Sermon: Bad Heroes & Cursed Houses

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to the Lord, but the upright are in his confidence. That is to say, someone in your confidence, someone who is your friend.

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This is a person that you trust. This is your friend. So the devious or the perverse person to God is someone that he loathes.

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It is disgust to him. It's an abomination. But the upright are actually his friends.

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And it's interesting because we look today at heroes. This is a warning here.

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Don't envy that person. Don't envy the person of violence. Don't want what they have. Don't follow after them.

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Don't emulate them. Don't want to imitate them. This is how God views the perverse person, as an abomination.

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The upright are his friends. And we live in a culture where the fun loving, the lovable, the kind characters in stories, in media, are who?

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The violent, the perverse, the homosexuals.

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We're going to talk about it. Think about it. Not a generation ago, you could not celebrate this.

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You could not highlight this as good and glorious. But now, we live in a time where the heroes, the lovable, the kind, the good characters in all the stories, homosexual, woke people, thieves, the bullies, the thugs, all those things.

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The storytellers, the ones who narrate today, actually tell you these are the heroes.

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You should want what they have. You should be like the perverse person. This is actually good.

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And Christians are vilified. Christians are vilified in our culture. We're seen as the oddballs, those who want to focus on humility, integrity, forgiveness, discipline, self -control.

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Those are the ones who are vilified. I remember that I was in Texas for the abolition conference just recently.

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And I found out the day we landed that Vice was going to be there filming a documentary, which

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I'm sure is going to be coming out soon, about our movement, what we're doing, who we're involved with. It's not our first go around with Vice.

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But Vice was there. And so what was interesting is I come to the conference. And as I start to walk in, all the guys and gals with Vice saw me come in.

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And immediately, the cameras came over to me and started to follow me around. And I'm seeing them in the corner, like filming me as I'm talking to people.

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But what was amazing is at the conference, they were actually, you could see, trying to tell a story to make the

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Christians there look like they were nuts. Out of step. Not the heroes.

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Not the ones to emulate. So for example, there's a room full of people. And who were they filming behind?

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So they had a person in front of the camera. And then they had the speaker up front. Who did they set their cameras up behind?

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The women who had head coverings on. Why? Because that's just so strange.

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Who wants to be like these people? We need women to have purple hair, blue hair, right?

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We need women to look a certain way in our day and age. We need to not emulate these people. We need to emulate these kinds of people.

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And so media today makes the thieves, the thugs, and the violent the heroes.

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These are the people you want to emulate. These are the people you want to imitate. Proverbs 3 .31,

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do not envy a man of violence and not choose any of his ways. For the perverse person is an abomination to the

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Lord, but the upright are in his confidence. So the question is this. It's clearly a part of the text.

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Who are our heroes? Who's your hero? Who do you look up to?

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Who should you look up to? Who ought you to look up to? See, today, the cultural heroes all around us, the people who are saying emulate these people, these guys, these girls, the cultural heroes today create a perverse culture.

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Male social media influencers largely act like little boys, right?

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They largely act like little boys, obsessed with sex, obsessed with pleasure, obsessed with self -gratification, instant gratification.

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Females today, influencers, the ones everyone, be like me, look like me, look at my life, follow me.

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Females are obsessed with themselves. I mean, honestly, how many selfies a day do we need to see of you, right?

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I mean, honestly, how many pictures do you need to take of yourself a day for us to adore?

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They find their value in what they can accumulate. They find their value in how they look.

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And they find their value in their ability to cause others to lust after them.

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Can someone say hashtag only fans? Right?

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Like these are the heroes. Emulate us. Look what we have. Follow me. This is what we see today.

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But you see the contrast, of course, where God is saying, don't envy the man of violence.

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Don't choose any of his ways. The perverse person is an abomination to God.

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But the upright, they're in his confidence. They're his friends. We have a portrait today in culture where this is how you want to be as a man.

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This is how you want to be as a woman, very different than those that God sets up as biblical heroes.

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And we sound so old school and puritanical when we say these sort of things, like 1

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Peter chapter 3, verses 1 through 6. Here's God's influencer.

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Here's who he wants to influence. It says, 1 Peter chapter 3, likewise, verse 1, wives, be subject to your own husbands.

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You can't say that out loud today in a public square without someone scoffing at you. Wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.

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When they see your respectful and pure conduct, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or clothing you wear.

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But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is in God's sight is very precious.

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For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah, here it is, this is dangerous today, as Sarah obeyed

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Abraham, calling him Lord. What? And you are her children, if you do good, and do not fear anything that is frightening.

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Go back again to Proverbs 31. We talk about the Proverbs 31 woman. Here's God's influencer.

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Here's who God wants to exalt as the person to emulate and to follow. Proverbs 31, verse 30, talking about the woman.

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It says, charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the

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Lord is to be praised. That, to God, is the hero.

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That, to God, is the woman to emulate, to imitate, to follow after, to look to.

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That's what God says. The warning here is, don't envy the person who is violent. Don't follow any of their ways.

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Don't pursue this person as the hero. So who are your heroes? God clearly wants us, and you'll see in a moment here, to imitate other people.

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He wants us to have heroes and hall of famers that we actually look to. We pursue imitation.

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We actually want to be like that one. So who are your heroes? God says not to envy the man of violence or to choose any of his ways.

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The perverse person is an abomination to God. The upright are his friends. So the question to be asked is, why so much violence today?

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You know, the world has their answers. They can't understand it. Why is there so much crime in the cities? Why is there so much destruction?

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How come the crime rates are way up and the murder rates are way up and the robbing is way up?

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And there's a lot of answers. Why is there so much perversion? Why is there so much brokenness?

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And I think a fundamental answer we can all agree on, as a core, as the heart, is that all this violence and all this perversion, all this evil, is happening first and foremost because of our own lusts.

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It's our own lusts. It's our own sin. The truth is, we desire it.

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You see, listen, you can't have heroes who are the thugs and the violent and the perverse as popular in early, say,

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American Christian history. So for example, if there was storytelling going on, say, in Plymouth during the time of the pilgrims, these

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Puritans coming over, setting up a civilization to glorify God and to advance the kingdom of Christ, if someone came in with storytelling in that day that emulated or made a hero the violent one or the perverse one, would those stories go over well there?

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No. They go over well here. Why? Because there's something that that hero is doing that's connecting to our own lusts, our own desires.

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And so first and foremost, we have to acknowledge, yes and amen, hallelujah, to the fact that the answer for the world around us is not principles of morality.

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We can't simply say, let's just create different heroes, right? Because you can create godly and righteous heroes in media and in storytelling, but if the culture who's viewing it actually hates those things, they'll reject those heroes.

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So first and foremost, the violent, the perverse that are heroes today, that people emulate today, they are popular because of our own sin.

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We want those things. We desire that lifestyle. We want the sex.

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We want the violence. We want the self -gratification. We want the instant gratification.

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So we love those heroes. And God says, don't envy them. They're an abomination. These people aren't my friends.

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It's very intensely personal. We're gonna talk more about that. So first and foremost, we're drawn away to these heroes by our own lusts and by our own sin.

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We desire it and we honestly deserve it.

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We deserve it. The heroes of today are all those things. Now, just as some examples here, when you think about, say, for example, someone like Lady Gaga, would she have been able to be successful and heroic in, say, the 1930s?

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No, because people had a different worldview. They had a different view of someone that you should emulate and look to as good, as trustworthy, as a hero.

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But you look at someone like Lady Gaga and the world around us, she can sing a song like Born This Way and everybody loves it.

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Why? Because of their own worldview, because of their own heart. She's the hero. So she promotes

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Born This Way. And people love it. And they wave the rainbow flag.

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You think about someone like Macklemore and the song Same Love. How does a song like that get popular?

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How does someone play that song and love that song? How is it popular in culture? Because we're lost. We love those things.

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And so that's a hero. God says, don't follow the perverse person. Don't envy that person of violence.

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But these are our heroes. These are the ones prompt up to our children and to this generation. These are the songs being played on the radio.

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These are the ones with all the views because our heroes are the perverse, are the violent.

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We think about something that is just crazy. Someone like, say, Harry Styles, a popular cultural icon today.

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Someone like Harry Styles. A man, biologically a man, on the cover of Vogue magazine, wearing a what?

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Wearing a what? You saw it too? Harry Styles, popular guy.

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All the girls love the guy. You know, the guy singers. You know, you have like, back in my day, I hate that I'm saying that now.

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But, you know, like, New Kids on the Block. Like, the guy bands, the boy bands. New Kids on the Block, you got

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NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, and like, the popular guy bands, right? You want to follow all the guy bands, the girls, you know, screaming and yelling.

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You know, it's like an Elvis Presley concert, right? Like, these are the men. The girls are like going goo -goo over the guy bands.

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And then the guy, Harry Styles, puts a dress on to look like a chick?

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That's the hero? And you think, again, of course, yeah, we see that and it's celebrated because, first and foremost, our hearts are fallen.

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We desire those things. But these are propped up as the heroes, the perverse, the violent.

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God says, don't envy them and don't choose any of their ways. The perverse person is an abomination to God.

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These should not be our heroes. Don't desire what they have.

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Don't try to emulate them. We think about, this happened this week, so Michael Buble, you know, cultural icon, singer, popular, great

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Christmas music. Goodness, there ain't nothing like Christmas time with some Michael Buble Christmas, right?

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Good stuff, he's amazing. What a gift from God to have a voice like that, right? But my wife and my daughters and Zoe went to Michael Buble this week because, you know, it's

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Michael Buble. And they're just all excited, you know, about to dinner ahead of time. They go to see Michael Buble. And he's on stage, cultural icon, cursing his head off.

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And of course, my family and Zoe are just like, oh, this is uncomfortable. And he actually says,

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I heard, in the middle of the concert, he like stops and he says, hey, is it still pride month?

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Is it still pride month? It's still pride month in my house. Now, here's the deal. You know that it's not pride month, right?

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You know it's not pride month. You're pandering to the audience, trying to actually get on the coattails of the culture that's saying you must come this way.

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And it was amazing. My daughter, I'm so proud of her. When he said like, it's still pride month in my house, my daughter yells out.

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She said, that's bad, Michael. Yeah.

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She's very brave. But the point is, this is the hero, right? The hero say, this is true, this is lovely, this is beautiful, follow us.

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God says, don't envy the person of violence. Don't choose any of their ways. This person, the perverse person, is an abomination to God.

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It is not just about moral principles. This is personal. It's intimate between us and God.

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So who are your heroes? You think about all the destruction and decay all around us today.

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It's so broken. It's honestly so broken. You think about all the violence in the cities and you ask the question, how come it's so violent in the city?

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How come? How come you can't live in places that a generation ago were like these amazing cities and they were beautiful?

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You could raise families there. Places like Memphis. These places were incredible and they're broken and so violent today.

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How'd they get that way? Our heroes, the people we emulate, the people we prop up.

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I mean, you ask the question, how is it so violent in the city? I wonder. I wonder with all the violent music genres.

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I wonder with like Birdman and Why You Mad talking about he'll shoot up anything but a school or playground.

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Oh, thanks for that. We appreciate it. I'll shoot up anything but a school or playground. Oh, that's a good moral position.

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I'll kill anybody except I won't go to the playgrounds. We go, oh, that's great. That's great.

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But these are the heroes. You prop these people up as heroes over sinful fallen people, they get emulated, they get imitated and people actually become violent.

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They become perverse. You could go for days on this discussion about all the violence, all the perverseness in this particular violent musical genre.

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I'm not just talking about hip hop. I'm talking about heroes from different genres. They're propped up as the hero. Follow me, be like me.

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It's violence, it's money, it's sex and these are the heroes of our culture.

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See, what are the characteristics today of the heroes of our culture? What are the characteristics? The characteristics of the perverse in our day, murderers, unjust, self -seeking, violence, angry, bullies, thieves, greedy.

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These are the characteristics. These things are accepted as good, normal.

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We can pursue these things. We love these people. We love these heroes. Versus, say, the characteristics of the upright.

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What are some characteristics of the upright in scripture? Kind, patient, loving, sacrificing, brave, courageous, laying down your life for another, merciful, disciplined, just, consistent.

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In scripture, not only do we have here this word from God and wisdom, don't follow this guy.

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Don't look to this person and envy them. Don't want what they have. Don't follow any of their ways.

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The perverse person is an abomination to God. And so we look to these people, we adopt their ways, we abandon truth and beauty and what is lovely and good and we say, these are the heroes, be like them.

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I wonder why there's so much violence and so much perversity all around us. Scripture clearly says, you know this verse,

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I'm not teaching you, you know it. You can finish it. First Corinthians 15 .33, bad company corrupts what?

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Good morals. Bad company corrupts good morals. You can't hang around that for a long, a short period of time without ultimately starting to adopt those things, right?

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You ever find yourself as a believer, you're new in Christ now, you're a new creation, things are different now, your mouth has changed, your heart has changed, your view of the world has changed and maybe you get an opportunity to go spend time with an old friend who's still an unbeliever.

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You find yourself maybe in the middle of that dinner conversation and stuff starts to change in you.

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Your commitments start to get, you start to let go of your commitments. You start to maybe be a little bit looser with your mouth.

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You start to say things you wouldn't normally say and you don't wanna say those things, you're grieved over those things and the answer is very clearly why.

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Bad company corrupts what? Good morals. You cannot put fire into your chest,

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God's wisdom says, and not be burned by it. And so God's saying, look, this person who's the violent one and the perverse one, don't envy them.

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Don't emulate them. Don't actually do anything they're doing. Don't see them as the hero.

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Find a different hero. God says, friendship with the world is what?

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Enmity with God, James 4 .4. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. You can choose to be

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God's friend, the upright. God's friend, it's here, the upright. Or you can choose to be at war with God.

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Notice, this is very important here because here's really the substance of what I'm saying. This isn't just trying to lay moral principles upon people to say, be moral, get different heroes.

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Now the answer here is underneath all of this, this is all very personal. It's all very intimate.

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It's a question of being cursed versus being blessed. An abomination versus the friend of God.

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Loathed by God or being God's friends. Psalm 37, another passage that essentially gives it this.

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By the way, this is throughout scripture. This principle, this truth is throughout scripture. But in Psalm 37,

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God says something of the same thing. In verse one, look what he says here. It says, fret not yourself because of evildoers.

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Be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

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Admit it, I guess we could all sort of admit it from a human perspective. You and I can see somebody that has the riches.

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They've got the cars. They've got the girls. They've got the stuff. Their life seems happy and it seems easy for them.

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And they seem to be having so much fun and so much pleasure. And so there's a temptation, right?

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There's a temptation to say, I want what they have. I want to be like them.

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And so you think that that's the place of happiness because outside it looks very happy.

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It looks like there's a lot of joy, a lot of pleasure, a lot of gratification in that life. And what

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God says to his people over and over and over again is these people are not heroes.

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Don't envy them. Don't choose any other ways. And God says, fret not yourself because of evildoers and be not envious of wrongdoers.

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And here's why. For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

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Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

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Delight yourself in the Lord. That's to take pleasure in God. And he will give you the desires of your heart.

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Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday.

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Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way over the man who carries out evil devices.

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Don't be jealous for what they have. Their judgment is coming soon. That's what the text is teaching you.

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These people are not to be seen as our heroes. Back to Proverbs.

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Chapter 3, verses 32 through 34.

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It says, for the devious person is an abomination to the Lord, but the upright are in his confidence.

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The Lord's curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.

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When Dr. Bonson was commenting on this section here, he said this. I thought this was compelling.

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He said, choosing their path is choosing the loathing of God rather than his friendship.

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Choosing their path is choosing God's loathing, his disgust, rather than his friendship.

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That's the way it is. Those are some potent words. You see, this is not just simply a matter of moral principles.

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Did you hear it? This is intensely personal. This is intensely personal.

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This isn't laying moral principles upon people, saying, why don't you try this out for size?

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Try this out. Follow these moral principles, just because maybe it'll make your life better. No, God promises judgment.

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He promises blessing, to be sure. But what's the issue here in the Proverbs? It's, don't envy them.

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Don't choose any of their ways. Don't go that way. And what is the answer? Because God loathes.

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He's disgusted by the violent man. He's disgusted by, he loathes, he sees as an abomination, the perverse.

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And so God says, don't emulate them. Don't prompt these people up as heroes. Don't follow them. Don't choose any of their ways.

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Why? Because if you want to be a friend of God, then you need to be the upright, not the perverse, not the violent.

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This is intensely personal. It's intimate. That word, abomination, we can become jaded to it, right?

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It's used a lot in scripture. We know some of the places where it's used. For example, we think about certain sexual choices and sins in scripture that are called an abomination, man lying with a man, woman lying with a woman.

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You see Toivah, that's an abomination to God. Or unequal weights and measures, the person who is unjust, they have partiality in their life or their business or how they deal out justice, unequal weights and measures.

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God says, that's an abomination. What's it mean? It means it's disgusting to him. He loathes it.

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It's an abomination to him. And that's what the text says. Now, I know, listen,

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I confess it. I readily confess it. I admit, that flies smack in the face of much of what you hear in modern evangelism, right?

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God just loves everybody, right? He just wants to be a friend to everybody. And the answer is, yeah,

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God is loving to everybody all the time. But there are also things that God says he hates.

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And God is a God not just of love. He does not have just one aspect to his attributes.

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He's not just love. And most modern evangelicals, they'll say,

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God is love and he is mercy. And they don't want to acknowledge the fact that God actually, because he's the true

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God, he's actually just. And he's truth, and he's righteous, and he's good, and he's holy.

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And he says there are things that he loathes. He hates them.

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He calls them an abomination, toivah, strong word. It disgusts him.

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And so God says, here's the contrast. The violent, the perverse,

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God says, choose none of his ways. Don't envy him. And he says, I loathe this. And he says, the upright over here, these are in my confidence.

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What's that mean? You're the friend of God. This is intensely, intensely personal.

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Go to Psalm 84 .10. This is a famous verse, right?

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You know this one? You know this one? I think there's some good 90s

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Christian songs with this verse. For a day in your courts is better than.

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Some of you guys are like, one day. You're doing it right now in your minds, right?

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It's a good song. Listen, for a day, a day, one day in your courts is better than 1 ,000 elsewhere.

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I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

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This has everything to do with our personal intimate relationship with God. We love to talk about this as Christians today.

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This has everything to do with intimacy and a personal relationship with God. What is the

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Psalm saying? It's better to have one day, one day with God, one day with God than 1 ,000 elsewhere.

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And I would rather have the lowest position on the totem pole, the lowest position, the doorkeeper of the house of my

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God. That's better than dwelling in the tents of wickedness. And I think we can all admit it right today.

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It's very much reversed. We don't want God. We don't want to know God. We don't want him in our thinking.

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We don't want him to demand anything of us. We don't want his ways. We would rather have the moment.

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We want the self -gratification. We want the pleasure. We want the stuff. We want to accumulate the wealth.

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We want the things. We want to forget God. We'd rather have this space of maybe 80 years of sinful, fleshly pleasure.

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We'd rather have all of that. And we'd rather have all the tents around us with everybody else loving what we love than God.

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And what is the truth in scripture? It's better to have one day, one day in his courts than 1 ,000 elsewhere.

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I'd rather be the doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in a tense of wickedness.

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This is intensely personal. So who's your hero? Who are you emulating?

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Jesus in John, my favorite gospel, in John chapter 14.

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Go there. The Lord Jesus in John 14, starting in verse 8.

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Famous scene. You're familiar with it, probably. Verse 8, it says, Philip said to him,

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Lord, show us the Father. And it is enough for us.

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Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me,

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Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the

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Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you,

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I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

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Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or else believe on account of the works themselves.

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So Jesus is teaching us, and he teaches elsewhere, that if you've seen him, you've seen the

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Father. It's not to say that Jesus is the Father. Jesus is making the Father known. He's teaching the people of God about who the

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Father is. The Father is in him. He's in the Father. And Jesus is showing to us the

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Father. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. John, again, 17, just move over to this famous section, the beautiful section, the high priestly prayer of Jesus.

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In John 17, verse 6, Jesus says in his prayer to the Father, he says, I have manifested your name into the people whom you gave me out of the world.

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Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. I have manifested your name.

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I have made your name known. What is Jesus? Who is

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Jesus? Jesus is God in the flesh, and Jesus tends among us, and he makes the

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Father known. He is not simply God. He is also man.

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He is what the image of God is supposed to be, the perfect image of God. Think about God reflecting into the world his glory like light off of a mirror, shooting off into the world.

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You know what I mean? If you take a mirror and you tilt it in the dark, and you hit it with a flashlight, it'll sort of shoot out of the mirror somewhere else.

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Think about the glory of God, the image of God like that. We are supposed to be the image of God into the world, sort of displaying and shooting out the glory and light of God into the world.

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That is Jesus. That's the hero God intends us to follow.

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That is the one we are to emulate. Jesus is saying, you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You've seen what

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God, who God is. I've made his name known, and so the call is, of course, we know ultimately, follow

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Jesus, pursue Jesus. He is supposed to be the hero. So God's curse, this text says, is on the house of the wicked.

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Now here's what's important. This is a thing that a number of people have commented on on this passage.

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Verse 33, the Lord's curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous.

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There's a lot there. There's a lot. Now, you could talk, right, you could talk about all the actual consequences of the lifestyles that we're being called to emulate.

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The lifestyles that we're being called to emulate, whether it's sexual perversion, whether it's the idolization of money, whether it's the violence, whether it's the injustice, you could talk about all the consequences.

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You could talk about the betrayal. You could talk about death. You could talk about jail time. You could talk about sexually transmitted diseases, like super gonorrhea today, that almost none of our penicillins can touch.

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You could talk about all the consequences, like men in their 50s wearing diapers because of their sexual choices.

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You're not to envy them, because, of course, the curse of God is there. You could talk about all the consequences and the blessings of not pursuing that lifestyle, the blessings of God upon the upright and the righteous.

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But here's the important element. It says the Lord's curse is on the house of the wicked. So if you and I idolize, fix as a hero, the violence or the perverse, and I say, man,

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I want that. I want their stuff. I want to have what they have. I want to be like them.

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Then clearly, what's this telling us? God's curse is on their house. What are you asking for?

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You're desiring God's curse. Because what's the promise? The promise is this.

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God's curse is on their house, and they will what? Get disgraced.

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That's the last verse here, verse 35. They'll get disgraced. So when you desire those things, you pursue those things, you want those things for yourself, you're actually desiring the thing that God promises to curse.

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There's no light at the end of the tunnel. There's no stars at the end of that path.

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There is only curse, and there is only dishonor. Because this is intensely personal.

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It's not just moral principles. And so I think this is very helpful to me.

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I think it's a good way to condense this at the very end. And that is Bonson, again, when he was talking about this, he was talking about this in terms of what the text clearly says.

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Don't be like them. Don't emulate them. Don't pursue them. These shouldn't be your heroes. We ought to have different heroes.

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He points to four truths in scripture about who we should emulate, who we should imitate.

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It was interesting. I was thinking as I was praying over the message and asking God to bless you and to feed his sheep,

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I was thinking about my wife. And one of the things that has been very clear with her over the years is everyone loves to podcast now, right?

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Right? Like, it's so easy. And that's good. That's really good that we can just grab what we have.

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We can start a podcast. We can reach out to the world. I can open my phone right now. I can go live right now with all of us together.

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And I can be communicating with Christians in New Zealand, Australia, all over Europe, live.

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That's such a gift from God. It's an amazing thing. So it's a good thing that we have access. But one of the things my wife has been very committed to is who she will look to, who she wants to emulate.

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And I've admired this about her, where there's such an easy way to access the world, to start your own podcast, and to talk and to give advice.

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And my wife has been very committed to not listen to people who have no experience, right?

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So people today, like, you have maybe like a 19 -year -old woman start a podcast on child rearing.

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And you're like, you should probably wait on that, right? Maybe first have some kids.

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It's not to say that God's truth is not going to be God's truth unless you know how to do it perfectly. It's just to say you should have sort of some scars on you, right?

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Like, if I want to talk about, like, to someone with wisdom about, like, how do

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I deal with this thing as a parent? I've got teenagers. How do I pour wisdom, and how do

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I handle this? Who do I want to talk to? I want to talk to the gray -haired man and woman that has taken a beating, right?

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That has applied God's truth, has walked through those storms. We should be very careful about who our heroes are.

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Amen? We should look to people who have wisdom, and they actually have skill and application.

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I think that's something to be admired. But Bonson points to four different things in terms of scripture's clear on this.

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Don't envy this person. Don't have these people as heroes. But you're clearly called to have heroes.

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You're clearly called to make distinctions between the violent and the perverse versus the upright.

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And so Bonson makes these four points. Who should we imitate? Who should we try to be like?

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Number one, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 7. And I'll say, as you're getting there, this one is terrifying.

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Hebrews 13, 7. Not for you, for us. Hebrews 13, 7 says, remember your leaders.

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Those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

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Imitate their faith. So what do we see? God's wisdom, wisdom from above. Don't envy them.

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Don't choose any other ways. Don't set them up as heroes. Don't go that way. That's an abomination.

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This is the friend of God, the upright. But scripture does tell you, imitate these.

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It's a terrifying thing. It says, imitate, remember your leaders, consider their outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

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Believers are called to imitate the faith of their leaders. Your elders, your leaders.

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And I wanted to say to our leaders within this church body, that's a heavy weight. That is a heavy weight.

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That's a heavy responsibility. God help us. But scripture does tell us, don't pursue them.

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These should be your heroes. Your leaders, your elders. Next, Paul makes it very clear in 1

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Corinthians chapter four, go there. 1 Corinthians chapter four, verse 16.

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He says, I urge you then, be imitators of me.

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Be imitators of me. I urge you then to be imitators of me. That is my beloved and faithful child in the

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Lord to remind you of my ways in Christ. So he's saying, I sent you my disciple to remind you of my manner of life, my teaching.

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Here's Timothy coming your way to remind you of my teaching and my way of life. And so Paul clearly says, on the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit of God, he says, imitate me. I have to say, I praise

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God that this was put into my mind and my heart as a young Christian.

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To follow men that follow Paul who follows Jesus. That was one of the things that was so inspiring to me and so challenging to me.

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And I praise God for his providence in my life that one of the first Christian men I ever got to know and see as a hero was

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Pastor James, Dr. White. I did not know what a

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Christian man was supposed to look like. I didn't know what this was supposed to look like in the world and God, in his grace, in his grace, had the very first Christian book

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I ever read be the King James only controversy in Washington, D .C.

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And then I come out to Arizona, I'm on the sidewalk and I run smack dab into scholar nerd

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James White. That day he looked very different. So he's, you know, he's gone through the stages where he's scholar nerd, this is his family here.

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So scholar nerd, then to big beefy bodybuilder where like his arm, you know what I'm saying? He was like, he was like this, right?

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Did you know James was like that before? And now he rides bicycles, right? He still looks gangster.

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Yeah. But I got to see someone who was doing what

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I was reading in the book of Acts. That's what I saw. I'm new at this.

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I don't know what it's supposed to, I don't know what it's supposed to mean to be a Christian man. I had no one to look at. My father certainly was not that.

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I wasn't raised in a church. I had no idea, but I'm reading the book of Acts and I'm seeing that the

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Christian church, the leadership, the men of the church are out and they're in the public square, bringing the gospel, laying their lives down.

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They're fighting for the truth. They're preaching the truth, no matter the consequence. You're seeing

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Paul going into the synagogues, preaching Christ, people want him dead. They're making, they're taking oaths to not eat till he's dead.

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He's being lowered out of windows. He's getting beaten. He's getting just all beat up and he's constantly on the run and he's still faithful.

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He's still preaching the truth. I'm seeing that and I'm like, that's what a Christian man is supposed to be like.

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Humble, yes, but bold for the truth and willing to sacrifice. And I got to see men like Pastor James who were imitating his way of life.

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I knew like, hey, there's all these people out here that need Christ. Shouldn't we go to where they're at? And I couldn't find anybody they wanted to go with.

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And then I saw Pastor James doing what? Imitating Paul, who's actually following ultimately

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Jesus. So, and again, Bonson points this out. Paul doesn't just teach it here.

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First Corinthians 4 .16 and First Thessalonians 1 .6 -7. He says the same thing. Ultimately, follow me.

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Follow me. Imitate me as I'm following Christ. So we're called to imitate

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Paul. He should be a hero. What else do you learn? James, go to James chapter five, the

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Lord's brother. James, the Lord's brother. Chapter five, verse 10.

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Here's what he says. He says, as an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the

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Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast.

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So here, what do you have? Don't be like the violent. Don't choose any of their ways. Don't go after their path.

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Don't emulate them. Don't have them as your heroes. Who should be your heroes? Your leaders,

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Paul and the prophets. The prophets of God that he has raised up in history.

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Those ought to be your heroes. Imitate them. Look at their faith. Look at their faithfulness towards God.

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Look how God used them and blessed them. That is an inheritance of honor.

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And the Lord's brother says, imitate them. Be like them. And of course, this is the ultimate in Hebrews.

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It's just right, just turn to the left a bit. Hebrews chapter 12. You have this hall of fame.

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You know the hall of fame? You've got the hall of fame in history of God's people just recited of all these amazing things that God did through all these heroes of the faith.

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Their faithfulness, and by the way, some of the heroes in there, you're like, not just heroes, they did some serious faceplants.

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But they're still brought in as heroes. Praise God, there's hope for all of us. Amen, yes? Heroes who did some massive faceplants.

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But the point is, God still says they're heroes. They're in the hall of fame.

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And in Hebrews chapter 12, it says this, verse one, therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which inclines so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

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Here it is, not just those prophets, not just the hall of fame, it says this, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

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Who's your hero? Who are our heroes? Who are the ones we're emulating?

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A word before I finish this, just this last verse. A word to us as Christian men on this.

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All those things true, imitate Paul, imitate the heroes of the faith, imitate your leaders, follow their faith, yes and amen, but to us as men,

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Christian men, what a weight being called to not envy, not envy the violent one, to not follow the perverse.

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Right, these shouldn't be your heroes, but you ought to have heroes, who are they? What a calling, what a weight upon us as men today to be the heroes that these young men look up to and desire to be like.

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Isn't it amazing? It was a, we have a close relationship with a lot of Navy SEALs.

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We try to serve them and help them. SEALs from across the teams, Team 2 -4, DevGru, all of them, and we had man camp, was it this year when the guys came?

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So man camp this year, we had two of our Navy SEALs, active duty Navy SEALs come out to spend time training the men of our church, and you should have seen the faces of the young men in our church, and I mean teenagers, young boys.

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These Navy SEALs would walk by, and you just saw these teenagers and young boys, like they would, they'd be goofing around, and as soon as these guys would walk around, they'd just perk up and just, you know, why, because these are men.

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These are strong men. These are courageous men. It isn't amazing that young boys have an immediate attraction to the man, the one who acts like a man, the one who sacrifices, the one who's courageous, the one who's disciplined, the one who knows how to fight.

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That's instinctive. It's part of the image of God in us. Boys don't want men who act like girls and act like ladies, amen, yes?

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You shouldn't be offended by that. This is apology of church. Don't give me any looks.

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Boys don't want men who act like women. We want to see men act strong like men, and it's amazing to see when the

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Navy SEALs are around our guys how even the older men, right, like at one point, one of the guys was doing something.

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He lifted his shirt, and it was like he had like 16 rocks going down, and you just saw, like, it was, all these guys, the grown men were like, dang.

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The boys were like, did you see his 19 pack, right? It was just funny, because you want that kind of hero.

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We should be that kind of community that actually props up the person who's the hero.

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Now, mind you, the best of heroes all have failures, amen, yes, so praise God for his grace that even in the

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Hall of Fame, you've got face planters that are still seen as heroes, but the point is, what a weight for us as men.

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What a weight for us as men. We, at our church body, need to be the kind of men that actually are the heroes that our sons and the boys want to be like.

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Be the disciplined man, be the courageous man, be the faithful man, be the patient man, be the loving man, be the kind man, be the man who doesn't tolerate injustice.

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Be the kind of man that doesn't tolerate partiality. Let's let our sons be raised in a community with a bunch of men who are heroes that we are looking to to emulate.

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And the same goes for our mothers, for our women. We should be the kind of body that as women in the church body, we are trying to be the kind of heroes these young women want to be like.

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That is to say, the kind of strong woman, the kind of faithful woman, woman with integrity, a woman who actually speaks with kindness and gentleness, a woman who shows godly submission and yet strength in God, amen?

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The kind of woman who loathes gossip and slander, who doesn't allow it, who doesn't practice it, the kind of women that actually show such a peace and such a joy and such a delight in God, they lead people into delighting in God.

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Happiness, joy, not complacency, but delight in God.

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The kind of women in our church body that show a concern for others and a sacrifice for others and a warmth to the world around them.

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The kind of women that actually show hospitality, that treat others as so valuable and so important.

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We need to have our women be the heroes. God says, don't envy them, don't emulate them, these aren't heroes, don't go their way, these are the perverse, so be the kind of believer who is the upright that actually raises up these little heroes to lead the world to Jesus.

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That's the kind of church we should be. The last verse says simply, the wise will inherit honor but fools get disgrace.

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This is repeated so much, I think the easiest way to communicate this is to aim at a passage we were already in at the beginning, and that's

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Psalm 37. Go there, Psalm 37, I read you the first eight verses or seven verses, here's the rest.

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Listen, and tell me if it sounds familiar to you. Tell me if it sounds familiar. Psalm 37, starting at verse eight, it says, refrain from anger and forsake wrath.

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Fret not yourself, it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the

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Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more.

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Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the, hmm, this famous psalm.

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The meek shall inherit the land, but that sounds oddly familiar, doesn't it?

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Most famous sermon in the history of the world, Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, the meek shall inherit the earth.

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Hmm, they saw these promises in such a narrow way in the

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Old Testament, where they have the nation of Israel, the land of Israel, they see just this vision like a tunnel.

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They only see what's right there through that tube. And what you see in the New Testament is actually, it was about the whole world the whole time.

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Abraham's descendants will inherit the world, the earth, and the meek shall inherit the earth, all of it.

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So what's the promise from Scripture? Is that the wicked will be cut off and the meek will inherit the earth.

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Hey, that sounds like Proverbs 3 .35. The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace.

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When all is said and done, Psalm 110 .1, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus is reigning now. He must reign until all of his enemies are made a footstool for his feet and the last enemy is death.

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So what's going under the feet of Jesus? All of God's enemies. Who gets the world?

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The meek. We inherit the earth. Abraham's descendants inherit the world. And so what does it mean?

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The wicked will be cut off. That means that their destiny, the cursed house, is disgrace.

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And it is ultimately the wise that will inherit honor. So as history moves along, as the gospel transforms the world, as Christ puts his enemies under his feet, just know that the great heroes of history, the ones who inherit the honor, are going to be the godly, the upright, the righteous.

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They will be the ones 25 ,000 years from now that will be emulated as the heroes of history while the violent and the perverse will only inherit dishonor and they will be cut off and ultimately forgotten because God's curse is on the house of the wicked but his blessing is on the dwelling of the righteous.

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Amen? Let's pray. Father, I pray that you'd bless the word that went out today for your glory and your kingdom.

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Forgive us of our sins in Jesus' name and grant to us the strength and the courage to be the kind of people you call us to, that people will imitate.