohibitions as they as they've really kind of flesh out is you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife

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Make yourself unclean with her You should not give any of your children to offer them to Molech and so profane the name of your

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God I am Yahweh. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination

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Now you're going to note something here in the Hebrew way of thinking Hebrew mind is not

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Philosophical the way the Greeks were Greeks were very abstract Hebrew my people were very concrete in their idioms in the way they thought and you're going to note what the prohibition is

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The prohibition says you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It's an abomination

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You can't do it. In other words doesn't matter what your motivation is

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Whatever is going on in your heart Romans one makes that clear that that's a sinful passion but the mere act of consummating a homosexual relationship is

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Prohibited that the act itself is an abomination to God and I want to show you this then from the

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Septuagint So here is the Old Testament book of Leviticus in Greek Chimera arson oz who

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Quay may they say Quaytay, I know that's Greek to you But I want you to point

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I'm going to point this out the two key words are arson oz which means male coitain which means marriage bed and just rough translation a male shall not lie in the marriage bed with another male as with a woman arson oz and coit a are right there in Leviticus 22

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So what Paul did is he literally took arson oz and coit a from Leviticus 22 and created a word

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The arson a coit a or coit. I plural and that's where the word comes from so in 1st

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Timothy 1 and in 1st Corinthians 6 The words used the word arson a coit.

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I that is used is a direct cross -reference To Leviticus 22 1822

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Direct cross -reference. There's no way around it You can see where the language comes from. All he did was take what's in the

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Old Testament in Leviticus 1822 Take it smoosh it down and put it into one word because you can kind of do that with Greek Greek is like Legos You know, you can actually build words, you know, they get kind of silly at times, but you didn't do that So he built a word arson a coit a straight from Leviticus 1822 and then that is the language that gets put right there in the

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New Testament and we know exactly what it means because I Can point right back to this to agent and say it's right there same words

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Same root words same, you know and in the verse that prohibits prohibits the act itself

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Your heads are spinning. We left off with Greek. We'll pick this up next week New York City votes to find biblical counselors

57:28

You're a Christian counselor in New York City and you're treating gender dysphoria as a mental illness and you're a