Jeff Durbin: How To Destroy Yourself 101 | Proverbs 13:13

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Praise God. If you would, open your Bible to Proverbs, the book of Proverbs chapter 13,

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Proverbs 13, verse 13.

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We're in a series. We've taken a few steps off, and we will be actually soon.

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Pastor James and I are working on a new sermon series. We think it'll be a short sermon series in the middle here.

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We think it'll be a great blessing to our church and to believers around the world. But for now, we are working our way through, expositionally through, the book of Proverbs, wisdom from above.

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This is God's book of wisdom. How do we live? How do we live?

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Skillful living. And so Proverbs chapter 13, verse 13, Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself.

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But he who reveres the commandments will be rewarded.

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray together as God's people.

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Lord, we thank you that we can call you Father. We thank you that you love us, that you first loved us.

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We thank you that we belong to you. We thank you that we have an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled.

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We're thankful that we are saved by your grace. Lord, you did this.

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You've accomplished redemption. We belong to you. We're your children and we come to you thanking you for the gift of your word and your wisdom.

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Lord, I ask that you please today get me out of the way. By your spirit, teach. Teach your people.

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Glorify yourself in bringing your word into our hearts and our minds, changing us.

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Lord, there's so much stubbornness and pride in us, constantly.

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I just pray that you just break that down by your spirit now. Lord, show us, show us where we are broken.

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Give us strength, new strength by your spirit to walk in wisdom, to desire your words of life.

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Lord, I pray that you'd heal this church through your wisdom and your word. Lord, cause us to be the people who revere your commandment.

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We give you glory, honor, and praise. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So Proverbs 13, 13, it's interesting because if you've been going through this with us, you know that there's sections of the book of Proverbs and sections here up to this point where God has given these sort of like long streams of thought on a particular bit of wisdom or how to live in this way.

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So you have sections, say for example, the section about the adulterous woman, the harlot.

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You have these long sections describing like what's she like and what are her tactics like and how do you avoid her and how do you stay away from her.

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She brings many down into the pit of her house and it leads to death. Long sections, long sections actually.

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You remember talking about those who live in darkness, walk in darkness. They're on the paths of darkness and avoiding going on their path and their way, it leads to darkness, it leads to death.

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There's only one end to their life and where they're going. And so long discourses and then you get to the point now we're at in Proverbs where it's like, as Dr.

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Bonson said, like vitamins. It's a vitamin, it's a pill. Here they put it in, swallow it, you need to let it do its work in you, but it's like a verse and then it changes into a next verse, a next subject of wisdom.

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And so there's so much here and there's times where the book of Proverbs, in God's wisdom, he'll say something one way, you'll find it illustrated again in a different way later on in the book of Proverbs.

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But I think personally Proverbs 13, 13, whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.

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I think that this particular proverb, if you want to memorize one from the book of Proverbs, this one summarizes most everything in the entire book of wisdom.

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This one right here summarizes so much of what the rest of the book says. I mean, it's the thing you need to have within you.

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If we're not changed by this verse, we're not going to want the wisdom. We don't want it, we don't want, we don't fear

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God, we don't fear his commandment, we don't revere him, and so we don't want the rest of the wisdom.

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And so here we have in one fell swoop a verse that describes really the center of it all.

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Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.

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It can rightly be called a summary proverb for the wisdom that's throughout the entire book. You'll remember the foundation of the book,

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Proverbs 1, 7, what does it say? Okay, David's got it. David, say it nice and loud.

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Instruction, there you go. Fear the Lord is the beginning. Fear the Lord, reverent awe and submission to God, reverence for God.

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and correction.

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So it starts with reverential awe, fear of God, fear of God first, and then comes the knowledge, then comes the wisdom.

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It starts at that place of reverence for God, fear of God, but it says this about fools.

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Fools despise wisdom and instruction or wisdom and correction, and that's right here.

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It's Proverbs 13, 13. It's the same thing. It says whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.

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It's another way of telling Proverbs 1, 7. Here are the implications of Proverbs 1, 7.

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Here's how it gets fleshed out. Here are the consequences of going one direction with God, fear of God, reverence for his commandments, or the other direction, refusing correction, being stubborn, being a scoffer, not fearing

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God, not respecting or revering his word or his commandments. Despising it actually leads to destruction.

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So the text says here, piece by piece now, whoever despises the word.

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Now, despises the word throughout the

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Old Testament, it's used in different ways, but particularly here, used in the sense of to disrespect, to condemn, to despise.

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So whoever disrespects, whoever despises, whoever condemns the word brings destruction on himself.

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Now, the word there, despises the word. The word is a

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Hebrew word that's used 394 times when in reference to the word of God, of his divine communication and commandments, prophecy, his words of help or instruction to his people.

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And so the text here, in wisdom from above, God is saying whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself.

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Now, I know that we're going to get to this in a moment as Christians, the first thing we do, right?

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The first thing you do when you read a text like this is you want to read it with respect to God. You want to read it with who you hope to be in Christ.

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You want to read it as you want the spirit of God to create this within you. And you start to think, though, as you read things like this, you start to think about the person who is out there, who is like that, overtly despising

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God's word. The person who rejects or disrespects God's word. They don't want to hear the

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Bible. They don't want to hear about the gospel. They don't want your religion crammed down their throat. They don't want your

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Christianity in the public square. We think about that person out there, sort of like the rabid unbeliever who despises

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God's word. But I think if we're honest with ourselves, in our most honest moments, we'll see that we all will struggle with this at points in our lives, in our marriages, in our relationships towards one another.

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Do we respect God's word? Do we despise it, actually, in that moment of haughtiness or that moment of pride in conflict with your husband or your wife or your kids or another believer?

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Will we actually obey and revere the commandment of God when things get tough?

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Because it's easy for us right now, in this room, as you read a proverb like this, these are the words of God, it's easy for us to think about the person out there who is like that and not do that internal assessment.

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Do I despise God's word, his commandment, his wisdom, his revelation at points in my life?

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I mean, how many times this week did we do it? In our minds, in our hearts, in our relationship towards one another, how many times did we know what

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God calls us to do, but we did exactly the opposite? Maybe it was out of stubbornness, maybe it was out of ignorance, maybe it was out of defiance.

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The husband and the wife have the moment of difficulty and the moment of conflict. You both know how

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God calls you to resolve this for his glory. You both know how you're called to submit to one another in love and how to work this out and how to obey his law, but that conflict just perpetuates and it grows and it deepens with one another.

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Why? Because at a certain point we have to admit, I despise God's word right now.

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I don't want it. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to listen. I don't want to obey. I know the truth. I know what will heal me, but right now

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I love my sin. I love where this is going. I love being right.

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I love being in control. And so, again, as we get into the text here, remember that these are not just words of God for those out there.

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These are the words of God for us in here. Amen? Yes? So it's interesting because we can easily,

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I think, understand that that's how the unbeliever lives, right? They live like that. They don't respect

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God's revelation. They don't want his word. They don't want his wisdom. They don't want the knowledge of God.

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They suppress the knowledge of God. So they disrespect it. They condemn it. They don't want God's revelation.

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They're out there and we can think about, yeah, that sounds like, say, a category of like cults and false religion.

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We can all understand how the cults and false religions will despise the word of God.

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They disrespect it. They condemn it. They despise it and they bring destruction on themselves, eternal destruction on themselves.

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They destroy whole communities and they hurt actual people in the actual world.

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Cults and false religion despise the revelation of God, the words of God by elevating the words of their prophets above the words of God in Holy Scripture.

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The cults do that. If you've done any evangelism with us as a church, you know that. You've had that on a regular basis.

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When you go out to do evangelism and you're talking to the Jehovah's Witness or to the Mormon or to the average cultist out there, and I ran into one actually at Christmastime right outside of Fry's grocery store as I was leaving, a new cult.

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I was like, I'm going to dive into this one. And the answer there in terms of how they despise the word of God and they condemn it, which leads to their destruction in this life and the next, is they elevate the words of their authorities, of their prophets, of their apostles above the words of God in Holy Scripture.

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Or the cults and false religions will elevate their own experience above the words of God.

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They despise God's words. They don't want God's words. And so they elevate their experience above God's revelation.

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We talked at Christmastime at the Christmas service we had.

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We were talking about the incarnation. But I brought up to you this fascinating documentary that I watched.

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And it was about the Mother God cult. And she fairly recently died.

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But during COVID, I was watching this thing. It was on live stream 24 hours a day.

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This cult was like live streaming their life. And we didn't have much to do during COVID. So I was watching that.

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That's what I was doing. And it was amazing to see these people who were so duped by this really bad false prophets.

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I mean, I confess, there are some really skilled false prophets out there. False teachers, false prophets that have got some skills at what they're doing.

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They're good at what they do. They're good at the sociological manipulation. They're good at the love bombing. They're really good at the tyrannical wielding of authority, putting people under their boot, creating fear in people.

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There are some really great false prophets and false teachers out there. This one was like bottom shelf false prophet.

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She called herself Mother God. She said that she was Jesus reincarnated. She was in communication with Robin Williams, who was helping her with the future of the world.

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It was like, you are out of your stinking mind, lady. And she's like drunk 24 hours a day.

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She's mean to everybody that's there. She's mean to children. She's mean to people. And I love this part, how she just face planted big time, is they went to Kauai.

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Now, you guys all know we have a passion for Kauai, places in desperate need of the gospel.

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Lord willing, we are going back to plant that church and win that island to Jesus. But we've got some experience on the island of Kauai.

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It's a very, very, very difficult place to plant a church. It is a hard place to plant a church.

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And we need to have whole sermons and lectures on that and how difficult that place is.

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Because of the mindset of the natives in many ways, and don't create any problems, and you can't say

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Jesus is the only way to God and all that stuff. But anyways, Mother God moves to Kauai.

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And she decides, because she's been drinking all day, it sounds like a good idea to announce to Kauai on live stream that she is actually also

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Pele, the Hawaiian god. And then there was trouble. As soon as they heard that, if you've lived in Kauai, you know you don't mess with the

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Hawaiian gods or there's trouble. As soon as she said that, she had just a ton of people outside of her residence, and they basically kicked her off the islands.

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They kicked her off the islands, and she had to leave, and then she died fairly soon after that.

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But here's my point about the cults despising the words of God. As you have even in this kind of a cult like hers, she'll mention things like the

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Bible, and she's actually Jesus reincarnated, and all these different things. She wants to borrow from the

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Bible, but everywhere the Bible disagrees with her, it's just simple,

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I don't believe it. That's wrong. We disrespect that. We don't believe that. That's been corrupted.

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The Bible is not allowed to be the standard or to speak, and so they despise the word, and it brings destruction.

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We know how the cults do that. People elevate the words of their prophets above the word of God. They despise

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God's words. They elevate their own experience above the words of God, or they flatly deny and disrespect

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His word. I think it was this last year. I'm getting old too, so I'm forgetting when stuff happens.

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It's okay. We all know. It's fine. This year we talked to Brandon Robertson, right?

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So this past year, Pastor James and I, you can go look this up. We had a discussion, sort of radio discussion, debate, conflict, with a very popular false teacher,

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Brandon Robertson, who's very well known in the LGBTQ +, whatever, community.

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And he's a person who went to Moody Bible Institute, and I believe got his degree, and then he abandoned the

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Christian faith. He fell into apostasy. He still says that he believes in Jesus, but now he's promoting all manner of evil things, from pornography to homosexuality as a virtuous thing in God's eyes.

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And if you watch that discussion that we had, he doesn't believe those things because he gets them from the word of God.

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No, actually, he despises the word of God and says as much in our discussion with him, where if he doesn't like something the

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Bible says, he wants his own version of Jesus. He wants his own version of the word gospel. But if he doesn't like something that Paul says, he'll condemn

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Paul and Paul's words. If he doesn't like something that Jesus says, he'll condemn what the text says about that because he wants a

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Jesus of his own making, and he wants a religion of his own heart and his own mind. The cults despise the word of God.

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False religion despises the word of God, and it leads to their destruction, I want to argue, in this life and the next.

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But we also recognize how unbelievers will do this, right? Unbelievers despise, disrespect, condemn the word of God, and it leads to their destruction.

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In examples in history, you can go back to redemptive history, the Bible, and you can see it from the very beginning.

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Noah. Noah is giving the words of God. Noah is amongst a godless people.

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Noah is warning people, and then what happens? The flood comes and sweeps them all away, and Noah's family are the only ones preserved, but everybody else is destroyed.

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You see in Scripture examples, of course, leading to Pharaoh. Pharaoh is warned by God. Pharaoh is told by God.

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But Pharaoh doesn't respect God's word. He doesn't listen to God's word. And we recognize that's like this climax moment, this pinnacle example.

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Pharaoh, let my people go. These are the words of God. Here's Moses representing

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Yahweh, the everlasting God, the eternal God. It's in the midst of Egyptian paganism. There's gods everywhere.

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And so what does God do? God warns. There's prophecy.

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God's people are sent to give the words of God, and the unbelieving world says, I despise God's word.

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I won't listen. And example after example in the history of humanity is

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God's word comes into the world. The warning is made. People reject it.

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They despise His word. They condemn it, and it leads to their ultimate destruction, the destruction of the entire world in Noah, the destruction of Pharaoh's world in the story of the exodus of Israel, the people of Israel.

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You can move through history and see example after example, like John the Baptist, Matthew 3. His entering into the story starts with the words,

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Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And the warning of John the

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Baptist in Matthew 3 is to the religious leaders of his day. He says to them, he says, his winnowing fork is in his hand.

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He says the ax is already laid at the root of the trees. And he says for them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

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The warning is given, and they don't respect it. They despise it. They want

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Jesus dead. They don't fully embrace John the Baptist. They won't go where God is going.

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They won't follow the forerunner. And so what happens is in within that generation, exactly as John the

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Baptist taught, exactly as Jesus taught, what took place? The full destruction.

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The full destruction of the city of Jerusalem. The temple taken apart, where there was not literally a stone standing on top of another.

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God destroyed their world. They won't respect his word, and God promises destruction.

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You see that in the whole history of redemptive history in the Bible. But you also see it in our day.

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Supremely in our day. Brothers and sisters, I don't have to tell you this. I'm not teaching you this.

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You know this instinctively. We all know it. We are in trouble as a nation.

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We are in trouble as a nation. And I think we have to all confess to something.

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We look around us today, and we're numb to the wickedness, and the evil, and the darkness that is all around us.

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If you were to drop a segment of this culture, running where it's running, into the time period of, say, the beginning of this nation, where the

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Puritans are, how would the Puritans respond to what we see every single day in this nation?

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They would be horrified. They'd be tearing their clothes and throwing dust into the air.

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They wouldn't be able to believe what they're seeing and they're hearing. They wouldn't believe it. But we're numb to it.

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The culture that we live in that so rejects God's revelation, his word, and they act horrified when

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Christians go into the public square with the word of God, with the wisdom of God, they act horrified that we would dare bring the message of the lordship of Jesus Christ and God's holy word into the public square.

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They despise his words. Don't bring God into this discussion. Don't bring your religion into this discussion.

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There's a separation of church and what? Having no understanding that it is

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Christians who gave that doctrine to the world. And it didn't mean separation of God and states.

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It was so we can avoid the kind of situation we had in England where you had a blending of the church and the state, where the state rules the church.

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It was never saying that you keep Christ out of the public square. Jesus is lord.

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He is king. And the unbelieving world despises his word. They despise his revelation, and it will bring destruction.

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This cannot go on for long. You cannot live in God's world, the world that he built and he made, in a way that is contrary to his word, contrary to his commandments, contrary to his law and his wisdom, without ultimately experiencing the destruction.

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Yes and amen. There is an ultimate destruction ahead of anybody who rejects

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God's word. Amen? There is eternal hellfire. There is eternal torment. Yes, but there are also consequences here and now.

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All of God's revelation teaches that. It is throughout the book of Proverbs. And this word says to the world and to me, whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself.

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Listen, please. With humility to myself as well. This is something that needs to cut us and challenge us.

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Because yes, it's to them out there. Yes, it's to the unbelievers and those who despise

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God's law, his revelation, his wisdom. But it's also to me. I am destroying myself.

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You bring destruction on yourself, brothers and sisters, when you despise his word.

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And again, can we pause for a moment again? Please, pause. It's so easy for us as Christians.

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We talk a good game. Don't we? When you're in church, you've got the

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God face on. You act pious. You're wearing the Christian garb. You look like you've got it all together.

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It's easy for us to say yes and amen. It's easy for us to say yes and amen. In theory, here, whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself.

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Every Christian wants to say amen to that. The real test, the real test is in that moment of pride.

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The real test is in that moment of conflict. Some of you in this room right now, right now, maybe walking in here with a smile on your face, but you just destroyed one another in the car.

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You may be walking in here with a smile on your face, but you were just involved in a big gossip circle. You may be walking in here with a smile on your face, but you've been involved all week long in slandering your brother or sister.

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In this room, smile on your face, holding your Bible, acting pious, acting righteous.

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But the truth is we've been despising God's word because we don't really want to live according to it. And the word to you and I as God's people is there is destruction at the end of that line.

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It's a word from God. This is how God's world works. So my heart has to be a heart that is humble before God and recognizes there are points in my life where I am just a failure.

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I am not strong. I am filled with pride and I just need to be challenged.

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Do I revere God's commandment right now? In that moment of conflict with my wife, do

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I revere His commandment? Or do I right now despise His word?

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That's the challenge I think all of us need to face. And you know, as you look at this text again, verse 13, whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself.

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How do Christians, yes, professing Christians despise

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God's word, not revere His commandment? There are whole theological systems today whole theological systems today built in such a way as to actually suggest that God's revelation at certain points is not applicable to us.

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It's not even relevant to us today. There's whole systems of theological beliefs and books written that are telling believers today,

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Christians in the West, something that Christians did not believe before in this nation, that God's law,

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His commandments, those things, they're not for us today. That was just some ancient practice in the past.

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That law isn't relevant today. Christians don't have to revere God's commandments today because we're under what?

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Grace. We don't need the law of God. We don't need His commandments. We don't need His wisdom because we're just under grace.

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God is a supreme happy God and He just wants you to be happy and He just smothered you in His grace like peanut butter and He cares nothing about your obedience or your life.

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Nothing could be farther from biblical Christianity than that. And these are the words of God.

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Christians, yes, professing Christians, will live in such a way as they disrespect the word of God.

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Again, whole theological systems and theological tomes built to teach Christians, you do not need to respect

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God's commandments, God's law, God's wisdom, because you're under grace. All of that is irrelevant.

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We need to actually unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament. You heard that before, right?

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And isn't it amazing? Years ago when I debated Andy Stanley on the Unbelievable Radio program,

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I was disputing the issue of unhitching the Old Testament from the New Testament.

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I was disputing the idea that God's revelation and His law is no longer relevant in the

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New Covenant. I was disputing that. Andy Stanley had really no biblical examples to overcome what was being said to him and the warning we all knew was being given to Andy Stanley at the time is you abandon

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God's commandments, you abandon His law, you will destroy the Christian faith. It will lead to people actually accepting of things that God says

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He abominates. And where are we today? Exactly where we knew we would be with Andy Stanley, where there's this acceptance now of lifestyles that God condemns and He actually abominates.

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Why? Because we despise the Word and it leads to destruction.

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We Christians can despise the Word today when we shy away from it. When you know and I know what

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God calls us to say and to do and yet we won't do it. Why?

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Out of self -preservation. We're trying to protect ourselves, our jobs, our things, our stuff.

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And so we disrespect the Word of God. We don't do what we know we ought to do. We don't say what we ought to say because we despise

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His Word even if it's just in that glimmer of a moment. It's just that moment we despise.

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We won't live up to it. We won't live according to it. We won't defend it. We won't proclaim it boldly. We apologize for the

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Bible. Brothers and sisters, never, ever, ever apologize for anything in God's Word.

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These are the words of God. Never apologize for anything in the Word of God. The Word says, whoever despises the

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Word brings destruction on himself. Now, I think it's important because we need to go with the actual warnings of Scripture.

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So much of the preaching that comes across pulpits today is lacking in that warning of final judgments.

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You see, listen. There is a goal to history. A telos.

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There's a point at which everything is moving according to Scripture. God is sovereign. Amen?

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And He is carrying everything along to its intended destination. He has told us in history what is coming and He gets it right every single time.

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And there is a final judgment that Scripture warns about that is coming for all of humanity.

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There is a day of judgment, brothers and sisters. A day of judgment. Christ is going to bring about a resurrection of the just and the unjust and there is going to be a final reward.

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And this text says, whoever despises the Word brings destruction on himself.

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Here are some of those promises from Scripture. Revelation 21, verse 8. Scripture says,

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But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

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This is the second death. And more. Matthew 25, verse 46.

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Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. Psalm 9, verse 17.

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The wicked go down to the realm of death, all the nations that forget God. Jesus gives the warning.

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You know this text. It's a challenging one. I think this is one of those texts that I used to appeal to most often.

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When we first planted as a church, many of you guys know we started at a drug rehab and so our entire church body were people that came out of drug and alcohol addiction and one of the things that we were constantly impressing was sanctification and putting our sin to death.

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And one of the favorite verses that I would use was from Jesus where Jesus says, if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.

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It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell where the fire never goes out.

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Jesus is calling people. He's like, look, your eye's not that important. Your hand's not that important.

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It's more important that you rid yourself of what is leading you into sin than going into eternal fire with everything intact, with all of that with you.

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Now, of course, Jesus is not really teaching you to maim yourself. Your eye is not causing you to sin and neither is your hand.

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But it's a source. It's what you're letting in. It's what you're doing. And so Jesus is warning people, it's better for you to go into life maimed without this thing than for you to spend eternity in hell.

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There is ultimate destruction ahead. The Bible warns over and over and over again that there is a day of judgment and there is eternal destruction.

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And so you may be under the hearing of this right now. I'm saying to yourself, not totally convinced that it's that important that I actually obey

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God or that I submit to His Word or stop disrespecting His Word or dishonoring

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His Word. Not sure that I'm fully convinced yet. Scripture warns, this is the final end of those who dishonor

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God's Word, who will not turn to God's Word. They bring destruction on themselves. That's what the text says.

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There's warnings throughout Proverbs. We've already been there. I won't rehash all of them.

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I'll just remind you and myself that the book of Proverbs has from the very beginning this consistent plea.

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Keep your eyes set on wisdom. Don't let it go. Treasure it up. It's more valuable than silver and gold and all riches.

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It is the most valuable. And so the plea goes out to the Son. Listen to the instruction of your father.

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Listen to the instruction of your mother. It will guard your life. It will keep you on the path of righteousness.

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It will keep you where there is light and no darkness. And the warning goes to those who refuse to submit to God's wisdom.

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They live in darkness. They fall into a pit. They destroy themselves. They destroy their own lives.

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They destroy their communities. And it leads to death. Now, the text says, whoever despises the

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Word brings destruction on himself. How do we see that, brothers and sisters?

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I struggled. I struggled in meditating on this message and struggled. This could be five sermons to unpack.

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And what does it truly look like when we ignore God's wisdom and His Word here?

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What does it truly look like? What are the consequences? Because we are feeling it today.

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Man, are we feeling it. The consequences of despising God's Word in our nation.

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We were, at one point, not a utopia in our own particular experience in the world we live in today, this nation.

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We lived in a place where the Christian faith was just in the atmosphere. It was just assumed.

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The Lordship of Christ assumed. It was easy for founding fathers in this nation to just quote

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Scripture. Or John Jay, our first Supreme Court Justice, to, as he's writing the case law examples in our nation for our laws and our justice system, to simply pull from Exodus, Leviticus, Genesis, and just freely quote the words of God.

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The Christian faith is just in the atmosphere. It's just simply assumed. Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords.

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Christ is ruler over this nation. It was easy to have a treaty with another nation and say things like, in the name of the triune

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God of Holy Scripture. It was just easy to say that. Because the Christian faith is in the atmosphere.

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It's just assumed. Not very long ago, homosexuality was a criminal offense.

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A criminal offense. I challenge you to just go to YouTube and type in homosexuality public service announcements.

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Just from the 50s and 60s where people would put out, the community was putting out warnings against this kind of behavior.

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Warnings against the homosexual predator. This was just understood. This is a sinful practice.

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This is evil. It wasn't even long ago. There are people still alive today that grew up in that context and saw those commercials and those public service announcements on television.

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And now we're living with it all around us. And if we don't yield to it, we get punished. We get accused of hate speech.

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So much has changed in such a short period of time because we refuse to be salt and light.

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The culture is the report card of the church, one Christian said. And I think that's a very important thing to take in.

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The consequences of despising God's word in our nation. What do we have? As some examples, again,

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I had no way to really do this the way that I wanted to in terms of exhausting and really unpacking, but the destruction of the family.

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We despise God's word. I don't want to have God's ways. I don't have to be obedient to that.

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I don't have to listen to scripture. I don't have to have that as the anchor and the foundation of what a real marriage is.

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Isn't it amazing in the Obergefell decision where we legalized gay mirage,

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I don't remember hearing anyone arguing what was Jesus' view on marriage.

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Where was the legislator who was arguing that? Where was the Supreme Court justice saying, let's go to Matthew 19 and see what the incarnate

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God -man thought about marriage? People weren't saying it. Why? Because we don't fear

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God and His commandment. We despise His word. We're afraid to say it.

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We're afraid to tell it. And because we're afraid to say it and we're afraid to tell it, it leads to destruction all around us.

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The family destroyed. The family is the foundation of everything else God does in the world.

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When God creates the world, He creates male and female. He creates it as the foundation of everything else that He's going to do in the world.

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And we despise God's word, so it leads to destruction of the family. Father -less -ness. Children growing up without a father or without a mother.

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We have the destruction of gender among us. I don't need to fully explain this to us.

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I don't want to go into all the details today on the Lord's Day, but I would challenge you guys also, look up detransitioning stories.

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They're all over right now. Look up detransitioning stories. People who are saying today that they are irreparably harmed and damaged because they were so influenced by TikTok and the culture as to think that something was wrong with them and they need to alter their body.

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They need to mutilate and maim their own bodies for their own happiness. And now, thank God, these people are coming out and saying,

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I destroyed myself. I destroyed my life. I destroyed myself. I am irreparably harmed by what was told to me about what was going on with me, why something felt so wrong in me.

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And now these people are coming out with the detransitioning stories. Some of them are terribly heartbreaking.

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Watch them. The destruction of gender leading to the destruction of people, actual people, children.

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The destruction of sexuality. We don't want God's Word. We don't revere His commandments, so we destroy sexuality.

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Now it's turned into something perverse. It's like human beings are beasts. It's like we're created just for an orgasm rather than this beautiful, harmonious, awesome thing that God gives to us in Scripture.

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We destroy it all. We throw what God creates as beautiful into the mud and into the dirt.

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We destroy its meaning and its purpose and its glory. We rob the world of the glory of sexual intimacy because it's been thrown into the mud because we despise

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God's Word and it will only lead to destruction. We've despised

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God's Word and culture and society, and so now today we have the virtue of covetousness.

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The virtue of covetousness. Jealousy for what someone else has. Wanting their stuff.

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Today it's said with such pride that we should diss business owners and people who are successful, people who have money, who have built organizations and businesses and built jobs and communities and fed families because they're rich.

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We should have their stuff. And everyone goes, yeah, I want their stuff. Give me their stuff.

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I don't like that they have all the stuff. Today in our culture and society, it's a virtue to have covetousness in your hearts.

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We despise God's Word and so we destroy our neighbor. How? By stealing their stuff.

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And the answer, given by legislators, is well they have too much stuff so we will steal it from them and give it to you.

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Covetousness. We destroy the world. We destroy whole economies. Because we despise

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God's Word, we don't respect it or revere His commandment. We have the protection today of lawlessness.

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The protection, the actual protection of lawlessness. Now I love

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California. Hold on. I love how beautiful it is.

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I do. I love how beautiful California is. The ocean and just the beauty. I love

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California in terms of California the state. But the lawlessness and the sin and the evil that is all the way through the government and the laws there is astonishing.

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To have a place that was so filled with Christian witness not very long ago in terms of even

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Hollywood. Filled with Christian witness so much conservative Christian morality that was there not very long ago to have a place that's completely flipped today.

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Actually teaching and legislating for the protection of lawlessness. Have you seen all the people running into stores today in California breaking in, stealing things and walking out freely?

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How do they get so emboldened to come into somebody's business and just take things and walk out?

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Well it's because of actual legislation that protects the lawlessness and says well you can't prosecute for this amount of dollars.

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So you can steal just under and just walk away and not be prosecuted. So we protect and preserve lawlessness.

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We hate our neighbors in California and we virtually guarantee that those businesses will pull out of California because you cannot run a business in such a way that people are allowed to violate you.

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Amen? But if we despise God's word and we don't have laws against theft, if we don't actually revere the commandment to love neighbor as you love yourself then we will create a state where we will destroy businesses, destroy neighbors, destroy the world and you already know

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Ecclesiastes chapter 8 what's the word say there? That because the sentence against an evil deed is not speedily executed it says the hearts of men are emboldened to do wickedness.

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Why? Because there is no justice, there is no punishment and that is what we see. We don't revere the word and so we bring destruction on ourselves.

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What do we have today because we despise the word of God is we have the destruction of our economic system.

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We are all walking around with funny money. It's not real.

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Brothers and sisters, it's not real. The money in your bank account is not real. It's not there.

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You have a banking system that is so wicked that it defies God's wisdom and His law and His commandments where you go and deposit money and they immediately loan it out nine times sometimes to somebody else.

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Your money isn't there. That money was fake money and everybody is afraid of what? The same thing they were afraid of two generations ago.

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A bank run. What would happen if a majority of people in America today went to go get their money out of the bank?

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What would happen? What would happen? Absolute collapse and destruction of the economy.

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Banks are banking on the fact that you and I are not going to come and say, give me all my money right now.

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Have you seen all the videos going around today of people going to the bank and asking to withdraw all their money in cash and the bank saying to them what?

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Your money is not here. We don't have that. We have to put an order in for that and you can maybe get it in two weeks or three weeks from now because why?

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We refuse to obey God's word. We despise his word and so it leads to this unstable economic position or situation for all of us where it could all collapse in a moment.

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In a moment. Did you hear recently how fearful our nation was, our government officials were that there were talks going on between Russia and Iran and these other nations regarding changing how they exchange for oil from the dollar to something else.

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Why was it such a terrifying thought to think that globally people would stop trading in the dollar.

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Why? Because if people stop believing in the

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American dollar our dollar is proven to be exactly what it is. Fake.

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Not real. And all it's going to take is a collection of nations to decide to no longer trade in our funny money and it will collapse the

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American economy. Why? Because the only reason people trade in it today is just because the idea that America is strong enough to pay their debts.

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Now brothers and sisters how in debt are we as a nation? Trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars.

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It's hard to even imagine a pile of money as large as our national debt.

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And it is all fake. Why? Because we refuse to obey God's word. We refuse to obey what

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God says about real money. Our currency is a fiat currency. It is all imaginary and all it's going to take is a little nudge and everything collapses.

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Destruction will be on the way for every nation that refuses to obey

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God's word and wisdom regarding money as well. Did you know the Bible has a lot to say about money?

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And it is interesting that not long ago when we had the Christian worldview in the atmosphere we did money the right way.

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It was backed by what? Gold. Silver. It was real money.

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Not pretend. Not merely a promise. Because we despise God's word we refuse to obey him.

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It leads to destruction. How? Lawless courts. Insurmountable debts.

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Lawless courts like courts that just engage in partiality. They play favorites.

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Courts that use unequal weights and measures. They use two stones. They refuse to listen to God. They use unequal weights and measures.

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Courts that are inconsistent in their standards of evidence. Courts that are inconsistent in their standards of justice.

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Well how should this person be punished here? Well let's just sort of on a whim decide. What do

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I think? And it's up to that particular judge and what he thinks. Rather than having the rock solid standard of God's law and justice.

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Here's how someone should be punished for theft. Here's how somebody should be punished for rape. Here's how somebody should be punished for murder.

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We have inconsistent standards and it leads to ultimately destruction. We have of course a refusal to revere the commandments.

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We despise God's word so it leads to a system of unjust taxation. Unjust wars.

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Let me take you to a section of scripture I think is vitally important for all of us to know. Go to 1 Samuel.

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1 Samuel chapter 8. 1 Samuel chapter 8. This is actually a compelling section of scripture.

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If you've never heard this before I encourage you to after this today go and read through this section because it is truly compelling.

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Here's an example in Israel's history where they are demanding a king like the other nations.

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Right? Now it's interesting because this is Israel. Israel has been given the law of God. God's condescended.

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He's spoken to his people. He's rescued them from their slavery. God has given them his law and his justice.

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It's a light to the nations and they're looking around at all the pagan nations and they're jealous.

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They're like, I want to have an actual king like those people. And what God says here is that he actually is their king.

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So in verse 6 of chapter 8 it says this, Give us a king to judge us.

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And Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord said to Samuel, Obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you for they have not rejected you but they have rejected me from being king over them.

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I find that so compelling. God is saying they already have a king.

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They already have a king. So all of their asking for a king they're missing the point. I am their king.

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But here's what he says. I'm going to judge them now. I'm going to give them what they're asking for.

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They don't want God to be king over them. They don't want God to be their king. He says, so I'll give them a king like the other nations.

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And here's what God says is going to happen. In verse 8, According to all the deeds that they have done from the day

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I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.

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Now then, obey their voice only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.

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So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you.

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He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots.

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He's going to take your kids to war. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.

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He will take your daughters to be his perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and all of orchards and give them to his servants.

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Man, oh man, does that not sound like communism? Right? A socialist, communist like thing right there.

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It's all right there in the text. But watch this. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.

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So here, watch this. It's considered judgment on the people of God.

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You asked for it. Here's your king. It's considered judgment when the government has the audacity and the goal to think that they are worthy of the tithe like God gets.

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He's going to take ten percent. That's judgment. It's going to be a judgment upon the people of God when the government has the audacity to think that they are worthy of the tithe.

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Ten percent. Brothers and sisters, how much are you paying in taxes?

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You don't think we're under judgment? You don't think we're under judgment when the government is arguing, legislators are arguing, that we should be taking more than fifty percent from rich people?

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How much are you due every year in terms of a tax burden? Now, we're stuck in a situation where we have to yield and we have to go through with it.

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Why? Because you are under threat that if you do not, you will be punished. So we have to go along, but we have to go along understanding that God calls this kind of taxation judgment.

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That a government would think that they are actually worthy of the tithe. Some of y 'all are really amending right now.

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You're like, I love this church. But notice the warning. All right, you don't want

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God. You don't want God to rule over you. You don't want his law. You don't want him as king. Great. I'll give you a human king. I'll give you the guy.

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He's going to do unjust wars. He'll take you into war. He's going to take the tithe for himself. There's the punishment.

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We despise God's word, and so it leads to destruction in so many ways. Now, I'll just do this as quickly as I can.

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That's easy. Many of you could have done that today. I could have told you on Thursday, hey guys, or hey,

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I just want you to just prepare 10 minutes on some of the ways that despising God's word has led to the destruction of the world around us.

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You could have put it together. You could have come up here, and you could have preached it maybe better than me. That's easy.

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It's easy to point the finger out there. It's easy to look at them and say, I see how they despise the word of God. But again, as I said in the beginning, the challenge, though, is to me.

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It's to us. The word says, whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself. Christians can despise the word of God.

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We disrespect it. We condemn it. We don't revere it. When we say things like the law doesn't apply.

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Now, I know that God says that. I know God commands that. I know that's His wisdom. I know that's His word. It's His revelation.

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But that doesn't apply anymore. We don't have to obey that commandment, that word.

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And so what it leads to is destruction. Right? We don't believe

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God's law or His commandments apply. Right? Isn't that evangelifish today? Evangelism today?

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Is that we have a message that says, God's law and His commandments aren't relevant. His wisdom isn't relevant to the world out there.

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Christ is Lord over me and my little hearts. Right? His law doesn't apply out there. It's not something binding even to the unbelieving world.

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And so we don't tell it because we don't believe it ourselves. We despise the word ourselves. So we don't say it out there.

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We're ashamed of it. We don't even think it applies. And so what's it lead to? No salt, no light, no solutions.

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No salt, no light, and no solutions. Why is everything so broken out there?

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Because maybe there's no prophetic word going out into it. Maybe the world doesn't think we even have solutions because we've told them,

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God's word has nothing to say to you. God's word has nothing to say in terms of justice in the public square.

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We've robbed the world of the word of God. We despise it ourselves and so it leads to so much brokenness and so much darkness.

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Jesus says, you are the salt of the world. You are the light of the world. Now again, in theory, this is all easy to amen.

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Right? That's all bad. That's wrong. That's broken. But for us, as believers, in conflict, it's not as easy.

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It's not as easy. It's not as easy to obey this when you're in that circle with a bunch of believers that you love and respect.

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And all of a sudden, one of them goes off the rails. It starts trashing some other believer within the church.

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Starts acting spiteful and mean -spirited. Or you're with believers that you love and respect and one of them tries to draw you into a faction against another person.

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See, it's real easy to say we shouldn't despise God's word that leads to destruction. But in those moments within the body of Christ, there's where we start to give an example of despising

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God's word and just accepting the destruction. You know,

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I you've heard me say this many, many times. Many, many times.

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Every church that I have ever known to have a church split or to just go under and disappear as a result of conflict has happened not because of attacks from the outside.

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It has happened because of sin that went unchecked on the inside.

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It's the little whispers. It's those moments of slander that just are allowed to move.

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It's those, it's the standard -less church body that just believes somebody's one -sided story.

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Doesn't hear both sides. Doesn't cross examine. Doesn't challenge the scoffer.

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You see, this is where we actually live this. Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself.

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Factions, slander, gossip, conflict, all conflict has at least at the beginning a disrespect, a condemning, or a despising of the word.

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I'm going to challenge all of us and whatever we're talking about, marriage or our personal relationship with one another to revere the commandments and to recognize where I'm going off and despising the word of God, just rejecting it.

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I know what I ought to do. I know what I ought to say. Now, the next part of the verse, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.

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Now, quickly, go to Proverbs 6, just so you can see this has already been said before. Proverbs chapter 6, we've already been here.

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Proverbs 6, 23, it says, For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.

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Another example of how this is used in the book of Proverbs regarding the commandments. Now, Proverbs 19, verse 16.

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19, 16. Whoever keeps the commandment, keeps his life, he who despises his ways will die.

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Sound familiar? That sounds like Proverbs 13, 13. More warnings, more flesh on the problem.

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Now, here we go. Ready? But he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded. That word revere is also the word for fear.

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But he who reveres, he who fears the commandment will be rewarded.

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Now, there's two problems, two problems quickly as the average Christian today in the

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West comes to the text and we have this belief that it's just grace and God doesn't want, doesn't desire any obedience, he doesn't desire holiness and so it's just all grace.

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God doesn't care about commands and, you know, Jesus said if you love me, obey me. But, you know, that's not necessarily important for us to do.

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Two problems that face the average Christian when they come to a text like this today. He who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.

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One, we think today that God's law doesn't apply anymore.

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God's law, his statutes, his commandments, they don't apply anymore. And so, why is this relevant?

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Proverbs 13, 13, he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded. I don't even think

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God's commands are necessary or applicable anymore. And so, number one, we reject this or we have a hard time seeing it because we don't think

01:02:04

God's law applies anymore. And the second problem is that it says that he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.

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Rewards for obedience sounds like works salvation.

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That's what people will think, right? Well, wait, if you talk about, like, God's commandments and revering them as in obeying them and that leading to rewards, that sounds like works -based salvation.

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No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. Salvation is all of grace. It's only Christ. It's his righteousness.

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He has earned it all. He has paid for it all. We are in Christ. But, brothers and sisters,

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Scripture clearly, clearly teaches throughout from beginning to end that there are rewards for obedience and disciplines for the people of God for disobedience.

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We're not talking about heaven and hell here. We're talking about rewards within God's house for his children.

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So, as an example, and we could do this for a long time, but I just want to give you guys some quick things to work with.

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As an example, Jesus talks about rewards. He's wisdom incarnate.

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He's God walking among us. In Matthew 5, 12, he says, Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who are before you.

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In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10, it says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

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Matthew 25, 21, His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little.

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I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 8,

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He who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his wages according to his labor.

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Here's another one you're all familiar with. Matthew 6, verse 4, So that your giving may be in secret.

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That's like not giving in such a way as to blow horns and say, Hey everyone, look what I'm doing. I'm giving my money. That your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

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We could do this for days. Well, we all get the point, don't we? Scripture teaches that there are rewards from our heavenly father for obedience in this life and the next.

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We're not talking about heaven. You couldn't earn heaven. You are not righteous. You are not good.

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We have all gone astray. We are by nature children of wrath. Salvation is a gift of God's grace through faith in Christ alone.

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Amen? But, our heavenly father has rewards or lack of rewards for how we walk with Jesus in this life.

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Do you believe that? Scripture teaches it. And so, if you desire destruction, despise or condemn or disrespect his word.

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So here's the thing to face down.

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If you want to destroy your life, ignore his word.

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And it's guaranteed. You have eternal destruction. You have destruction of your life on this side of heaven.

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If you want a life of peace, goodness, reward,

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Scripture says, revere his commandment. There's the wisdom from God.

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Fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and correction. And now, it's fleshed out farther for us.

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Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself. But he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.

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Brothers and sisters, I'm going to challenge us all. If there's any one verse from Proverbs that can encompass the whole thing that we need to memorize, it is this one in our hearts.

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This goes into our family. This goes into our personal relationships. This goes into our family. This goes into our church body. This goes into our world out there.

01:06:40

Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself. But he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded. May God help us to live this out.

01:06:47

Let's pray. Father, I pray that you'd bless, Lord, the word that went out today for your glory and kingdom. I pray that you would allow your word and your wisdom to flourish among us.

01:07:01

That we would deepen in our understanding of your word and your wisdom. That we would revere your commandments.

01:07:09

Lord, we pray, not for our sake alone, but for your glory that you would deepen even now by your spirit within us our affection for your word, our reverence for your commandment.

01:07:27

Help us, Lord, to hate within us any bit of despising your word and your revelation.

01:07:35

Lord, we seek your face and we do pray that you would use us to bring life and peace and light to this world.