God's Concern With Justice

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So, as you guys get there in Psalm chapter 2, I'm going to do a bit of a small touch on a foundation from last night, and move into how to approach this issue before us, the issue of abortion in our culture that is faithful to the

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Lord Jesus, that submits to Christ as Lord, and in a way that's consistent with the scriptures and the way that Jesus and the apostles approached false doctrine or controversy in their day.

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How does God call us to do this? And so I want to have a text to open up with today that has a lot to do, a lot to do, with the big picture and, in fact, what we're doing even now as local churches, as believers, as pastors, really around the country, and even bringing the gospel to the civil magistrates.

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That's happening now. So the text is Psalm chapter 2. It's a rather short psalm, so I'm going to go ahead and read the whole thing.

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Hear now the words of the living and the true God. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

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The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the

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Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.

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He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision.

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Then He will speak to them in His wrath and terrify them in His fury, saying, As for me,

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I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree the

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Lord said to me, You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.

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You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore,

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O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the

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Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Obey the Son, kiss the

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Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way, for His wrath is quickly kindled.

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Blessed are all who take refuge in Him. Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word.

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Let's pray together as His people. Lord, we come before You, Lord, standing only because of Christ and His perfect righteousness,

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His death, Lord, His receiving in Himself what was due to us. And Lord, we come into Your presence,

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Lord, with confidence, with thanksgiving and praise. Lord, we stand in Your presence because of our salvation, the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.

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And Lord Jesus, we desire to honor You, to glorify You, to be faithful to You, to submit to You, Lord.

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We confess all of us now in this moment that in and of ourselves we are unworthy of this task before us.

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We don't deserve it, Lord. We shouldn't have it. We in ourselves, apart from You and Your righteousness and Your work on our behalf, have no right to speak for You.

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But Lord, we stand with no condemnation because of You. And we confess our sins and cling to You and ask,

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God, that You would fill us with the strength of Your Spirit. Empower us, Lord. Give us Your words.

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Speak through us to the world around us. Draw Your sheep to Yourself. Glorify Yourself through the proclamation of Your message,

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Your truth. Help us, Lord. And help me, Lord, as I speak to Your people today,

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Lord, to have clarity of mind. Lord, I pray that it's You speaking, Lord, and not me. Allow people to hear,

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Lord, Your voice. Forget me and remember You. In Jesus' name, amen. So here we are, the people of God facing one aspect in our culture of evil, sin, depravity, rebellion against the

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King. This isn't the only issue before us in the culture. I think we're all well aware of that in terms of depravity, sin, rebellion against the

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King, people that turn away from God. It's expressed in a number of different ways. Image bearers of God who are hostile towards their

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Creator will find very creative ways to exchange God for idols, to live lives apart from God, to try to suppress the image of God within them.

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And one that is before us, though, that is so difficult and so evil and so depraved is the issue of the slaughter of pre -born image bearers of God.

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Just consider that for a moment, that key issue. Here we have people who are revolting against the

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King, their Maker, their God, that they know God has disclosed Himself to every image bearer of God.

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He hasn't left any one of us without a witness of Himself. And not only do we revolt against Him personally, very personally, but we find the most innocent image of Him in the world to attempt to snuff out.

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We so despise our Creator. We are so much haters of God. We are so much children of wrath, enemies of God, that what we do to express our rebellion is find the most innocent image bearer to snuff that out, to make it disappear, to suppress that image.

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We actually find among us the most defenseless image bearer to distort, to dismember, to disembowel, to crush.

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That's where we're at today in our culture, and we live in the United States of America. That's where this is coming from. This message will be heard globally.

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We have Christians who are dealing with this in Australia, New Zealand. It's in Africa. It's all over the world, of course, but we're speaking about our current context.

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We're here in the context of Roe v. Wade, a sham in terms of a law, a lie saying that what's in the womb is potential human life.

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When God says people who reject His knowledge become fools, it's expressed beautifully in Roe v.

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Wade. What's in the womb is potential human life. Potential human life goes against what

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God says is in the womb and against what all modern biological science says is in the womb to the degree that abortion advocates today actually argue, yes, we know it's human.

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Absolutely, it is human, and mothers and fathers ought to be able to kill their children, period.

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Before it was, no, it's potential human life, and now science has caught up to the point of observational science.

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It's undeniable what's in the womb from the moment of conception has all the biological components of a human being.

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Every bit of you, your eye color, your size, all the distinctive neat things about each one of us that God made in terms of your story, the book that makes you, at the moment of conception, at the moment of conception that was there, at that very moment.

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We even have video today that shows you the spark that happens, the spark that happens at the moment of conception.

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It's as though God is just shouting to humanity at this moment, image of God, something different, something beautiful at that very moment.

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To the degree that unbelievers today that argue for the slaughter of innocent unborn human beings don't deny it.

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They say, yes, and we ought to be able to kill our children. All the way up to birth, of course, because why not?

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What's the difference? There's unbelievers that recognize that there really is no difference. What's the difference between 20 weeks and 8 weeks and 40 weeks?

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We're arguing to kill human beings, for goodness sakes, here. We should be able to do it whenever. It's our choice.

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By decree, I can kill my children. That is the level of depravity that we've sunk to in our culture around us.

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Now, I'm going to talk for a moment in terms of what God calls us to. Yes, there are explicit commands in Scripture.

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I think in this room you probably already know it. Explicit commands in Scripture for the people of God to actually rescue those who are being led to death, who are stumbling to slaughter, to rescue them.

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And if you say that you didn't know, you didn't know that it was happening, God knows your heart.

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He knows. And will he not repay man according to his work? He knows the truth.

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We know that it's happening around us. We can't turn a blind eye to it. And God, yes, commands us to hold them back, to love our neighbor, and to actually do something to stand in the way.

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But we talked yesterday about foundations, right? Distorted gospels, messages that do not work, pretended neutrality, specifically the pretended neutrality of the pro -life movement.

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But foundationally, we have to have a bigger picture. I try to emphasize there's a truncated version of the gospel that's very popular in our current context, a truncated version of the gospel that says something like this.

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They say the message about Jesus is a message simply about heaven one day. We truncate it to just escaping the physical world when you die so that you can go into some spiritual existence of heaven one day.

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I mentioned in passing that sounds more like Greek philosophy and pagan worldview than Christianity.

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Of course, we know that the gospel, at the heart of it, is justification by faith alone apart from works in Christ alone.

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It's a gift from God. That's at the heart of the gospel. But listen, the good news, Jesus was proclaiming good news of a kingdom.

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The good news of the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom. It's the very thing that's being proclaimed in the

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Old Testament and the New Testament. The good news is bigger than simply your private relationship with Jesus Christ.

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It's more than your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ on an individual level. God, yes, is saving sinners by his grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

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And when you turn from sin to trust in Christ, you are declared righteous by God through faith, no longer condemned, credited the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and not credited your sins.

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Romans chapter 4. Amen to that? Yes? Okay, all that's true. Yes? But the gospel

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Jesus was proclaiming, we talked about last night in Matthew chapter 4, when he comes out of the wilderness, this temptation in the wilderness,

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I said that it's very interesting that the last thing mentioned in Matthew was this specific temptation where Satan brings

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Jesus to this very high place and he says, here's all the kingdoms of the world.

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I'll give them all to you right now. All you must do is bow. Why was that a temptation for the

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Messiah? Because I argued that's what Jesus came for, the world. We pointed out last night that when

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Jesus came out of the wilderness, it says in Matthew's gospel, a very Jewish focused gospel, demonstrating that Jesus is in fact the promised

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Messiah, that Jesus was out proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God, the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom.

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And you might be saying, what's that got to do with the issue of abortion? As I said last night, absolutely everything.

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Because what we're missing in the Christian witness against the issue of abortion in our culture is specifically

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A, the good news of Jesus Christ, and B, really underneath all of that is the proclamation of his lordship and his kingship.

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Now listen, don't allow this to be a pithy Christian t -shirt, as I said last night. We say all the time as Christians, king of kings and lord of lords.

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But I asked you to think about it in a different way by means of application. What does it mean for us as the people of God to come into the world with the message that Jesus is the king of kings and lord of lords?

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Shouldn't it impact how we fight against abortion? Shouldn't it have something to do with how we actually engage this modern day holocaust?

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You see, we're afraid as Christians because we're told in the book of code and ethics in the pro -life movement, we're told don't mention sin, don't call it murder, don't use the

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Bible, don't call people to repentance and faith in Jesus, don't make this issue about Jesus Christ.

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And brothers and sisters, my argument is this, that makes the pro -life movement explicitly not

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Christian. And we're so afraid as the church to divide from the pro -life movement generally because we say, well, they're doing good things and amen, yes.

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A broken clock is right twice a day, amen. I'm thankful to God for actually striking straight blows with crooked sticks.

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I'm thankful to God for all that the pro -life movement has done that is righteous and godly and good in all the lives that have been saved.

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However, we shouldn't yield to error simply because we see some good being done.

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Brothers and sisters, I'm going to be careful how I say this, but please hear me on this in terms of we're brothers and sisters here. This is the body of Christ.

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Let's talk about this. Mormons do good things too. I live in Arizona.

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Mormonism is huge in Arizona. There are Mormon wards all over the place. And there are buildings all over Mesa where we have a church where the community can come in, get resources and help and food and all these different things.

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The Mormon church, each ward has a bishop that actually distributes food and shelter and clothing and everything else and money to families who come in to get help.

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Does that mean we need to yield now to the error of the Mormon church simply because they're doing positive and good things for the world?

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As Christians, we recognize that's all wonderful and thank God for his common grace and moments like that.

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But you see, here's the deal. We're not just trying to feed and clothe the world. We want people to know

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Jesus and come to Christ as Lord. Jesus didn't call us to go into the world with some social justice gospel to go to the nations and simply feed people and clothe people.

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That is a result of coming out of coming to love those people and bring them to salvation in Jesus Christ.

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Love your neighbor as you love yourself calls for that. But we have a message of the lordship of Jesus Christ.

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Hear this. This needs to be a part of now as a church, reformation in this area.

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We ought to be calling for a reformation in this area in terms of how do we fight against abortion as God's people.

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And my argument, and many here today who are veterans and have been doing this longer than me and are much better at this than me, my argument is that it has to be as the

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Christian church with the message of the gospel under his lordship, under the banner of his authority and his kingdom.

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And we talked last night about how the apostle Paul bookends his systematic explanation of the gospel in Romans chapter 1 and 16 with that statement that the purpose was to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations for the sake of his name.

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So his explanation of the gospel comes with bookends to make sure he's letting you know in the beginning and the end what's the whole deal, where are we going.

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It's to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

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We talked about the Old Testament, Genesis 49 .10, the very beginning of our Bibles. Of course,

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Genesis 3 opens up with this promise of the gospel, the woman's seed crushing the head of the serpent, being bruised on his heel.

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Jesus is all over that. But in Genesis 49 .10, it's a bigger promise. After the promise to Abraham, descendants as numerous as the stars, father of many nations, all that's there and that's wrapped up in the promise of the

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Messiah. But Genesis 49 .10, that to him, this Messiah is going to be the obedience of the peoples.

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That's where history is going. I mentioned Isaiah 9, 6 through 7. This son, this child who is coming, who is

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El Gabor, the mighty God, the father of eternity. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

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On the throne of David, listen please, to establish it with justice and righteousness forevermore.

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Do you hear that? One of the constituent elements of the kingdom of God in the world according to scripture is that as Jesus saves sinners and as Isaiah 2 says, as the nations are drawn up to God's mountain, as God brings salvation to the world, one of the things that happens, and we know this as reformed folks, amen, is that hearts change.

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The law goes forth from Zion. Ezekiel 36, we quote it all the time.

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Reformed folks, it's like when you come and you're like, I'm reformed now, you get sort of like a packet.

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You get a kit, right? And your pastor's like, you need to know this verse and you need to know this verse. Here's a circle of your verses.

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Put this in your wheelhouse. You need to know this. It's one of the things we always mention because it is glorious and you know it to be true if you're in Jesus.

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Ezekiel 36, I'll remove a heart of stone and give a heart of what? Flesh. You sounded so sad about that flesh.

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That was glorious. God's regenerated you like, flesh, okay. I'll remove a heart of stone and give a heart of flesh.

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There you go. Praise God. There you go. We're awake now. Now, I'll give a heart of flesh. That's a soft heart.

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It's malleable towards God. It was hard as stone before. Now, it's soft towards God. And God says,

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I'll sprinkle clean water on you. You'll be clean. I'll cleanse you from all your idols. Praise God.

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That's good news for addicts and those who worship false gods. I'll cleanse you of all your idols.

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He says, I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to observe my statutes.

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Here we have the promise of regeneration and God bringing people to spiritual life. But what happens when

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God brings people to spiritual life is that now they have a desire to obey God's statutes.

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Now they long for righteousness. Now they hunger and thirst for what?

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Righteousness. Now they long for justice. Now they want justice. You see, that's what

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Jesus is doing. It's not merely about saving me personally from my intimate relationship with Jesus so I go to heaven one day.

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No, God saves me now. He regenerates me now. He declares me righteous now.

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He tells his people, the meek shall inherit the earth. Do you stop to think about what that means?

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The meek shall inherit the earth. God doesn't say the goats will inherit the earth.

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God doesn't say that unrighteousness and injustice inherits the earth. He says the meek shall inherit the earth.

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And then he tells us how to pray for goodness sakes. Now listen, watch, pause. I got to say this. Adiaphora.

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Okay, this isn't about eschatology right now so don't freak out. You all know I'm post -Mel. I'm not trying to convert you, okay?

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Let's just talk about what we can agree on. How did our Lord, no matter what you say it looks like as he returns, okay, no matter what you say it looks like as he returns, what did our

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Lord tell us to say when we pray? He said, okay, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

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Now watch, pause. Hallowed. We say, oh, it sounds so pious and so wonderful. Hallowed.

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Like it sounds hallowed to be, you know, it's such an old way of talking where like, be honest. You're like, oh, what's that mean?

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Okay. Holy be their name. No, it's holied. God, you're praying,

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Father, listen, listen, what's this got to do with abortion? Absolutely everything.

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Father, hallowed be thy name. Holied be thy name. May your name be holied, seen as holy.

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May you be revered. May your name be holied. What are you praying for,

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God? May Africa holy your name. Not the name of some other God.

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Holied be thy name. May America, the United States of America, holy your name.

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Canada, holy your name. My wife, my children, my community, may they holy your name.

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Your kingdom, your rule, come. Your will be done.

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Oh, here it is. On earth as it is in heaven. Did we stop and think about what we're praying for?

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This isn't about the distinctives and differences in us and our eschatology. It's what Jesus commands us to pray about.

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May your will be done, Father, here on this earth. Watch, as it is in heaven.

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Question for you, brothers and sisters, just how rigorous do you think the commitment is to the will of God in heaven?

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Pretty rigorous? Pretty intense? Jesus says to us as his people, as his children, he says,

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I want you to pray to the Father that people would be as rigorously committed to the will of God here on this earth as they are in heaven.

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Did you ever stop to think about what you were asking the Father for? And then when Jesus ascends, you might be thinking,

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I don't know how to pray that prayer. Have you seen my neighborhood? Have you watched MSNBC?

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Have you seen Rachel Maddow, what she's saying, right? Do you know what this looks like here? And Jesus says, don't worry, my people,

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I've got you. He says as he goes up, he reminds us all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Go therefore, it's mine. So what do you have in terms of a foundation and encouragement and power and strength to pray that kind of prayer to the

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Father? The fact that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth, it belongs to him now.

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That's what the Bible tells us to pray about, to think about in terms of the world. Now, we talked about those foundations.

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More can be said, but I have sins in the area of time, as you know. I didn't realize

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I went over 40 minutes last night. Is that right? Wow. It's a good thing these windows are all closed and no one fell out.

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All right. Now we talked about Psalm chapter two. Now again, what are we talking about tonight? We're talking about how to approach this as Christians, as the

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Christian church, faithfully reformation in this area. How do we bring change in this area? How do we make it about the gospel?

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I pointed you to Psalm chapter two at the very beginning for a reason, because that is a well -known passage of scripture that actually identifies what the ultimate goal is and what

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God says to the rulers of the earth in terms of their obedience to Jesus. Do we need to listen to the talking heads in the pro -life movement and follow their code of ethics, their system that says, don't mention

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Jesus. Don't make it about his lordship. Don't call people to repentance. Don't use biblical language.

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You can't do that. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in the Bible. I pointed you to Psalm two to show you

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God's perspective. Here's what he says about the future. Ask of me, the father says to Jesus, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession.

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That's what the father says to Jesus. Again, ask yourself the question, do we think that Jesus forgot to ask the father?

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No. I'll give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession. And you say, okay, what exactly, father, does that look like though,

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Lord? What's it look like when you give the world to Jesus? It's like all of it, every aspect of it, even down to the rulers, the kings of the earth, the people who have authority even over us today.

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And the father says to the kings of the earth a warning as he's giving the world to Jesus Christ, as he's putting the authority into his hands saying, you're the ruler of the world.

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I'm going to give you every inch of this world. The father then has a word to the kings of the earth, to the rulers and authorities, those who are in power.

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He says this, obey the son or you will perish.

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Why are we afraid to bring the law word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ to our magistrates, to the legislature, to the rulers of our country?

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Why are we afraid to bring it as though Jesus Christ is not king of kings, as though he's not

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Lord of lords? This is the gut check, brothers and sisters. That's what this is. This is the gut check.

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Do you really believe what you say you believe? Is this merely a pithy

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Christian slogan that we toss out or do we actually believe that Jesus is the ruler of the world, that he's ascended, that he's on his throne, that he's actually king of kings and Lord of lords, that all the world must come into submission to Jesus Christ?

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Do we believe it? It's a gut check, brothers and sisters. I pointed you to Psalm 1101, not only because I believe you probably already know the verse, but because I call it

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God's favorite Bible verse. And the reason why I call it that is because, again, as I said last night, it's the most quoted from Old Testament verse in the

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New Testament. It's the most quoted from, most alluded to in the entire New Testament.

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The New Testament quotes from every book of the Old Testament except for Esther and its allusions and its direct quotations.

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But the one that's quoted the most is Psalm 1101. The Lord said unto my

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Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. That's the call.

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Jesus is on his throne. He's winning the world with his love and his grace and his mercy, his good news, his work.

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He is applying in history, in real people's lives. He's drawing the nations to himself.

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But that's because he's accomplished his work in victory and he sits on his throne. And God promises that all the enemies, all the enemies are going under his feet.

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And 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the apostle Paul says this, the very last enemy to be defeated is death.

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So where are we going? All enemies under Jesus' feet and then death is destroyed according to 1

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Corinthians chapter 15. My point there is to speak to the authority of Jesus. Now we in November began a movement.

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We tried to start a movement at End Abortion Now to go now from the abortion mill to the magistrates.

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So we started going to our local magistrate, filming what takes place there and calling them to uphold justice for the pre -born, calling them to repentance, calling them to obey

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Jesus and preaching the gospel in front of our local magistrates. And that began a movement where now you have

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Christians and local pastors who are going around the country now before their local magistrates.

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And they're not saying pro -life rhetoric and language in terms of neutrality. They're saying,

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I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. This is sin against God. This is murder. I'm calling on you to do your duty before God and to uphold justice and to stop the murder of innocent unborn human beings in the womb.

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Turn to Christ and live. That's the kind of language and it is really making waves.

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Our local legislature, since we started this in Phoenix, we have purposefully taken up all of the community time that we can.

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We show up early. We stay late. We fill it up so that we take all the spots and we preach the gospel.

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This is the unique thing about the moment where we're in with our magistrates is they don't think these are just merely pro -lifers saying, we're pro -life.

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We don't like pro -choice. Can you please come with us? They know the difference between what's happening there and what happens typically in the pro -life movement is these are people that name the name of Jesus Christ and they're calling us to obey

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Jesus Christ. And then there was light. There's a difference.

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And as pastors have gone around the country to their magistrates, they've been preaching the gospel to their magistrates, telling them to obey

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God. Obey God and uphold justice. And it's really interesting too because as we've been able to do this and to film it and to put it up, a consistent

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Christian witness in this area, there is a local pastor in my area, when one of these videos went up,

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I saw this local pastor in my area actually say under one of the videos that he was horrified by what we were doing.

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Horrified that Christians would go to their magistrates and proclaim the name of Jesus and call their magistrates to repentance and faith in Jesus.

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Even a local pastor that was saying, you can't do that as Christians. You got to operate with neutrality. You can't go proclaim the lordship of Jesus Christ and call them to faith in Jesus.

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You can't make it about the Bible and repentance and those sorts of things. Brothers and sisters, we've lost our way, incredibly lost our way, if we think we have to abandon the lordship of Christ in any area of our lives.

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All authority in heaven and on earth means all. And it's not merely over spiritual things, it's here on earth.

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We're told to pray for it. Now I want to point something out in terms of the difference between what was happening in the first century with a faithful Christian witness and what's happening today.

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And we can see the distinction in terms of why is there a failure. In the first century, the apostles go out into the world, the

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Christians go out into the world. They're proclaiming the excellencies of Christ, his gospel, his lordship.

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And you might think, okay, so it was hugely successful and it was just glorious and there were rose petals and amazing things.

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No, you can read the text. You know in the first 10 chapters, you're going to see it's persecution, it's beatings, it's people wanting them dead, it's the apostle

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Paul throughout. You see him saying he's in danger constantly, danger from robbers, his own countrymen, false brethren.

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He says this, he says at one point, you know this text, he says, I've been beaten times without number.

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I have to ask the question, at what point do you stop counting? Like what number is it that you finally go,

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I don't know, I forgot. Like is it six? That seems like you can remember that. Seven, eight, nine, ten.

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Like at what point do you stop counting how many times you've been beaten for Jesus? The apostle Paul says, I've been beaten times without number.

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I don't know. And he says, I consider it a light and momentary affliction.

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Light and momentary. He might be a little crazy. But you see, the difference is they understood the context.

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They knew Jesus is winning the entire world. Paul says it in Romans 1 and 16. Bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations.

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That's where I'm going. I know what Jesus came for. I'm just a part of all that he's doing here to get to that point.

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I delight in momentary affliction because I know the end of the story. But they were proclaiming, listen closely, in a very hostile pagan context.

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We think we have it bad, brothers and sisters. We are cowards. Let's face it.

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We are cowards if we think we have it bad. Praise God for those

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Christians before us in our country and in much of the West that actually believe that Jesus Christ is

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Lord over every aspect of life and try to put his word and his standards into every area.

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That's the only reason we have the blessings that we have today that are hanging on by a thread. But they are still there, brothers and sisters.

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And that's because of the biblical standards of those Christians that they employed as they were developing these nations and these cultures.

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It was the law word of God, the equity of his standards and justice they put into society.

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And so when we say today, oh there's so much hostility and I don't know if we can do it. We can't be successful. We huddle into our small houses.

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Like we act like we're on the run like the first century church. Give me a break. We're cowards.

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It's time to repent of our cowardice. It's time to lay our lives down. And I'm not giving you a motivational speech.

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I'm not selling you anything. I'm telling you this is the truth. We are cowards. We have the truth of God. We need to go into the world and lay our lives down for the sake of his glory and the lost.

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But in the first century you realize, Kaiser Curios, Caesar is

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Lord. They don't care what you worship. And you could roast it. They're pagans. We understand they're pagans in Rome.

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You worship anything you want. But you have to at least acknowledge the ultimacy of Caesar. That he's the ultimate.

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He's Lord. And you understand that the early Christians understood that the only ultimate was

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Jesus Christ. Was God himself. And what they could not do in first century Rome was acknowledge that Caesar was the ultimate.

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That he actually was the one who had the law word. That he's where it stopped.

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The early Christians recognized that Jesus is the king over the kings of the earth. He is the one that's

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Lord who has all authority. He is ruling over his kingdom. And they said this,

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I will honor the Caesar. I will be an obedient citizen. But I cannot say that Caesar is

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Lord. Because Jesus is Lord. He's the ultimate. Just a little pinch of incense you stupid

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Christians. That's all we're asking for. And these Christians said, that's okay.

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You can kill me. Take my life. Nero would take Christians and round them up in the street in the first century.

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Round them up in the street in the daytime. And he would use them as Roman candles in his garden parties at night. Tie our brothers and sisters to stakes.

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Wrap their bodies naked in pitch. And light them on fire as burning candles while he rode his chariots through the

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Christians. These are the kinds of things that happened to these early Christians. And all they had to say was,

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Caesar curios. Caesar is Lord. How would you and I fare in that?

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How would we fare today? How would the average evangelical fare in that context? Where all you must say is

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Caesar is Lord. Just say it. Just say it. Just a little pinch of incense. Just say the words.

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I think most of us maybe would say in evangelicalism and today we'd say, well I'll say it and go home and repent.

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God will forgive me. These early Christians recognized we have a much bigger picture. God is doing something much bigger.

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And they wouldn't say it. How about this? There is no other name under heaven. What? Given among men whereby we...

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See we know that as Christians today, because it's an amazing verse. It's the truth. But you realize when that was being proclaimed early in the book of Acts, there was no other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved.

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Jesus Christ. You realize of course that was a direct affront to what Rome said about Caesar.

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You ever seen the Roman coins? Yeah, that's what's being said about Caesar. And here's Peter puffing his chest to the government saying what?

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No, no, no. It's Jesus. He's the ultimate. They were living lives of godly, risky, missionary sacrifice.

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And brothers and sisters, it is about the good news of the gospel, his authority, his rule.

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And listen closely. In the context of all that I'm saying and trying to put underneath us as Christians, we need to recognize that the pro -life movement refuses to acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ and the supremacy of his law.

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It refuses to acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ and the supremacy of his law. Now I recognize

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I'm speaking in generalities here. I know that there are people within the pro -life movement who are very faithful. I'm talking about the general nature of the pro -life movements.

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I don't know if you guys saw this or not, but it's still on YouTube now. You can go take a look at it. But a couple of years ago there was a bill being pushed in Oklahoma that would have criminalized and ended abortion in Oklahoma.

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It called it murder and it would have criminalized abortion in the state of Oklahoma. It was a righteous bill.

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It was a good bill. And there were people in Oklahoma trying to get this passed. Senator Joseph Silk is a believer in Oklahoma.

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He doesn't care about getting re -elected. He wants to save babies. He put this bill into place and ultimately it was crushed.

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It was snuffed out. Why? Well because the pro -choice movement, they stopped it, right?

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Brothers and sisters, you barely heard from the pro -choice movement in the media against that bill that would have called it murder and ended it and criminalized it in Oklahoma.

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Do you know who ended the bill in Oklahoma to criminalize and end abortion? Do you know who was the primary responsible party behind ending the bill in Oklahoma that would have criminalized it?

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Tony Lowinger, the vice president of National Right to Life. Tony Lowinger, the vice president of National Right to Life.

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One of the most powerful leaders in the pro -life movement internationally. We heard that the pro -life legislators in Oklahoma actually came to Tony to ask him,

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Tony, what do you want us to do? How do you want us to vote on this? It was a predominantly pro -life situation and they come to the vice president of National Right to Life and they say, what do you want us to do?

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How do you want us to vote? Here's our moment, right? Pro -life. We're trying to end abortion, right? Amen. We're trying to rid ourselves of this evil and this injustice and he told them, don't vote on it.

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Don't vote yes. Because if you vote on this bill, you will do away with all the pro -life legislation, incremental legislation that we put into place.

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And my response to that is, obviously. Because if abortion is criminalized in Oklahoma, there's no need for your incremental legislation any longer because it's a criminal act.

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It's called murder. So we had Tony Lowinger on the radio when

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I heard he was at the State House or the Capitol Building. We got a hold of him and he said he'd like to be on the program.

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So we did a show on it. And what I wanted to do on that show was not challenge him on the show, which what

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I would have loved to have done, but I wanted to make sure that everybody could see where the pro -life movement is coming from, what their principles are, and what their methodologies are.

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And all you have to do is just go online, YouTube Jeff Durbin, Tony Lowinger. You can watch the whole interview and you will hear him say for yourself, brothers and sisters, and this is not to denigrate the man, just to expose the foundation and methodology.

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He says in that interview that they want to take a backdoor approach. They don't want to use

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Christian language. They don't want to use the Bible, use things like repentance and faith in Jesus. They want to use a backdoor approach.

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Brothers and sisters, that's the vice president of National Right to Life. That's how they want to approach this.

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They're not working to criminalize and end abortion. They're working to incrementally work their way through, and they're leaning on the hope and possibility that if we just get a few more pro -life

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Supreme Court justices, we'll end abortion. How'd that work out for us with two more added?

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And by the way, it was a predominantly male and Republican conservative Supreme Court that gave us

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Roe v. Wade in the 70s. Republicans, do you know that? Our salvation isn't in a political party, brothers and sisters.

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Don't we know that? Our salvation is in Jesus Christ, and our hope for the world is in Jesus Christ and his gospel.

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Don't let it be a pithy slogan. Let it actually get feet on it and start going into the world and moving around.

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So, I want to point something out to us in terms of now as we face this and do this in the way that Jesus would do it.

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Jesus says this in Matthew 12 30. Whoever is not with me is against me.

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Can we pause there for a second? You know that passage, right brothers and sisters? You know it. Now think about it in terms of application.

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Whoever's not with me is against me. Jesus doesn't allow us to be neutral with him under his lordship.

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Whoever's not with me is against me. We recognize that hopefully in the area of education, do we?

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Whoever's not with me is against me. In education, is it possible to be neutral? No. In the science classroom, in the public education system, are they neutral?

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No. How about in any ethics class, or morals class, or history class, in the public school system?

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Is it possible to be neutral? No. Whoever's not with me is against me.

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Now brothers and sisters, that counts for this moment before us as we approach the issue of abortion as Christians.

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Whoever's not with me is against me. If we try to fight against abortion with neutrality, apart from Christ, apart from his lordship, we are actually opposed to Christ, to God's purposes in the world.

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Whoever's not with me is against me. Do you believe it brothers and sisters? Is it true?

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Next I'm going to point to this. There is an unholy alliance in the pro -life movement generally speaking.

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We're asking to do this like Jesus here. Amen? Yes. We're asking to do this consistently as the people of God with the gospel in front of us.

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I'm going to point to the unholy alliance of the pro -life movement. And for that, I want to actually dwell on the text here.

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And it's Isaiah chapter 30. Go to your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 30. I'm going to show you a moment in history where God spoke concerning unholy alliances.

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Isaiah chapter 30 in verse 1. God says in his word, ah stubborn children declares

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Yahweh who carry out a plan but not mine and who make an alliance but not of my spirit that they may add sin to sin who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my direction to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.

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So God speaks concerning an unholy alliance. Those who would carry out a plan but not

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God's plan. Those who would make an alliance but not of God's spirit that they may add sin to sin.

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The challenge before us today in terms of actually making this about the gospel, salvation, forgiveness, and once and for all ending abortion, is we have to face the fact that the pro -life movement and those who would would pretend neutrality try to make alliances with those who want to abandon the

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Lordship of Jesus Christ and the law word of God. God speaks to his people about carrying out plans that are not his.

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Those who seek protection, those who ask for directions but not

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God's directions. God has spoken to these sorts of things before and I want to point to the fact that God is still concerned with justice.

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You see this is important. We have such a truncated view of the gospel in our day and the

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Lordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of Jesus Christ that we look for some reason in the world around us today as Christians and because we've truncated the gospel to be a private experience between us and Jesus and about escaping this world to go to some spiritual experience and afterlife.

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Because we've done that we've actually abandoned and in a sense the character of God.

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What I mean by that is in God's word he reveals himself to us. Amen? Yes? When God gives to us his word in the

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Old Testament, God gives to us his will. He gives to us the the display of his own character.

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He talks about what justice and righteousness is. When he talks about his law he calls it good.

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When God actually gives his law in Deuteronomy chapter 4 he even tells his people that his law was supposed to be their wisdom and the sight of the people's.

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Now what happens now in our modern context is because we think that this is just about my own personal story and my own salvation before Jesus.

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We see the world falling apart around us and we act as though God's not concerned with sin and injustice and unrighteousness any longer.

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Why? Because Jesus died and rose again so we can go to heaven one day. God's not concerned with injustice around us anymore.

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I'm gonna point to God and his word in terms of what God says about injustice in his people.

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So for that go to Isaiah chapter 1 brothers and sisters. Isaiah chapter 1.

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God speaks these words around 600 years before the coming of the

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Messiah. And here's what God says to his people in the context of a culture of injustice.

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Here's what he says to his people. And I want you to consider as you read this, God does not change.

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God does not change. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?

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Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me.

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New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

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Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates.

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They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.

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Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of what?

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Blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes.

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Here it is. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice.

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Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless.

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Plead the widow's cause. You know, it's amazing about this passage to me as I was first confronted with it and began to really dwell on it and meditate on it from my own experience, my own obedience towards God, is that we all know this passage.

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Why? Because in any Christian bookstore, there are paintings with the next parts. Come now, let us reason together, says the

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Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

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Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.

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But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Here's what

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God says. I'll forgive you. Let's reason together. I'll cleanse you. Though your sins are like scarlet, they'll be white as snow.

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And as Christians, we see that as the loving kindness of God, his goodness towards us, his mercy, his grace.

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It's abundant. He is the infinite, limitless, merciful God. We love that because that is the glory of our

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God. As much of a mess as all of us are, as much of idolaters as we are, as sinful and corrupt and broken and inconsistent as we are,

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God is there with his people saying, I'll wash your sins. I will cleanse you. I will make you white as snow.

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That's the invitation to God's people. But if we consider that this passage here that is so popular and prevalent in our homes and hearts comes right after God speaks to his people saying that he rejects their worship, their false worship, their pretended worship, all of their rituals and practices, all of their coming to church with the ritual and the song and the incense and all the solemn assembly, while they bring their sin in,

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God rejects it. He says his soul hates their worship.

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Don't do it. Don't bring me your worship. And then he tells them, cease to do evil, people of God.

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Learn to do good. And God says, as you cease to do evil and learn to do good, he says this for the people of God, seek justice.

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Seek justice and watch. Correct oppression. Ought Christians to have something to do in the area of abortion?

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God demands it of us, brothers and sisters. It doesn't mean we all have exactly the same thing to do with the mission.

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Some of us are on the front lines. Some of us are behind the front lines, helping everybody. Some of us are throwing money into this fight.

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Some of us are making sure that there's provision and shelter and all the things that are necessary. Some of us are writing blog articles.

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Some of us are going to the legislature. Some of us are doing any number of things. But yes,

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God says, seek justice. Seek justice. And then God says this, correct oppression.

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And he says, bring justice to the fatherless. Brothers and sisters, these are fatherless children.

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Have you considered that? They are fatherless children. When those mothers go into those places, the vast majority of the time, and you know this if you've been there.

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Brother John's been there much longer than I. He knows what I'm saying is the truth. The vast majority of these women that are going in there, there is not a man with them.

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Or disturbingly, you see the men drop them off and then leaving with their windows rolled down and their music blaring.

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These are fatherless children. And God commands his people, as we're coming to him for cleansing, for healing, and we're coming to him to be in right relationship with him.

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He says, you seek justice, correct oppression. And he says, bring justice to the fatherless.

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That's the call of God over his people. People say, why are you so passionate about this issue? There's so many issues to be concerned with.

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I would say because this is the issue that just screams to us about Isaiah chapter 1. It's screaming at us about Isaiah chapter 1.

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It's right here. And I want to argue that God does not change. His heart and desire, his will for his people in the area of injustice and the fatherless has not changed because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

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As a matter of fact, I would say now because of the righteous, perfect life of Jesus, and his death and resurrection, and his ascension, and his being seated, now we have the victory and the authority of his son over the world to go and conquer these injustices as his people.

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And brothers and sisters, let me remind you again, I am not giving you a motivational speech. I am telling you the word of the living

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God. This is the truth before God. The question is, what's your response? How will you respond to it?

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What is our response as God's people as we hear about these injustices, as we know about the authority of Jesus Christ, as we learn about God's intention for the world, as we consider the power of the spirit of God within us as we preach the gospel to the world?

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How much time do I have? I'm up? I'm good? Okay. Good. Because I have about another hour here.

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So, haha, no. Just kidding. Okay. I want to just point to something, and I'll do this rather briefly.

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Just go there. Go later. Go later. My brother that I love so dearly,

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Si, does such a wonderful job of bringing us to the foundation of Scripture and the fact that Jesus Christ is the foundation.

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His word is the foundation. That's what you stand on. I want to just point you to a couple things. Just write these down.

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Go meditate on them later in terms of the foundation of our fight. How did Jesus deal with conflict?

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Well, number one, fundamentally, Jesus says, and I'll make this easy for us, not complicated. Jesus says in John 14 6,

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I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the

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Father but by me, but through me. Jesus says, I am the truth.

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He is the truth. He is the very embodiment of truth. He puts himself as the central reference point in terms of all questions of what's real, what's true.

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It's Christ. It's wrapped up in Jesus. So, Jesus' claim to the world around him is that he was the truth.

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If I said that, if I said that right now before you, you know that that would be the height of arrogance.

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But when Jesus says it, it is in fact the truth. He has the authority to say it.

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He is the truth. So, when we face evil in our culture and injustice in our culture, we ought to say if we want to know what's true here, we have to land on the one who's the very embodiment of truth.

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We have to say this, what does Jesus say and teach about this issue, this injustice, this evil?

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Next, Jesus actually took upon himself the authority to correct bad religious traditions.

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Not only did he say that he was the embodiment of truth, but the second point is that Jesus would correct their bad traditions, their bad religious traditions, their bad biblical traditions.

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He corrected them by his own authority, his authority. He didn't appeal to outside authorities.

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He appealed to his own authority. So, in Matthew chapter 5, he would say things like, you've heard it said, but I say to you.

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He's correcting their very bad religious traditions, their very bad religious traditions.

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And he would say, but I say to you. He appealed to his own authority. So, watch. When he was in controversy in his day, he said that he was the embodiment of truth.

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And when he corrected people, he corrected them on the basis of his own authority, not appealing to something outside of himself, outside of the authority of God and his word.

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Next, third point. When Jesus was in conflict in his day, and there was a question about something that was legal in his day, in Matthew chapter 19,

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Jesus appealed to the authority of God's word as the foundation of the controversy.

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So, there was a controversy in his day. I'll just do this quickly. There was the Hillelite school of thought and the

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Shemite school of thought. Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shemite. There was more conservative school and a more liberal school.

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Right? The school of Hillel said, well, you can divorce your wife for any cause.

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And that's why they ask in Matthew 19, teacher, is it lawful to divorce your wife for, and the words are, any cause?

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Because in the first century, we know that was the dispute. And what they would say in the Hillelite school is, hey, it doesn't matter.

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As long as you give a certificate of divorce, it could be any reason. Right? Your wife's ugly now.

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She can't cook as well. Maybe she smells. I'm throwing that out there. Really, believe me, that kind of thing happened.

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They would just have random reasons, just for whatever reason. And what the Shemite school was saying is, no, you can only divorce upon biblical grounds according to the law word of God.

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God gives a particular reason for divorce. And he said, they said, you can only divorce on the basis of God's word.

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So that's the dispute. And so they come to Jesus. Jesus, solve this legal problem for us.

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Can we divorce for any cause? Who's right? And Jesus says, what? Have you not read?

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You see, Jesus handled controversy in that way. Have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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And he says, from the beginning God created them male and female. And he says, a man shall leave his father and mother, cling to his wife, become one flesh.

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So when Jesus deals with controversy in his day, if he's not appealing to his own authority, he's appealing to the authority of the word of the living

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God. That's how Jesus approached the culture in his day. So the question is, brothers and sisters, how will we do it?

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How will we approach controversies, including legal controversies, in our day?

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I pointed us yesterday to Luke 14 and how

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Jesus would call people to come to him to die and rise again. There's a very different way that Jesus approaches his world than we do.

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Time for a personal confession here. This sermon is not about me, but I just want, in terms of you understanding, that when

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I come to these texts and I bring them to you as my brothers and sisters, I'm not standing above you with some special authority and knowledge.

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I'm speaking as somebody who has been dramatically changed by this. I had a profession of faith early on.

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My wife tends to disagree with me about whether it was genuine. She thought maybe I fell into sin. We have dispute over that.

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I don't really know, but I had a profession of faith early on. I don't know that I fully understood the

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Gospel. I was leading kind of a double life, and I went off into drug and alcohol addiction.

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And when God crushed my life after I almost died and OD'd on ecstasy and cocaine and alcohol, when

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God crushed my life, I came face to face with the Scriptures once again. And I began to read the

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Scriptures, and I came to passages like Luke chapter 14. And I started to question, did

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I ever even understand the Gospel? Because you see, when I heard the Gospel, I heard people saying things like, did you pray that prayer?

01:00:08

Right? Well you said those words, right? You prayed that prayer. So you're going to heaven one day. You're saved.

01:00:14

But I see the Apostles talking about faith in Jesus in a much different way. Actually trusting in Jesus Christ.

01:00:20

Actually turning to him and coming to him for eternal life and salvation from our sins.

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Not just from the penalty of our sins, but salvation from our sins. And I see

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Jesus calling people to actually count the cost in coming to him. Count the cost.

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Come to me. He would say again, come die or don't come at all. Come die or don't come at all.

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And that was the message that completely transformed me. When I began to look at those calls of Jesus to come to him, to be joined to him in his death and resurrection,

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I questioned whether I'd ever actually turned to Jesus Christ. And I remember after I came out of my addiction, when

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God had crushed my life, I went into my closet before God. There was no special magic prayer.

01:01:07

I didn't read it off a tract or something like that. I had nothing. All I recognized was that I was foul before God.

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That I had no hope and that I was absolutely depraved and lost. And I went before God with nothing prepared to say to him.

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All I had was God save me. I've got nothing to offer you. I said take over my life. Rule my life.

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Take over my life and rule me. Own my life God. Please save me from my sins. I've got nothing to offer you.

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I can't do this. I can't make myself better. I only want Jesus. Please be my master.

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Take over my life. And that's where my life began to change. And my passion behind this proclamation is the

01:01:49

Word of God says it and I tasted it. I tasted it.

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And my call to us as brothers and sisters in the area of abortion, this gospel conflict with abortion, and the issue of injustice around us.

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My call to us is to stand on God's Word in this fight. Let it be about his gospel.

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Let it be about Christ's Lordship. And brothers and sisters, one of two things is gonna happen here.

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If we proclaim the gospel faithfully, the Bible says the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

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You don't save people. I don't save people with my creative arguments. The gospel is the power of God for salvation.

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The Spirit of God empowers that message and brings people to life. He brings people to life.

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Yes? Amen? So that's our hope. The second thing that could happen when

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God's church goes before the magistrates and the culture and calls people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, the second thing that could happen is

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God could judge our nation. We could say it doesn't look like it's really being effective.

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It doesn't look like anything's really happening. We're preaching the gospel. We're proclaiming it to the legislature, and we're not seeing any end to abortion.

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Brothers and sisters, God is sovereign. If he brings his people to proclaim his truth to the culture around us, and the culture isn't brought to life, that is

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God's judgment upon this culture. It is his judgment upon the culture.

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It is not the failure of God. It is not the failure of his gospel. It's God's determination.

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If he does not bring a nation to life and to him, it's God's determination to judge as well in history.

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And our duty as Christians is not to soften the message to bring the masses.

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Our duty as Christians is to faithfully proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and to represent him and his lordship.

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That's the call. But brothers and sisters, I do believe with all my heart that God is able to save our nations.

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And my hope is that as we proclaim his truth and his gospel faithfully, we will see life once again.

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Can we trust him for it is the question. Do we trust him to be able to raise the dead?

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He's already demonstrated that he has the power to do it. In a little dead girl, and a little boy, and even in his own life,

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Jesus has the power to raise the dead. Do we believe that he can raise our nation from the dead?

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The only way to find out is to start faithfully proclaiming his good news.

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Jesus would say to the world around him, except you repent, you will likewise perish.

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If we want to preach like Jesus, we need to be talking to our neighbors, our communities, to the clinic escorts, and to our magistrates just like that.

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Except you repent, you will likewise perish. Let's pray. Father, please bless

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Lord as we leave this place. Bless us Lord with the ability to look inward first and foremost at where we're personally at.

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I do pray if there's anybody in this room that does not truly know you, that you grant eyes to see now.

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Grant faith to believe in Jesus, to trust in him even now. Lord, for those of us that belong to you by your grace, please use us.

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This room, Lord, there's more than 12 disciples here. There's more than 12.

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Lord, you began your amazing work with a small huddle of people.

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We ask Lord that you would do the same even with this moment, this room. Lord, we don't deserve it in and of ourselves.

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We don't have the ability of the power in and of ourselves. And so we ask Lord for your power, your grace, your mercy.

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And Lord, please send us. That's what we say to you, Lord. Here am

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I. Send me. Please send us. Lord, raise up from this room men and women, children who will be faithful to you, who will submit to your lordship and proclaim your truth to the world around us.

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To do it with boldness, with courage, and Lord, especially with faithfulness to your message.

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And we do pray, Lord, for our nation. Please show mercy. We don't deserve it, Lord. We deserve to die as a nation.

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We've killed so many children and we ask, Lord, for forgiveness and mercy. Lord, to fall on our land.

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And please, Lord, use us as instruments to bring forth your gospel.

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And Lord, for justice and righteousness to once again sprout in this land.

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Lord, we do ask that you would help us to cease to do evil, to learn to do good, to seek justice, to correct oppression.

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Lord, help us please. We ask to bring justice to the fatherless. And Lord, we ask that in it all you receive all the glory.

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You receive the praise, not us. Let us be forgotten. Lord, let the name of Jesus be exalted and remain.