Gay Marriage?

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Dearly beloved friends, we are gathered together in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in paradise, in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt
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Christ and His Church, which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with His presence, the first miracle that He wrought in Cana of Galilee, and is commended of St.
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Paul to be honorable among all men, and therefore is not to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisably, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites like brute beasts that have no understanding.
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But reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly considering the causes for which matrimony was ordained.
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One was the procreation of children to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord and praise of God.
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Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin and to avoid fornication, that such persons as have not the gift of continence might marry and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body.
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Thirdly, for the mutual society, health, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity, into which the holy estate these two present persons come now to be joined.
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Therefore, if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him speak now or else hereafter hold their peace.
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Wedding vows for the 9th, 1552 Book of Common Prayer. We've come a long way, baby, haven't we?
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Or as Dylan would say, the times, they are a changing. I mean, when was the last time you even heard the bans, the proclamation of, if anyone in the congregation knows anything about these couples, so they should not be married, don't let them be married.
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That was announced in Protestant and Catholic churches for the prior three weeks. Noah Webster in his dictionary, 1828, said this about marriage.
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It is the act of uniting a man and a woman for life, wedlock. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing promiscuity of the sexes for promoting domestic felicity and securing the maintenance and education of children.
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Time goes on. Marian Webster recently said, it is the mutual relation of husband and wife, the institution by where men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence.
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As time goes on and a little bit more of the God talk comes out, Cambridge Dictionary says of today, the legally accepted relationship between a woman and a man in which they live as husband and wife.
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Now online, Encarta Dictionary says, listen to this, it is a legal relationship between spouses, a legally recognized relationship established by a civil or religious ceremony between two people who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners.
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As time goes on from the Bible, here's what the Bible says about marriage, to 1555 to 1832 and down today we get a redefining of the concept of marriage.
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If you don't like something, just redefine it. If it's too narrow, just spin it.
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For further demonstration of that, I found this week online, if you have marriage which is honorable and sacred by God and you don't really like it because it's too exclusive, then just put a different vocabulary word in front of it, an adjective, matter of fact, and change it all.
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We have now mixed marriages, a marriage between two people who are of different religious backgrounds.
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We have civil marriages, don't want to have all the God talk, then just have a marriage with a magistrate.
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That was in 1889. 1900, we have common law marriage, you don't really have to get married, just live together for so long everybody will just assume that.
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We have shotgun marriages, a marriage forced or required because of pregnancy, 1929.
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That was in the dictionary. 1971, open marriages, partners are open to do whatever they want outside of marriage.
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And now we have gay marriage, as we know of this last week.
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Yesterday, 40 years ago, some say that was the day when America lost her innocence. I'm not so sure last week is the week or the day where Massachusetts turned her back on marriage and lost her innocence.
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Goodridge versus Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Four to three gay marriages.
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Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said this, and she was the majority opinion writer, and works a deep and scarring hardship on a very real segment of the community for no rational reason.
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Did you get that? First of all, the God ordained pact between a man and a woman to be married and only for them to be married is now called a marriage ban.
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I think of Isaiah chapter 5, woe to those who call evil good and good what? Evil, it's all upside down.
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Furthermore, basically I think what she was saying is gay marriage is good and if you don't believe so, then you are cuckoo.
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More than that, there's no rational reason to do anything else. Rational, you are hysterical, you are homophobic, you are a fundamentalist, you are a
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Tyrannosaurus Rex, you're a dinosaur, you're a troglodyte, you're not rational, you don't think if you believe something like that.
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Martin Luther said, if we are correct and right in our Christian life at every point, but refuse to stand for the truth at a particular point where the battle rages, then we are traitors to Christ.
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The battle is raging. And in front of you all this morning, I want to obey some of my last few sermons.
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The pastor should live what he preaches. He should at least strive to do that.
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And so I'm going to obey in front of you now, in front of all of you to see that I want to obey the commands that I've been preaching from Paul out of the book of Ephesians as we've been going verse by verse.
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To be angry, I want to obey that one. And I also want to obey the command that it talks about not letting unwholesome words proceed from your lips, but instead give words for edification, for need, for benefit.
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When there's a need that the church has, then we are supposed to speak grace to fill that need.
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God's honorable state of marriage, His holy matrimony is being sullied, and I'm mad.
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I'm angry. And I was sitting and having breakfast this morning.
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It wasn't this morning, although I was sitting and having breakfast this morning as well, but it was Friday. I was working on Ephesians chapter 4, had most of the message done, and I thought, here this is raging around us.
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What are we to do? How do we respond? Panic attack? Get the
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Valiums? Call your senators? There's a variety of things that you could do, good or bad. So let's take this hour, not a technical hour, but let's take the rest of the time, and I want to give you a charge from pastor to the congregation.
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How do you live in a society like this? And it's not going to get any better. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
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And what will you do? It'll be one thing to lose our tax exemption because we won't marry sodomites, as the
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Bible would call them. I mean, what a travesty. They've taken the word gay, and now we can't use it anymore.
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You could say, well, boy, the Jeffreys have a gay marriage. They're just happy, and they love each other, and they're bright and cheerful.
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You can't say that anymore, can you? You've taken some good word and tweaked it into negative.
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Sorry, that wasn't in my notes. The epitome of a gay marriage.
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Sad. And I want to give you a charge, and you say, well, you just have to say sodomites. Listen to what
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God called Israel, specifically Jerusalem. Revelation 11, 8,
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And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which mystically is called Sodom, and Egypt, where also their
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Lord was crucified. Sodom is the corruption. What do we do?
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Well, let me give you several for this morning. And, again, I want this to come right out of Ephesians chapter 4.
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I could just stop, but as you live your life, and you say, oh, I'd just as soon finish Ephesians 4 and get there before Thanksgiving, et cetera, et cetera, but sometimes you just have to put the halt on and say, what does
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God say in a time like this? How do you respond? I would say this.
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If you heard about that this week and said, oh, who cares? God will work it out. I think that's the wrong response.
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If you said, I can't believe this. The world is crumbling, and I'm worried and anxious about my grandkids. What are we to do?
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How are we to act? Let me give you that charge this morning with several charges from Scripture.
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Number one, recognize, firstly, that this is an attack upon God and His Word, especially an attack on Jesus Christ.
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See, if you have an outline today, this is point number one. This is an attack upon God, His Word, and Jesus Christ.
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I don't know about you, but if your wife is getting attacked, I don't think you just stand there and kind of watch.
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The issue is not it is best for a child to grow up with a dad and mom in the home, although it's true.
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The issue is not the judiciary now taking away the legislative branch's job and kind of spinning over into making law at the judiciary level.
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That's not the issue. The issue is not, well, tradition. The issue is not financial.
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The issue is this is an attack upon the person and work of God. And once you abandon the authority of God and therefore
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His Word, every man will do what is right in his or her own what? Eyes.
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No authority except the authority that we have inherently, and what you have is chaos. Maybe you have friends like I do who have said even this week, what's okay by me as long as they don't hurt anyone.
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Whatever is done in the privacy of their own home, they're born that way.
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Those are issues, but those are not the issue. The issue is the nature and integrity of our great
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God. It is an attack upon God and His nature with twin tower -like significance.
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God ordained marriage. God created marriage. God established marriage. God designed marriage.
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Marriage reflects God. If you attack marriage, you attack the
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Bible, and you attack God. Listen to what the 1552 Book of Common Prayer goes on to say to the couple in front of the church.
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I require and charge you, as you will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you do know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, that ye confess it.
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For be ye well assured that so many as be coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful.
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It may be lawful in the state's eyes, but it is not lawful in God's eyes.
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Turn to Hebrews 13, and let's just take a look at this passage for a moment. We'll talk about how we respond to people, and we don't have to be angry with sin, but we can still stand up for the truth and stand up for God.
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Hebrews 13, verse 4. God is the one who has ordained marriage, albeit it was kind of an interesting marriage for Adam.
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You take a nap and wake up, and God said, Here's your wife, you're married. That was interesting, I know. But God is the one who has designed marriage.
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And marriage can be encapsulated in Hebrews 13, verse 4, at least our view of it, at least our mindset of marriage.
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And he says with a command form, Let marriage be held in honor among all.
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And let the marriage bed, let the sexual bed be undefiled, for fornicators and adulterers
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God will judge. Marriage is to be held in honor among all. Another word for honor, valued.
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The exact same Greek word, precious. Marriage by society and the church and individuals should be looked at as something that's precious and costly and wonderful.
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Respected, dear, it's dear to your heart, it's precious. You think of Christ, his first miracle at Cana, at the wedding.
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He thought it was precious. Yet man, what does man do? Anything that God says is good, it's turned upside down.
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Carl Henry said, Man refuses to honor God in his revelation and formulates a life and worldview perspective more congenial to his standpoint of revolt.
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In other words, God doesn't really, did God really say? Have you thought about it this way?
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For those of you who have come in for premarital counseling and for marriage, I like to say things like this. Everything we do in the worship service, you can have a hand in, in terms of picking songs and everything else, but number one above everything else, this is a worship service.
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Marriage is a worship service. So everything from men wearing proper attire to women not having low -cut dresses to singing songs about Christ that are
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God -honoring, everything else, we are getting together to worship. It's not about us, it's about God.
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This is a worship service, so everything fits underneath that rubric of worship. And we, when we come for a wedding, we celebrate the goodness of God, right?
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That's exactly what we do. God, you're good, we celebrate you, that you give gifts not only eternally through Christ your
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Son, but also temporarily. Temporally, rather. The issue is not, for me, do
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I love homosexuals? The answer is yes, I must. Jesus was the one who was even accused by the
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Pharisees. That guy just hangs out with prostitutes and tax gatherers and every other kind of low -life scum in the society's view.
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He hangs with them all the time. He does. We are to love people like that.
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But I, when I come to worship God and celebrate Him, I don't need to celebrate and endorse gay marriages.
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Beloved, if you think the gay society only wants us to accept them, you've got another thing coming. Just like alongside with the
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Palestinians just want their own state, they don't want their own state, they want it all. They want no
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Israel state. And the same thing here. It's just one inch at a time. How do you eat an elephant?
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One bite at a time. And first it's civil unions and then it's marriages. Now I must celebrate those?
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I cannot. I'm bound by the Word of God. What am I to do? God is the one being attacked.
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Listen to Psalm 138 verse 2 in the King James translation. I will worship towards thy holy temple and praise thy name for the loving kindness and for thy truth.
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Listen, for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. God, your word is like who you are with your justice and all your attributes and your character and person, the loveliness, the dreadfulness.
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I just love you like I love your word. Carol Moseley Braun said, the news article said she was democratic, presidential, hopeful.
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I don't think that's the case. But she said in the candidate's forum in Oklahoma, and I quote, I don't see any differences between interracial marriages and same -sex marriages, end quote.
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Well, my response in my notes is open your Bible. You can marry anyone of a different gender.
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It doesn't matter what their skin color is like, but you can't marry anyone of the same sex when God defines it in a different way.
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Ask yourself the question, what makes adultery sin? What makes fornication sin?
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What makes homosexuality sin? This capricious God up there saying, yes, you can, no, you can't, and I don't want what's good for you.
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No, number one is because God said so, and he spoke with finality and clarity and with exactness and preciseness.
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But number two is because God wants to protect the goodness for his plan with sex and marriage.
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It's not because he's just random. Think about it. God made all these things and they call them good and even call it very good.
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And that includes Adam and Eve together physically. Turn to Ephesians chapter 5 as we look at this idea that the
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Lord has attacked and we need to stand up and there's a variety of things that we can do. I'll get to later. But beneath it all, this is an attack upon Christ.
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The Father ordains marriage. Christ says, yes, I commend it by showing up. And look at what the
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Spirit of God does. He shows the close illustration between Christ and his church through a husband and wife.
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I have all my own views, but they're all irrelevant.
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What does God say? Ephesians chapter 5 verse 23. By the way,
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I'm so thankful that I have the Bible to preach because I don't know what I would say every week up here. And I know you wouldn't be here to listen.
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Ephesians chapter 5 verse 23. For the husband is head of the wife as Christ also head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body.
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But as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be to their husbands and everybody. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church.
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Just as. Look at the mirror. Look at the model. Look at the reflection. And gave himself up for her.
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Then he might cleanse her. Now things are just switched from husbands and wives to Christ and the church. Having cleansed her by the washing in water with the word.
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Then he might present to himself the church in all her glory. Having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
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That she should be holy and blameless. Now back to the temporal. So husbands ought to also love their own wives as their own bodies.
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He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it.
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Just as Christ also does the church. See, just weave in and out. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
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And to put the exclamation point on there, this mystery of the husband and wife marriage reflecting the glory of God in the son to the church.
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The mystery is great but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church. The war is against Jesus Christ because here we see even with a husband and a wife, frail and fragile and sinful, it still represents the body of Christ being loved by the son.
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And gay marriage denigrates that, destroys it and is blasphemous. We are in a war.
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If you don't sense that, then maybe today will be the wake -up call.
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If you'd like to write your senators, write. If you'd like to call, call. But the issue is not politics.
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The issue is redemption. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though through God we're entreating through us.
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We beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. That's what our response should be.
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Here they're attacking Christ, so what do you do? Attack back? Fight fire with fire?
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No, we preach the gospel. We have a redemptive agenda. And the bad news is,
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I guess it's good news in a sense because it's biblically true, but the bad news is that preaching the gospel needs to start in this church.
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I'm convinced that the number one place where we should start evangelism is in the church. You say, well, you know, gay marriage and I'm not sure and I'm not that.
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I don't know your heart. Only Jesus Christ does. But if you can't stand up for the Son, then I need to question, are you saved to begin with?
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James 5 says, people in the church stray and we have to turn the sinner from the error of his way.
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That God uses us to preach the gospel to those in the church. I'm sure it's true in this church, but other churches as well.
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If you're a wife and you see your husband attacked physically or verbally, what is your gut instinct?
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What do you do? You stand up for your wife. That would be a gay marriage.
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You stand up for your husband. There's something in you that wants to stand up for truth. Do not just shrug it off anymore.
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This is just an attack. It's only going to get worse. You can just say it's going to get worse, but you need to say this is an attack and a front on God.
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Let's keep going. Number one, what should we do? Recognize that it's an attack upon Jesus Christ.
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Number two, don't be surprised. If you got up last week and said, I can't believe this happened.
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You got on the phone or the internet and said you would never believe what happened. I'm bewildered. I'm befuddled. I'm just amazed and confused.
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What is going on? If I could push the envelope, if you said that, that's sin.
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What? Let's find out. There's a command not to be surprised.
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And if I fall short and I typically or I often fall short in this one, then what does the scripture say?
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I love what Cal Thomas said this week. He said, it is not as if the ruling by the
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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court permitting the marriage of same -sex couples came as a surprise.
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If Massachusetts doesn't care about sexual practices of some of its politicians, why should it care about what some of its lesser citizens do?
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That's just temporally. How about eternally? God has already built into the Bible for us.
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Don't be surprised when things go haywire. This isn't heaven. Aren't you glad?
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This isn't heaven. This is good. When you get to heaven, all the goodness on earth comparatively will seem like a veritable hell in comparison.
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You'll say, I thought that was good on earth. But comparatively, it's nothing. On the flip side, for unbelievers, might
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I add, their life on earth that they think is a hell will seem their eternal condemnation comes clear.
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Look at 1 Peter chapter 4. Written by Peter, the apostle. Written for a suffering, struggling church that needed to learn this fact.
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Jesus submitted through suffering. The church must submit through suffering. 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 12.
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Beloved, pastoral heart, do not be surprised. Present imperative.
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Never, ever, ever be surprised. Don't ever do it one time. Never be surprised. Don't be flabbergasted.
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Don't be dumbfounded. Don't say, what's going on? I can't believe that just happened. I should have had a VA, twilight zone.
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Don't ever do that. Never. Doesn't leave one loophole. Don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you.
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It's right in your midst. Which comes upon you for your testing as though some strange thing were happening to you.
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Your feelings want to say, boy, this is so weird. I can't. This is strange.
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But use your mind and drive that engine of the mind so the caboose of your emotions follow and say,
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God's word has told me I should be ready for this. And I must be. I can't be surprised and bewildered.
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Literally stop thinking a thing alien. No. You say, well, easy for Peter to say.
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Easy for Peter to say. At the time, Nero, the man who loved to kill Christians, who loved to take
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Christians and wrap them up in an animal skin that was decaying, throw them out to the lions so they would just eat them up all the more, take
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Christians and impale them on stakes, put pitch and tar over them and light them for their candles at their parties at night.
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The Nero who most likely set Rome on fire and blamed the Christians. And so Christians are being beheaded and killed by Nero left and right.
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By the way, that's what I think is the best thing at the Worcester Art Museum is that little bust of Nero. And right at the bottom after it says
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Emperor of Rome, 54 to 68 A .D., it said killed by suicide. The fire either already happened for these dear people or it was about to happen.
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This is so good for me. I don't have to say, oh, Massachusetts laws this only.
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What if I should have done this? If only we should expect this and we should expect more about this one.
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First, John 3, 13 from the beloved disciple. Do not marvel, brethren, if the world hates you.
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The world hates me. Like my mom said, she said, I couldn't believe it. I was 40 years old before I figured out that there are some people in this world that don't like me at all.
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Take me to be 40. Take me to be 37. We shouldn't be surprised.
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John 15, 18, talking to his men. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
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If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
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And we think in Christianity, if we can just get people to love us, they'll love the gospel too. That is foolish.
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I'm successful. They'll love Jesus. I've got a good job. They'll love Jesus. I've got a good relationship in the community.
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They'll love Jesus. No, they will hate Jesus if you preach the real one until God changes their hearts.
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Jesus said, went on in John 15, 20. Remember the word that I said to you. A slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
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If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. We are to expect it. And so the next thing that comes down the pike that's all weird, you can just say,
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I know the Bible says don't be surprised, and God, help me not to be. On the positive side, let me give you number three.
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What should we do as a church? Number one, church, we should say, this is an attack upon God. Number two, we should say to ourselves, we shouldn't be surprised.
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Number three, we shouldn't worry because God is sovereign. We have a loving, sovereign
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God, and we ought not worry. We are to be anxious for what? Headline news.
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We are to be anxious for, well, come on, the world says you can be anxious. Anxious for nothing,
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Philippians 4 says. I want you to turn to 1 Timothy 6. I'd like you to, while you're turning there, ask yourself this question.
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When God heard the four to three ruling last week, what did he do? He stopped, first of all, wringing his hands because he realized he couldn't overturn it.
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Secondly, he just thought, oh, it just could have been three to four. If I just would have had that other person with their free will repent, and I just so wish it would have happened.
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Oh, please. Up there stomping his foot like, what was
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God doing? Now, there are some pastors in the audience, and you can imagine what it must be to be like a pastor.
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But pastoring is hard. And I'm not saying this because I want any mercy, but it's important for the text. First of all, you have to live with your own self and your own sin.
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Then you have to live with everybody else's. Then you have satanic attacks, invisible warfare that's going on.
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And if Jesus says, I love my church and I build it, Satan's going to say, I'm going to destroy it at all costs.
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And there's all these issues going around. And so Paul writes to Timothy as a pastor. And if you were going to try to encourage a pastor, what would you say at the very end of the letter?
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It's all going to work out, no problem. Keep your chin up. You think that's bad?
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You should have seen what I've gone through. What does he say? You know what Paul says to Timothy at the end of verse
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Timothy in chapter 6? He said, God is not worried. When it comes to your pastoral ministry,
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I want you to know one thing, Timothy. You may be worried. You may be nervous, anxious.
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But God is not worried. And beloved, the same thing is true today. Look at this passage.
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It's so wonderful. It's a praise of God that serves as a reminder to Timothy. God is on his throne, and no one or no thing or no how is going to not give.
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Look at the language. Hardly any other language like this except 2 Timothy 4 verse 1.
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1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 13 is what I want to look at though right now. I charge you in the presence of God, with God as your witness, who gives life to all things.
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I mean he brings up God, and he's just going to start talking about how wonderful he is. And of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate.
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That you keep the commandment without staying or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. So here's
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Timothy. I've got all these commands of pastoral ministry. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. How am
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I going to do it? There are days in my office I just put my head down and say, Oh God, I can't be a pastor.
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I can't minister like this. I can't take care of everybody's needs. I don't know. All these things. You're like, help me.
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Well, here's the help. Verse 15. Talk about the appearing of Christ, which he will bring about at the proper time.
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He, who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, who no man has seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal dominion.
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Amen. He says, first of all, he's coming back at the proper time.
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Jesus wins, and we win with him, in him. Then he calls him a sovereign. He's the blessed and only sovereign.
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Have you ever heard of that word, dynasty? That he has a dynasty, the king does. That's a different word for sovereign than we normally have, but it means a powerful one who has a dynasty.
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And then he says, he possesses, in verse 16, immortality. It means, the
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Greek word is no death. Athanatos, it means no death. He never dies. And he dwells in holy, transcendent, the effulgent glory of God, the
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Shekinah. He dwells in that, which is all good. But then look at that one little word tucked in, verse 15.
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He, who is the blessed. He, who is the blessed, the blessed one.
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What does that mean? You ever thought about that? You know how you ever just read the Bible and just like, doing the Evelyn Woodhead speed reading course, and you're trying to get through to get your five chapters a day, keeps the devil away, and you're just trying to zip through, and you never stop to just pay attention?
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The blessed one. What does it mean? Happy, fulfilled, content.
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It's in what one commentator said, quote, when used in reference to God, it describes his lack of unhappiness, frustration, and anxiety.
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He is content, satisfied, at peace, fulfilled, and perfectly joyful. While some things please him and other things do not, nothing alters his heavenly contentment.
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He controls everything to his own joyous ends. Isn't that amazing?
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Nothing exists that doesn't exist the way that God wants it. God is not sweating.
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God is not wringing his hands. I remember there was a
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Mennonite man who was in Pennsylvania, and he used to hold his kids at night when they wake up with bad dreams.
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He would sing this little song called, Everything's All Right in My Father's House. So I thought, you know what, I'm going to start singing that to our kids.
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They would scream in the middle of the night, and I'd go pick them up and just kind of rock them in my arms, hold them not tight enough to crush them, of course, but just tight enough so they would feel my arms and my biceps wrapped around them super tight with just tender care yet firm love.
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And I would sing that song, Everything's All Right, when
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God is called the blessed one. He's content. God is not up there worrying. He's calm.
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Why? Which attribute would let him be calm in all these circumstances? His sovereignty.
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He is sovereign, and he rules over all. If there's one Adam of the universe that he's not sovereign over, then he's not sovereign.
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Listen to what the Westminster Shorter Catechism said about his sovereignty. His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.
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Psalm 115, he is in the heavens, and he does whatsoever what? He pleases.
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God is called the Lord, the Most High, the King, the Only Sovereign, the Almighty. He sits on the throne.
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He has reign, dominion, rule, decree, commands, he ordains. There is no such thing as an accident.
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There is no such thing as chance. There is no such thing as serendipitous fortuitousness. I don't know what that is either, but it sounded good.
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I don't think those words go together. From the human perspective, it might be serendipitous or lucky.
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God is sovereign, and he controls everything. On the other side of that, if you think of it this way, God's plans cannot be frustrated.
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Listen to Isaiah 14, verse 27. For the Lord Almighty has purposed, who can thwart him?
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His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back? God ought not to do that. Stop that,
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God. How about Daniel 2, verse 20? Praise be the name of God forever and ever.
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He changes times and seasons. He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
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Proverbs 21 .1. The king's heart is like the channels of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wishes.
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How do you think prophecy could ever be fulfilled? Because God's sovereign hand is driving that. You say, well, that's fine.
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I understand that God's sovereign over everything, but what about sin? The day that it dawned on me through the
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Spirit of God and illuminating my mind that God was sovereign over sin, it changed my life. Now, it's sin to call marriage something different than God called it.
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It is sin to say this is something that was good, and then the chief, the majority writer says it's a marriage ban.
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That's all sin. Gay marriage is sin. So how can I process that God is sovereign over sin, that God would ordain it, that God would allow it, if that's an easier word for you, that God would permit it?
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Once you bow your knee that God is sovereign over sin, it is a great, lovely, just,
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God, you're just going to have to take care of it. Furthermore, it will give you praise like nothing else in your life practically next to your salvation.
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Okay, what do I mean by that? If God causes all things to work out for good, if God can take something sinful and make it good,
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I look at the Massachusetts Supreme Court and say, God, only you and only you could take something so sinful and heinous and backwards and blasphemous, something that's against God's word, against your nature, against your son, and make it out for good.
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God, I'm going to be pleased to just watch you unfold your goodness and your glory either on this life or the next or both.
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God, only you could do that. How do I know God is sovereign over sin? Because Acts chapter 4 says that God had ordained the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
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I can't think of a bigger sin than that, can you? How about this one? You don't have time to look them up, but just...
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These are verses that you don't like to hear, that I don't like to hear, but they're in the
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Bible, so what are we going to do? Ecclesiastes 7 .14. In the day of prosperity, be happy.
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But in the day of adversity, consider. God has made the one as well as the other.
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Adversity, God has made it. Lamentations 3 .38. Is it not from the mouth of the
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Most High that both good and ill go forth? Amos 3 .6. If calamity occurs in a city, has not the
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Lord done it? With sinfulness, no. But with sovereignty, yes. Isaiah 45 .7.
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The one forming light and creating darkness, causing well -being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things.
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Joseph sinfully gets thrown into that well and taken down to Egypt. Did they do it? Yes. Genesis 45 .8
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says, though, Now therefore it was not you who sent me here, but... Job 1 .21.
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The Lord has given. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Is that what it says? The Lord gives.
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The Lord takes away. God is to be praised. It even gets scarier.
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1 Kings 22 .22. And the Lord said to him, How? And he said, I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.
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Then God said, You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so. God calls
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Nebuchadnezzar his servant. Jeremiah says that the Chaldeans did
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God's work against Judah. God hardens Pharaoh's heart. Isaiah 28 .21.
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The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perizim. He will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task.
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Destruction. How could God take something so bad and make it into something glorious?
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Well, because he's sovereign. Genesis 50 .20. As for you,
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Joseph said, you meant evil against me. But God meant it for what? Good. One thing
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I didn't do last week when I heard about that. I did not fall on my knees and say, God, I love you. You are so good.
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You're worthy to be praised even today. Because I know even though they're going to do all this stuff, and it's going to make my life hard, and it's going to defame your name, and it's going to be an attack upon you, and the church could suffer,
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I could go to jail, etc., etc., I still love you because you're going to make this good. You're going to make it good for us, and it's going to give you glory because you will not let anything happen that you don't want to have happen, and you are not up there at the beck and call of men.
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Somehow as a gentleman who's not going to get involved, rather you are in the whoop and wharf of evil's lives.
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That's a God I can stand in awe of. Rabbi Harold Kushner said,
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God wants the righteous to live peaceable, happy lives, but sometimes even he can't bring that about. It's too difficult even for God to keep cruelty and chaos from claiming they're innocent victims.
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That is not what the Bible teaches. But until you can bow your knee to the utter sovereignty of God, that he's sovereign even over the crucifixion of the son, you can't worship when something like that happens.
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Especially when we're in the midst of something that, you know, when somebody says, God's going to judge America if we keep it up.
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I believe what my pastor teaches. We're not getting ready for judgment. This is the judgment. You want gay marriage?
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Here. You want quail? You're running around like you don't have anything to eat. You want quail? Okay, I'm going to give you quail until it comes out of your mouth and your ears.
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God does that all the time. Remember Nebuchadnezzar? There's no such thing as God. I just was preaching the gospel this week to someone.
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I said, you need to go outside and tell me that when you look at the sun and the moon and the stars and watch a baby come out of your wife's womb, that you look at that and say, evolution.
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And I tell them, you know, there's a problem. And the problem is, you are under judgment already, and it's evident because God judges people with what they already have many times.
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You're acting like there's no God. That's insanity. And you know what God does? He just turns up your insanity all the more.
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You want to act like there's no God? Okay, Nebuchadnezzar. Go outside of that field and let your nails grow, and you can just practice this word for a while.
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Moo. Sorry, that wasn't in the
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Bible. I mean, that was obviously not in the Bible. That's not in my notes either. We can rejoice, and we don't have to worry when the world falls apart because God is king.
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It is not just the title. It is his nature and his essence and his being. We have to be quick with this last one.
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Turn to 1 Peter. Are we already there? Maybe we're already there. I'm not sure. But take a look at 1
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Peter 4, verse 13. We can worship. We can recognize there's an attack upon God's word.
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We shouldn't be surprised. We don't have to worry. And lastly, we can rejoice when we get the privilege to suffer for Christ.
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We can rejoice. I have to tell you true confessions. I'm already thinking, what do we do in 5 years, 10 years, 30 years when we have no tax exemption?
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And they say if I don't marry two homosexuals here that I'm going to go to jail.
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What are we going to do? First I go. Then Jeffrey's goes. Then the elders go. Then is anybody else going to step up and be the next one?
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Well, we'll start our jail ministry together, our prison ministry. Suffering is part of God's will for your life.
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1 Peter 2 talks about that. And when God, remember Matthew 10 this morning?
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God calls us to give up everything. I'll tell you one thing that suffering would do for a church, this church, any church, if we started getting thrown in jail for what we believed,
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I think we would have some extra seats here the next Sunday. It would purify.
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It would test us. We live in a society where the church, you know, we'll be a Christian as long as I get.
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And, you know, well, I don't even know if I want to give up soccer on Sundays because, you know, it's good for the development of my kids.
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I remember WV &E called me sometime back years ago and said, what do you think about soccer on Sundays?
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Well, you know, kids and stuff with soccer on Sundays, if they were to miss, you know, their championship game on Sunday and go to church instead of miss it or whatever,
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I said, that's not really the issue, but here's the issue. I think Sunday soccer, even though it shouldn't be done, is a good thing because a mom and dad is going to have to sit down with their kid and say this, being a
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Christian son or daughter is going to cost you something. What does Christianity cost us these days?
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Matter of fact, it's a benefit. You get friends and you get a tax write -off for all your gifts. Does it cost us anything anymore to be a
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Christian? And once it does, we just shrink down and then thrive.
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1 Peter 4, verse 13, we will suffer. And it's amazing that when we do, we're going to get blessings.
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Last week I thought, oh, no, here we go. And now I need to be thinking something completely opposite. 1 Peter 4, verse 13, but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, you can read about that in chapter 2 where he suffered without sin, without reviling back, totally according to God's purposes.
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Keep on what? Rejoicing. So that also at the revelation of His glory, when
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He comes back, you may rejoice and have a total skipping and bubbling over with shouts of delight, one man called it, to jubilate, to have a hoedown or a party.
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When He comes back, you suffered for Him, you go, wow. Anything that we suffer for Christ is a privilege.
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Look at verse 14, if you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are what? Blessed. Because the spirit of glory and God rest upon you, it hovers over you.
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He makes you refreshed and rested upon. Verse 15, let's not suffer like a sinner, murderer, thief, or evildoer.
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We don't want to do it that way, but verse 16, but if any suffers as a Christian, let him not feel what? Ashamed. But in that name, let him glorify
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God. Verse 19, skip down there, but therefore let all who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful creator in doing what is right.
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Last verses to look up. Go to verse 4 of 2
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Peter 2. In the midst of all this, God can take care of us. God knows what He's doing.
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And we need to be praying that we'll be faithful to preach the gospel and turn this world upside down like they did in Acts, one soul at a time.
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Look at 2 Peter 2, verse 4. Oh, this is so rich. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment,
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He didn't spare the ancient world, verse 5, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.
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If He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having been made them an example to those who would live ungodly after.
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And if He rescued righteous lot, oppressed by this sensual conduct of unprincipled men, for by what
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He saw and heard that righteous man while living among them felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds.
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And here's the point, verse 9. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment to the day of judgment.
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Isn't that good to know? He knows how to take care of us. In the midst of catastrophic Sodom and Gomorrah, the world getting flooded,
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He could take care of Lot. You know the good thing about Lot? I don't know if it's actually good, but it turns into good.
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Can you imagine Lot is called righteous three times in this book? And Lot was a wicked, sinful man, got saved and still was sinful, and God used him and saved him.
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And so when your life doesn't measure up to the apostle Paul or Aquila or Priscilla, you can say,
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God can take care of Lot and rescue him out of that. He can take care of me even if we are in jail.
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And I like that. Remember, if you'd like to go ahead and vote, you vote.
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You want to call your senators? Fine. But when you call your senators, pray for them is the most important.
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Miss Manners, a while ago, didn't like it that pastors would not stand on their principles at modern weddings.
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They would just let the weddings be whatever they wanted to be. You know, instead of asking the father who's the head of the family who gives this bride, it was like, oh, you know, the father and I and all these sort of things that just crept in.
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Miss Manners took pastors to task for their refusal to stand on principle at modern weddings. Quote, there's nothing we can do, pastors said.
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They wail when admitting that some of the arrangements strike them as being undignified, if not sacrilegious. That's what people want nowadays, end quote, by the pastors, so we have to give them what they want.
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It happened in the day of Noah, so it will happen in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.
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It was the same as happened in the days of Lot. They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building.
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But on that day, Lot went out from Sodom. It rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the
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Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let not the one who is in the housetop and whose goods are in the house go down and take them away.
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And likewise, let not the one who is in the field turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall preserve it.