["Let It Be Your Name"]
Everybody's here, all right up
So I can't you pray
When the darkness comes and they're gone
Still I will stay
Let it be the name of the Lord
Let it be your name
Let it be the name of the Lord
Let it be your glorious name
You can take away
The heart will just decide
What God shall be your name
And bring blessings around, time after grace
When the darkness comes and they're gone
Still I will stay
Let it be the name of the Lord
Let it be your name
All right, if you'd like to give yourself some space this morning,
if I have any young people that would like to join me at the front.
I will give you all my worship
I will give you all my praise
You alone are long to worship
You alone are worthy of my praise
Thank you.
All righty.
Obviously we were encouraging ourselves to memorize the scripture this week,
but out of that scripture or any other scripture that you looked at this week,
how has the Lord been speaking to you?
Okay.
Going once, going twice.
All right, let's do it together.
I'm going to flip my Bible.
Actually, let's do this.
Who has Galatians 6 and 9 memorized?
Right now I can say it for a minute.
Is it any?
Galatians 6 and 9.
Let us not lose heart.
Or, okay.
I'll open it in this translation here.
Let us not lose heart in...
What's the next word, Zorah?
Okay, very good.
Let us not lose heart in doing good.
Anybody?
For in due time,
we shall reap if we do not grow weary.
Okay.
So, let's talk about what the verse means.
Sometimes, like I heard a couple of young people say they have a little trouble memorizing the verse.
Sometimes if you understand a little bit better, it's a little easier to remember, right?
What does it mean to not lose heart?
Don't give up, don't get discouraged, right?
Don't get beaten down, don't run out of energy.
You ever, like those of you who work a full-time job, you ever get near to the fifth day of the week
and you've already put in 45, 50 hours and you're like, oh man, do I have to work today?
You feel like you don't want to, right?
You're like, oh, I already did a lot this week.
It's already been a full work week and more.
Has that ever happened to anybody?
Yeah.
That happened to you, Charlie?
Yeah.
What about the fifth day of school?
Preschool.
Preschool, you ever get tired going to school?
You going to preschool?
Yeah, you say you get tired.
Okay, that's fine.
All right, so that's what it means to lose heart, right?
To run on steam, to just feel like you've already done it, you've already been there.
Okay?
And the reason we don't want to do that is because we will reap.
What does it mean to reap?
Whatever you put into it, you're going to get out of it.
It comes out of that.
Yeah, it kind of comes from farming, right?
You sow the seed in the ground, later you reap the harvest.
So you get back.
Any time you will reap, you don't grow weary.
We don't get tired.
So let's say a farmer goes out and puts a seed in the ground, and it rains, and the crop comes up.
But by the time the fall comes, he's going to go out and harvest the crop.
He's beaten.
Maybe he's got the flu or got a disease or his family went through some terrible times, whatever.
And that crop is ready to be harvested.
But he can't go out because he's really in a bad spot for whatever reason.
If somebody doesn't cut that harvest down and bring it in, there will be no harvest.
It will just go to seed.
It will go to waste.
It will go all the way around when the winter storms come.
But we will reap if we don't grow weary.
So let us not lose heart because we will reap if we don't grow weary.
Now if you memorize Galatians 6-9, then you got candy this morning.
Not little Hershey's Kisses, but giant candy bars.
Before service, Ariana said the verse, ready?
It could get ugly.
Pretty good, pretty good.
Almost a basketball catch.
So you got to say the verse, and you will reap.
It was built right in there.
Galatians 6-9, right?
What's 6-10?
Say it.
Okay?
This translation says, so?
So then, because that's true, what we just talked about.
So then, because that's true.
So then, while we have opportunity, what does opportunity mean?
Options.
It's a chance.
We can make the choice to do it right now.
By the way, for those of you who do get tired, about 7, 38 o'clock on Friday morning when work starts,
if you're not there, you miss the opportunity to be there.
You show up about noon, your boss is not going to be too happy with you.
Kids show up at school at noon too many times, and the government starts to send the warrant office
and work around, the currency officer around, that kind of thing.
You start getting in trouble with kids showing up late too much, that kind of thing.
Ty, when your classes come up, if you don't get on the computer, you miss your opportunity, right?
That's it.
So we don't want to miss our opportunity.
Right now, while we have, so then, while we have an opportunity, what are we going to do?
Already talked about it in verse 9.
Do good.
When we have an opportunity, do good.
To who?
Who are we going to do good to?
Me!
According to verse 10.
Me!
Yeah, Charlie wants us to do good to him.
All right?
Who are we going to do good to, for those of you who memorized verse 10?
For tribe.
Everyone.
Right?
Everyone.
That's what you're going to say?
Everyone.
To all people.
Especially.
People who are in the household of faith.
Right?
People who have become followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have a responsibility.
You become an heir and a joint heir with Jesus.
You have a responsibility to the other heirs.
Right?
The people who say that they don't need to be in the church, don't need to be part of
the church.
That doesn't really work because you've got to be part of the church if nothing else to
hold up your responsibility to take care of other people.
You have to do good, especially to those who are in the household of faith.
I'm not making that up.
That's what the verse says.
And you can live your life.
If you only live your life by these verses, you'd be missing Jesus.
Because Jesus isn't really mentioned in there.
He's not mentioned in the Bible.
Right?
But assuming you've met Jesus, you could then live your life by these verses and there would
be nothing wrong with it.
You'd never fail.
You'd be loving people and doing good to people all the time.
That's basically what Jesus was doing.
Right?
And you say, well, what about those people he cast out of the temple?
He didn't do good.
He made a whip of a cord and chased them out of the temple.
Oh, yes, he did do good to them, actually.
Those very same people, he threw over their tables and chased them out of the temple.
He was actually doing good to them because what they were doing was an insult to God.
He was stopping them from insulting God.
And you know what God does to people who insult Him.
They needed Jesus.
They needed to hear from Jesus.
And some days we need to hear from Jesus like that, too.
So, parents, you always want to be nice to your kids, right?
But sometimes nice isn't the right thing to do.
Sometimes there's discipline or there's correction or there's direction and that's what we have
to do.
And that, too, is good.
Right?
Police officers don't ever want to hit anybody with their night state, ever.
The reason they're a good police officer.
Right?
But sometimes they have to.
They don't want to fire their taser at another human being because they've got, during
academy, they went through it themselves.
They experienced it.
They know it hurts.
They don't want to do that.
But sometimes they have to.
And they don't want to draw on fire their firearm, but sometimes they have to.
So, sometimes life is about choosing what the greater good is.
But here's what you don't want to do.
You don't want to do this.
You don't want to lose heart in doing good.
Right?
Because in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
So, then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people and especially the household
of things.
It's really not, I guess maybe we're having trouble understanding the concept.
So, let me encourage you to do this.
Next time you're having trouble memorizing a Bible verse, instead of just beating it
up and trying to repeat it over and over and over again or whatever, or failing to get
excited about it, dig into it and figure out what it actually says and what it means and
then what you can do about it.
By the time you're done, you almost don't have to memorize it at all because you kind
of know.
You kind of know this is what it says.
Right?
And then you just need to get it in the right words.
And then come early and then repeat the verses to one of the leaders or somebody that's here
and get that candy or whatever we're giving out that day, which so far has been chocolate.
Today was candy bars, a variety of different candy bars.
And also get a ticket to get into drawing.
All right?
And you say, well, I don't care about a ticket.
I don't care about candy.
Well, you cannot care about the ticket.
You cannot care about the candy.
But you cannot not care about memorizing God's word because it is literally a command.
It is our job to do that.
If you don't want to be in the contest and you don't want to then by all rights, you
better memorize a word perfect.
And then you can say it and say, but I don't need a ticket.
And then you will have done something.
All right?
So that's my encouragement to you.
If you don't want to memorize the verse, we're memorizing.
It's still a spiritual discipline.
Memorize something else for crying out loud.
And then come in here and say, well, God said this to me.
You all were going to be Galatians 6, 9, and 10.
But I was in Genesis or I was in whatever.
And this is what God said.
That would be cool.
Right?
All right.
We're going to pray together at this time and move on.
We'll be tithes and offerings and a little more worship.
We're focused on God this morning.
Caitlin, would you pray for us?
Sure.
We'll pray with her.
Let's join her.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you just really get this message across to everybody here
today in the sermon and that we can learn your word together at the church and spread
it together at the church.
Lord, I pray that you bless each and every person in here and that you're with everybody
who could not be with us today.
Lord, I pray that you're watching over everybody on that prayer list, whether it's for good
health or for personal issues or work.
I just pray that everyone on that list can get the blessing that they need and that you
can be there with them and with us today.
Lord, I pray that you will bless over tithes and offerings that we've had this morning
and that they can be used for how you see fit and how you would want us to use that.
Lord, I pray this all in your son's name.
Amen.
When I was about 16 and a half, 17 years old, well, I take it back 17 and a half years old
because I just remembered another event that happened about the same time.
We were living here in the Tlilio area, right in the house that I live in right now.
My brother moved to Florida and he was living down on the edge of Fort Lauderdale.
And if you know this about Fort Lauderdale or not, but when the hurricanes come in,
good portions of that area flood.
I mean, it's all across the middle section of Florida really,
and it gets even worse as you get down toward the tip of Florida.
And so while he was there, their house flooded a couple of times while he was living there,
and he moved elsewhere and he now lives in Columbus.
But we hadn't been to Florida in our travels except the northern portion of Florida when I was younger.
And so my parents decided they would take a trip down.
We would take two weeks off work, and I did.
And my dad got a rental car for free from George Ballacy, was working there at the time.
It was really fancy.
It was the fanciest car I had ever been in.
I had ridden in a limo before.
This was even more fancy than that.
I think it was actually a Rolls Royce midsize car.
It wasn't the big blocky thing of the olden days, but it was kind of fancy.
And you could adjust your seat in like 12 different ways.
Plus it had seat warmer and seat vibration, and it had a digital dash, and it had sound.
And this was early in the days before cars got really that advanced.
I mean, this was probably $20,000, $30,000 worth of extras in this car.
And my parents let me drive going down to Florida.
So I'm driving this car, and at one point in time,
my mom and my dad were both asleep in the car, and I'm driving.
And I drove for like six hours straight in this beautiful, I mean, like,
had to been, I don't know what the purchase price was, $60,000, $80,000 car.
And I really enjoyed that.
We got down to Florida and visited with my brother,
and we stayed with him in their extra room.
And my parents slept for the first time ever in their life,
and this was in their 50s, and they slept for the first time ever in their life on a waterbed.
And my mom couldn't get out of bed in the morning, so that was the big joke.
And it was a fun trip.
But something happened while we were there that speaks to the text today,
and the Lord brought it back vibrantly into my mind as I was thinking about it.
And what it was was we played Monopoly.
Now, you know what Monopoly is, right?
It's a board game.
You move your little figures, the dog or the horse or the iron or the car,
or you move it around the board, and you purchase the properties.
And if you get a set of properties, you can build hotels, first houses and then hotels.
And if somebody lands, they think I pay you a lot of money, paper, fake money.
And the idea of Monopoly is that if you get enough of the board, you can wipe everybody else out.
Well, in Monopoly, in the actual written rules of the game,
there is a rule that says that you cannot purchase properties on your first trip around the board.
You have to get your first payday first.
You have to go past Go one time before you can start buying properties.
But there is an optional rule that says you can start buying properties on the first time around.
So we're playing Monopoly, laying on the floor of my brother's house in Florida.
It's 95 degrees outside and sunny, and the beach is 50 yards out the front door.
I don't know why we're laying on the floor.
We were at the beach a good part of the day, but we're laying on the floor playing Monopoly,
and we've had dinner, and my belly's full, and I'm happy, and whatever.
We play Monopoly.
On the first time around the board, my brother landed on Boardwalk.
Now, Boardwalk is one of the most coveted properties in Monopoly.
It's that together with its partner, Park Place, when you put hotels on there,
you get thousands of dollars every time somebody lands on you.
It is the most coveted, and it's just two properties that you've got to have,
even though they're kind of expensive, and they're right before Go, if I'm not mistaken.
I've seen the board kind of in my head, but anyway, the point is he landed on Boardwalk
on his first time around before he had passed Go,
and he promptly started getting his money out to buy Boardwalk.
Now, when we were growing up, part of the time, we played a lot of Monopoly growing up.
This was before cell phones, and back we had about three TV channels.
There was no streaming. There was no Roku.
In fact, there was no Internet. Woo-hoo! Right?
There was no Internet then, and we sometimes played by the optional rule
you could buy on your first time around, and we sometimes didn't,
but when we sat down in Florida that day, we didn't decide whether we were going to play
by the optional rule that you could buy the first time around or not.
We hadn't said, but as soon as my brother landed on Boardwalk, he was like,
I'm buying that, baby. I'm halfway there, and if I get Park Place 2,
then I'll have everything I need, and even if you don't,
you could trade Boardwalk to somebody else later for a lot of money or a lot of property, right?
Because it's a coveted property in the game.
Right away, he's going to buy the property. I said, now wait a minute, wait a minute.
We didn't agree that we were going to purchase properties on the first time around.
We never said that before the game, and the rules of the game say,
and he said, no, no, that's just an optional rule that you can say
that you can't purchase properties on the first time around.
The actual rule is you can purchase properties on the first time around.
And so then we argued for about 10 minutes about it.
My dad's there going, like, it doesn't really matter. It's just one property.
Don't worry about it. We're on vacation. We're supposed to be having fun.
He's trying to calm everything down. My brother and I are arguing back and forth.
So we get out the rule book, and we check it, and in my remembrance,
and I don't have a set of copy of the rules of Monopoly here to verify for sure today,
but in my remembrance, we determined that it was an optional rule
that you could buy properties on the first time around if you wanted the game to go faster,
and it was an actual rule that you could not buy properties on the first time around.
So I was right, at which point we argued some more,
and ultimately we agreed that he could buy the property after about a half an hour of arguing.
At that point in time, I didn't really want to play Monopoly anymore.
We did play to the end, and my dad trounced us both
so that people who were really doing the arguing didn't really even matter,
because he won the game. But the point, and that happens a lot, by the way,
when you argue about games, usually it's the people that are not arguing that wind up winning
if it's a multiplayer game.
The reason that speaks to this text today is because of what actually happened there.
There was an authority that we could have appealed to.
We could have just gone to the rule book and saw what the actual rule was.
We also could have talked about it before we began to play and decide what the rule was going to be,
because we knew when we had played it a lot when we were kids
that either you could or could not, based on what you decided before you played the game,
we just didn't know which was the optional rule, which was the actual rule, you see?
So we could have talked about it before we started and agreed on the set of rules,
or we could have checked the rule book, and while we were arguing about it,
instead of arguing about it for 50 minutes, we could have checked the rule book,
and then after we checked the rule book, we could have just went by what it said,
but we still argue about it for some more.
And so you see where this is going already, don't you?
Grab your Bibles with me, if you will, and we are working our way through the book of Deuteronomy,
and we are continuing today in chapter 19, verse 14 of the book of Deuteronomy.
Amen.
Thank you so much, this is God's Word.
From here on out, the words that we read from this book will speak to our souls,
they'll nourish us, they will correct us, I think you will find yourself,
I found myself thinking, man, I better pay attention to this,
I better really kind of watch out for what I'm doing with this, okay?
So it's just eight verses, but then I will reference some others in kind of in support,
and some of which we'll read and some of which we won't, alright?
So Deuteronomy 19, beginning in verse 14.
On the first you read this verse, it's like, oh, that's no big deal,
but it gets to be a really big deal really fast.
It says, you shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark,
which the ancestors have set in your inheritance,
which you shall inherit in the land that the Lord your God gives you to possess.
Okay? So what they did was they put down stone boundary markers.
Now, I didn't know this, but most of the properties that are, at least in Wood County,
and I think in Lucas County too, have these boundary markers in some way, shape, or form.
Like when we were doing lawns back in the day, most of the time it follows where the telephone pole is or like that,
but a lot of times under the grass, under years of dirt that you don't even know about,
there is an actual boundary marker stone for a lot of properties, any bigger properties.
And when my property has one and I didn't even know it, the guy brought the property next to me,
and he says, well, do you know where your property stops exactly,
because I don't want to mow your property or whatever?
And I said, well, not exactly, but I kind of do, and it kind of goes like this.
And he said, well, actually it goes like this.
And he took, we went out in the field and he actually got down on his knee and he had a little spade.
He pulled it out of his pocket and he dug down about six inches and showed me where the actual stone is
in the ground that marks the corner of my property that I didn't even know existed.
Bottom line is they would use stones to mark where the edge of their property was,
and this verse is saying that they were not allowed to move those stones.
Let's say you own 50 acres and there's a corner and there's a stone on the corner set in the ground,
or maybe it's a boulder, it could be a big thing, whatever.
You're not allowed to go out there and take that stone and move it back 20 yards
and add part of the other person's property to your property.
You're not allowed to do that. That's what this verse says.
Where the marks are, that's where the marks are.
I submit to you that those stones are representative of a previous authority led by God, Joshua, the Israelites,
and they came into land. They set where those properties would be.
They set where those stones would be marking the edge of the property.
To go there and to move the stone is to show disrespect for the people that went before you,
that set where the stones were.
And, let's be realistic, it's to show disrespect for God.
Because we say, well, God didn't know, God didn't lead them, God didn't make it happen, God didn't mark out the boundaries.
And of course, we jump ahead a little bit at Acts 17, it says God marks out the boundaries.
And so God does do that. And so they would be disrespectful to move that stone.
And you think, well, this doesn't really apply to us.
It doesn't really apply to us because I'm not really trying to move somebody's property line
or steal their property next door to me or whatever, plus it's all marked out in the county auditor's office
and they figure it out eventually and blah, blah, blah.
It's not really that big of a deal, so this doesn't really apply to me.
Except when you get into talking about how they're moving that stone would be offensive to the people that lived before,
you realize that there is figurative language that makes this apply to us very well.
I'll give you an example of what's happening in present day.
There are people who are redefining the boundaries of what a lot of things mean.
In fact, we're not living in a day where people want to redefine what the truth is.
So they say, well, your truth is what you think it is and my truth is what I think it is, and that's the boundary.
So as long as our two truths don't conflict, you can believe whatever you want and I'll believe whatever I want.
But then what they say is, but once our two truths do conflict, I'm right and you're wrong.
So what they're saying is I get to set the boundary.
I get to decide because my truth is more important than your truth.
So if you think you're right and I think I'm right, well, I'm right.
And that's what's in the world today. That's the state of mind of the world today.
We've redefined or tried to anyway, you really can't, but try to redefine the definition of marriage.
I'm not trying to be political. I'm just giving an example of what's happening.
We've redefined the definition of what is proper sexuality.
We've redefined the definition of parenting.
Now, I haven't and I hope you haven't and God certainly hasn't redefined it.
But what's happening is in the world, people are attempting to move the boundary stones to say,
well, now if you come over into my territory, you've got no reason. You have no right.
There's no justice. There's no standard that by which you can apply to me and say, I'm wrong.
Right. That's what people are trying to do in the world today.
Now, notice what that does is it disrespects the ancestors because there are people that came before us for a long time that said this is the way things work.
They work this way and as long as they keep working this way, they work.
But if we change the way they work, certain things, we change the way they work, then it's not going to work.
It's going to fall apart. Right.
Moreover, it's also disrespecting God because if you go back far enough, where did they get the standard in the first place?
They got it from God.
The realistic standard of what a marriage is, now again, not trying to get into the political agenda, okay,
but the realistic standard of what a marriage is comes from God.
It doesn't come from men. Men adopted it because it's what God gave them.
Okay. And then we say, well, I don't believe in your God, so I'm going to adopt a new standard.
Right. In that area or any other area, I'm going to adopt the new standard.
I'm going to set the boundaries of this new standard, disrespecting all the people that came before me and disrespecting God.
So this is going on in the world today.
While it first sounds like it's just talking about land, realize something quite a bit more is happening there.
I'll come back in the points with some examples.
Fifteen, a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or sin which he has committed.
Okay. So in other words, if somebody has done something wrong, one person doesn't get to rise up against them.
In our society today, that is exactly how our court system is set up.
You need one plaintiff, one person to complain, one person to file a brief with the court, and now you have a lawsuit.
Just one. They don't have to have any witnesses.
They just say, well, this happened. I say it happened. I put the paperwork in.
I got a lawyer. We're filing. We're coming after you.
And then you wind up in court.
The reason one person was not allowed to come up against you is because it's too easy to drag somebody into court then.
All you got to do is a one person, and you can win somebody over to say whatever you want them to say.
So if you've got a $50 bill in your pocket, you could have so-and-so, some guy in Fledo, the mayor, whatever.
You could have somebody in court in a few weeks just by going to pay somebody $50 to levy charges against them.
Right now, the court might throw it out.
But the bottom line is this was saying one person was not allowed to be a witness against somebody else because of their iniquity or sin.
It says instead, continuing, on the evidence of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be confirmed.
So in other words, you've got to have at least two people willing to speak up about an atrocity in order for it to be confirmed.
So that's part 16.
If malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, malicious means hateful or vindictive or trying to cause that person a problem specifically.
And again, if it's two or three, it's a confirmed matter.
So this is talking about if one person rises up to complain against somebody else to accuse that person of wrongdoing, 17 says, then both men who have the dispute.
There's the one who had the wrongdoing supposedly alleged against him and the one who's doing the allegations.
Both of those men shall stand before the Lord before the priest, the judges who will be in office in those days.
So ultimately, who's going to make that decision?
This guy says, no, I didn't do it.
This guy says, yeah, he did it.
But there's only one guy, which he's not even supposed to be there.
But he is there.
And so he's got to stand up in front of the priest and then somebody else got to stand up.
The person that he's accusing stands up from the priest and they're going to determine hopefully under God's authority, says, though the priests who will be in office in those days.
And it says, and the judges shall investigate thoroughly.
So they're going to get down.
Basically, what they're going to do is look for if there are more witnesses.
Is there more evidence?
Is there a reason to believe this one person who won't back down, even though the word says they're not allowed to be here accusing, they won't back down.
So they must be serious.
We're going to look and see if there is any other evidence.
It says, and the judges shall investigate thoroughly. And if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he intended to do to his brother.
OK, so let's say you accuse a man.
He broke he broke my wagon.
He's got to pay me 50 coin or he killed my ox.
He's got to provide me a new ox or he killed my servant.
So he should die.
Or he put my eye out.
So his eyes should be put out.
So whatever the punishment would be for the crime, when the witness is determined to be false is what it's saying.
Then whatever he wanted to have happen to that person should happen to him instead.
You follow?
So in other words, if a man says, hey, this person murdered my brother and they go to the law and they say, I want you to convict him.
I press charge.
He murdered my brother and he's going to be killed because he's in Ohio.
For example, and it's a capital punishment at that time or he's going to be in jail for life.
And then he's found innocent.
The person who's the plaintiff, the complainer, the person who filed the brief.
What do they do?
They throw that person in jail for life or they kill that person.
Right.
So you've got to take very seriously malicious allegations.
So when you say against somebody and you're looking to cause some problem for them, realize that according to God's word, what they were told was that the problem should be applied to those who are making the allegations.
Rather than the innocent man who the allegations were against.
Thus, you shall purge the evil from among you.
We've seen that theme a few times in the last couple of chapters of Deuteronomy because our job is to live wholly before God.
People are going to be a lot less likely to make fake allegations if when you make a fake allegation and it's turned out to be a fake allegation, whatever punishment you were trying to visit upon that person that you made the fake allegation against is now visited upon you instead.
You're going to make no fake allegations and try to get somebody's eye put out.
If it doesn't work, your eye is going to get put out.
Or you're going to try to get somebody killed for a crime that they didn't commit if when it turns out they didn't commit the crime, you yourself are going to be put to death.
It's very serious.
By that means they would purge the evil from among them.
Verse 22, two verses left.
And the rest will hear.
That's the rest of the people.
Everyone will hear and be afraid.
And will never again do such an evil thing among you.
So in other words, after you put the eye out of the guy who made the false allegation, others are going to hear about that.
He's not going to do it anymore for sure.
And then others are going to hear about it.
And they're not going to do it either.
Verse 21, thus you shall not show pity life for life.
I for I tooth for tooth hand for foot.
I'm sorry.
Hand for hand foot for foot.
OK.
Notice that in Exodus it does say if a man puts another man's eye out, he should have his eye put out.
The punishments are like that.
He kills a man, he's put to death.
That's a different thing altogether.
But this is that same verse restated.
How is it being applied here?
It's being applied that if you're trying to put somebody's eye out by your false allegations, then you should have your eye put out once those allegations are told to be false.
And there's no pity.
OK.
Now, you can imagine figuratively and spiritually we don't put people's eye out.
We don't kill people for the crimes they commit.
Christians don't do that.
All right.
Now, we have we have a government and basing capital punishment based on Exodus, for example, is completely legitimate.
It is a biblical principle that if a man is a mass murderer or a murderer that he should be put to death for his crimes.
That's fine.
However, understand that we also are now under grace, not under law.
So you can line that up with law.
And I'm not trying to talk about capital punish.
But I know this is the elephant in the room.
I just want to say this real quick.
OK.
So even though you can say in Exodus that it's legitimate to put somebody to death for murdering somebody else, we also have to understand that we live under grace.
We live under forgiveness and mercy.
So the truth is, if you're going to put that man to death for killing somebody else, then you better be careful because you too have sin.
And the wages of that sin is death.
While you've never murdered anybody, the wages of that sin is death.
And you could well be put to death, as James 2 says, if you have sinned against God in one point, you have offended in all.
Right.
So, you know, you've never murdered anybody.
Your lies and your slander are fit for capital punishment based on that verse.
Right.
But that's really talking about spiritual death.
And we get out of that because Jesus then died for us.
So we are worthy of capital punishment.
We deserve it outside Christ.
But then Christ died substitutionary.
He died for us so that we don't have to die.
So does that apply to the man who committed murder?
It does.
If he becomes a Christian.
What if he's already a Christian?
You say, well, that could never happen.
You realize that if a man, a Christian man, if his daughter were raped and murdered by a criminal, he could very easily fall into temptation of evil spirits and go murder the man who raped and murdered his daughter.
I'm here to tell you right now that I could very easily fall into that temptation.
That's a capital crime.
And he could go to jail for murder because that's revenge.
He could go to jail for that and then be put to death for that.
Even though he's a Christian.
Now if that happens, he'll go immediately to heaven.
So then we live under grace, not under law.
Are we proponents of capital punishment?
If there's no capital punishment, there's no deterrent to mass murder.
So you decide where you stand on it.
You listen to the Lord, but I'm telling you that it does line up with Exodus.
However, it does not line up very well with grace.
All right.
So that's capital punishment in a nutshell.
However, we're talking about this today as moving the standards, changing the standards.
If you are not supposed to come out as one witness, and yet you do.
And then you come out as one witness and maliciously you malign the other person, say they committed a crime, looking to see them get hurt.
Right.
You're supposed to come out as one witness, but you did.
Now you did.
And it turns out that your allegations are false.
Even if you know in your heart they're true, but there's no evidence.
You can't prove it.
And it's determined you're false.
Now you get the punishment that that person.
Why?
Why such a stern punishment to eliminate the evil from the midst of the people?
OK.
So you will not do that.
And so that others will not do that.
Moving the boundary stone means cheating the neighbor.
We get that.
Coming out to make an allegation that's false against somebody in a way is cheating the neighbor.
We get that.
But also it's rewriting the rules.
All of this is about rewriting the rules and recasting authority.
Do you not understand?
I hope you do.
The person who's in charge, top.
Top dog.
In the entire universe.
Above me, above you, above governments, above kings.
Above rules, powers, and authorities.
Above demons, above Satan.
The person that's in charge in the entire universe is God.
And when you come out against God's wishes and become one person who alleges against somebody else.
Even though you're just one person.
Right?
And you come out and do that.
You're breaking the rules that God set.
And you're saying, well these rules, they don't apply to me because the situation is extreme.
Or because this is just who I am.
Or this is what the circumstances demand.
Or because what God says is not reasonable.
Okay?
So we're rewriting the rules and recasting authority.
And to some extent we're recasting authority into our own image.
The best I can figure, I've researched this for years.
I've thought about this.
I've read up on it.
I've studied.
I've read in the Bible.
I've prayed.
I've thought all about this.
And I've come to this conclusion.
And the conclusion is contrary to what God says, then the conclusion is wrong.
You cannot rewrite the rules or recast authority.
Not to cheat your neighbor.
Not to get ahead.
You can't.
Worse than the fact that it's rewriting the rules and recasting authority.
Is that it's actually applying the authority in question.
The authority of the ancients and God.
To the current situation.
You get this?
This is where the concept of stone swords come in.
God's authority is unchanging.
God himself is unchanging.
Yes, he's a merciful and kind God.
But he also has wrath.
Law.
And justice.
And all of that is our God.
And you can go, you can now say, well God is a gracious God.
And that's a different God.
And so we've got to act differently.
And he's got different rules now.
And everything like that.
You can do that if you want.
So you can become an open and affirming church.
And that allows people to do whatever they want.
I went to a conference in our association some years ago.
About five, seven years ago.
And there was a pastor who came in there.
And he was talking about how their church grew.
And he said, our church was really struggling.
We only had 15, 20 people.
And we've been there.
And then he said, we did one thing.
We made one rule.
And I would encourage you to make that rule in your church.
If you'll make that rule in your church, I will guarantee you will grow.
And he said, and then he went on to argue that it was because of the grace of Jesus Christ.
Because Jesus is Lord.
And because Jesus' salvation is paid for.
And everybody's saved now.
And blah, blah, blah.
Kind of almost into universal theology, basically.
That everyone is saved even if they haven't believed in Jesus.
And that's not true.
The Bible says you must believe and receive.
But anyway, you got to.
And then at the end, this is what he said.
This is the rule.
I'm going to give it to you now.
He talked for 40 minutes.
He said, OK, here it goes.
I'm going to give it to you now.
Just make this one rule in your church and everything will be fine.
The rule is, nobody is allowed to disagree.
That was the rule.
You can't disagree.
If two people meet in the hallway, one person believes one thing out of the Bible, another
person believes another thing out of the Bible, they are not allowed to have that discussion.
You cannot be in the church and disagree.
The church is unified, all moving in one direction.
And this is the direction.
We do not disagree.
That's the rule they made.
And the church went from 15, 20 people to 200 people over a period of time.
Now, he said, now recently, I will tell you that what we've had to do is we've had to
employ security, not security to protect us from the world or criminal behavior.
But what we have is we have hall monitors.
We have people who walk around the church, and they have about 12 of them.
And they walk around the church, and what they do is they make sure, wait for it, you
know what I'm going to say, don't you?
They make sure that no one is disagreeing.
Of the 220 people they have coming on Sunday, they walk around in their suits like ushers
and their ties, and a badge that says, I imagine it probably says, I'm the disagreement police
or something on it.
And they walk around.
And if anybody is disagreeing, say, ah, we don't do that here.
Either stop disagreeing now or leave.
You're not allowed here.
Because there is no standard to which they can appeal.
They've made their own set of rules.
And the rule is this.
Only God can make the rules.
Therefore, we're going to have no rules, no structure, no discipline, nothing out of the
law or order that we can try to hash it out and figure it out.
You've already figured out this is not our church, right, that we're talking about.
We do disagree.
And I submit to you, we should disagree.
In fact, if you look in the book of Acts, while they were unified and had all things
in common, they were busy doing just one thing, pretty much, if you boil it down to one thing,
you know what it was?
Disputing.
Do you know what disputing is?
You know the actual definite doesn't mean disagreement.
People think it does, but it doesn't.
It's misused.
For the same reason what we're talking about today.
Disputing means answering.
Go ahead.
Kind of.
You're getting started.
Okay.
What it really means is asking and answering questions.
So, if we had half the room over here who thinks that Jesus Christ, you know, something
about Jesus, maybe he was 100% man, 100% God, while it's called the hypostatic union.
And the other half of the room thinks that, well, he was 100% man, but he wasn't 100%
God because God can't be flesh and can't need to eat and can't do that, right?
And so we're disputing.
So these guys over here ask these guys over here questions about their idea.
And these guys over here ask these guys over here questions about their idea.
And we go back and forth and back and forth until what?
Until we reach unity and figure out the answer to the question.
What if that takes years?
Yes.
You just figured out what the church is.
We are growing forward, reaching new heights in Christ, as we disagree and help the other person.
And the fact is, I'm going to tell you, the truth is 80% of your theology right now as
you're sitting in your chair, 80% of it is probably slightly off.
100% of my theology could be slightly off.
That's why we preach out of the word and we don't make stuff up as we go.
Because I can tell you a lot of things I want you to hear.
I can coerce you into doing a lot of things I want you to do or try.
Most of you are like, oh, of course, I'm leaving, right?
And when you say it, what did you just do?
You just coerced me to not try to get you to do what it is that I want you to do.
Because we're all human beings and we're all created in the image of God.
And we both create and destroy.
But our creating and our destroying, our living, our choices, etc.
are supposed to be governed by a set of standards that you can actually look at,
that you can actually appeal to, that you can actually decide on.
And that is the Word of God.
That is what God has told us.
So moving the boundaries and saying, well, I know we said we were always going to be honest.
And we're honest and truthful people.
And that's part of our core values, right?
Honesty and truthfulness is one of the core values of our church.
So we're always going to be honest.
But now, you know, I'm tired today.
I'm not feeling very good.
You said this.
Honestly, I don't agree with you.
I think we should try to figure this out because I think you're wrong.
But you know what?
I'm tired today.
It's fine.
I'm just going to let it slide today.
No.
I'm sorry.
Sometimes it's tiring to be a follower of Jesus.
Sometimes it hurts.
People have been martyred for this.
Nailed to crosses.
Sometimes upside down.
Whipped within an inch of their life and burned alive.
And you're tired?
I'm sorry.
I got nothing for you.
Jesus will carry your burden when you realize that your burden is to measure your life and make your choices by the standards of God.
Not by my standards.
I'm going to bring it to you the best I know how.
But don't use my standards because I guarantee you they're flawed.
The only standard that's not is the standard of the Word of God and God's Word.
And you cannot move the boundaries.
You cannot change it.
Not just because it defrauds your neighbor.
That's what happens when you play at being a Christian.
You pretend to be Christian, but you're not really loving the people that are around you.
You're not living for Jesus.
Not self-sacrificing, taking up your cross daily, denying yourself and following after Him.
That's what happens.
You're defrauding the people around you by moving the barriers.
Yes, I love Jesus.
I love Jesus so much.
I get out of bed every day loving Jesus.
And you say things like, I'll pray for you.
But you never do.
You say, I'll be there for you.
I'll be there whatever you need.
Do you need anything?
Just tell me.
And they say, no, I don't need anything.
Tell me again.
I don't need anything.
And then you're not there.
And you're like, I have my excuse.
They said they didn't need anything.
Have you ever known anybody that didn't need anything?
Really?
You're not showing up because you don't want to show up.
Not because they don't need anything.
And if that's where you're at, if that's who you are, not showing up, then you've moved the boundary marker.
You think you can love Jesus and live for Jesus and follow Jesus without showing up,
without potentially being martyred, without carrying the cross, without denying yourself.
Let me put it this plainly, if I can, in my flesh for just one second.
That's a load of crap.
That is not what Jesus set up as the church.
The boundaries are set.
There is work set aside for us to do.
And yes, we will reap if we do not grow weary.
The reason it's such a problem is that when you're doing that,
you actually use the authority of the ancients and God Himself to further your current scam.
So you look at the Bible and you say, for example, I'm under grace now,
so I hear you that I'm supposed to do whatever, but I don't want to.
And I'm saved.
So I'll be forgiven.
I sat down with a woman who had betrayed our family in one of the most horrible ways possible, short of murder.
And I said to her, God would not like this.
And she said, I was going to do what I have to do to get what I want.
And God's going to forgive me anyway.
I know I'm saved.
And I pray every night, God's going to forgive me anyway.
And so I did it.
And my heart was just ready to burst in my chest because this was a woman I loved.
And she had betrayed me and my wife in such a terrible way.
And I was like, Lord, give me the words.
And I said, well, I'll tell you what's going to happen.
In two months, I totally disagree with what you just said.
Not that God's not going to forgive you.
I believe he is.
But just because he's going to forgive you does not make it OK for you to do what you've done.
And in two months, we'll know between you or I which one of us is right.
I submit to you that you will experience the wrath of God for what you have done to us within two months.
And if I am wrong, then I will experience wrath of God.
If I'm holding you accountable in a wrong way or if I'm doing this in a way, I will experience it.
Within two months, she was diagnosed with cancer that would have killed her.
Except that my wife intervened and spent resources and time and blood and sweat and tears to take care of her.
And she survived.
And then she became a follower of the Lord and she lived for the Lord, volunteering at the life station even when she was practically on her deathbed.
What I'm getting at is you can say it's OK.
I'm forgiven.
And therefore, I'll do what I feel like I want to do.
You can move that boundary marker and even apply the authority of God to authorize you doing what you want to do.
But you better realize God says no moving the boundaries and God has the power to enforce it.
He does not support your current scam.
He's not going to stand up for you in the face of your enemies while you will not stand up for him in your life.
He'll let you.
What do you think he did to the Israelites over and over and over again?
He used foreign powers and allowed them to come in to take them over and then they would repent and turn back to God and it would get good for a while.
The judge would rise up and they beat off the enemies and they were fine.
And then they would start to drift into sin again, moving the boundary markers of sin, even applying the same.
God allows this whatever and it would start to get worse and worse.
And then God would allow foreign powers to come in and take them over again.
And then the next time they would get it worse and worse.
But you know what?
Each time they fell into sin, they fell deeper and further into sin, even though God had corrected them, they fell deeper and further into sin until finally they were in such bondage.
And they needed a power and an authority to stop the cycle that they called the king for themselves like the other nations, which God knew would happen.
They kept applying God's rules in their favor, drifting into sin, and God kept chastising them and allowing them to face wrath.
And I submit to you, that is the way it will go. If you move the boundary markers, if you cheat your neighbor, if you apply the authority of the ancients and the authority of God to your current scam, you will pay.
The second thing in this text was all about testifying and false testimony.
The dangers of false testimony are very real.
Wickedness tends to spread.
I remember being in my late 20s and being threatened to be sued for something that I really didn't do anything wrong.
And I actually feared that they would sue me, that I would wind up in court and I didn't know how to get a lawyer and I didn't know how to handle all the process and everything.
And the reason I felt that way was because somebody had told me that basically all you got to do is get a lawyer and you can sue anybody for anything and then haul them into court and it'll take time and money and whatever.
And it's not entirely untrue, but a lot of times the court will throw certain things out before it ever gets that far.
But the bottom line is, if somebody goes to the court tomorrow with a lawyer and sues you that you don't even know and they say you did something, you could wind up in court next week or next month when the court date is scheduled.
And you didn't do anything. And that's the world that we live in because justice has been perverted and the boundary stones have been moved.
Wickedness tends to spread. And so then I was thinking, well, how do I get out of this situation? What do I have to do?
And I'm trying to manipulate the situation, even trying to move the boundary stones so that I can make my situation better to not wind up in court.
When I was at Pizza Hut years ago, there was somebody called me on the phone. It was a lawyer.
And they said, well, I just want you to know you're going to be getting a letter in the mail. We filed a lawsuit against one of your drivers.
And so the driver, what allegedly had happened, he'd been driving and he had a car accident and he'd fled the scene.
And the man who was in the other car had been damaged, especially in his privates, and he could no longer properly have intimacy.
And so they were suing Pizza Hut and named this specific driver for 12 million dollars.
And I said, well, first of all, none of my drivers ever report anything like that to me.
I don't think it happened. And plus it looks a little scurrilous, right?
You got to have an accident and the whole lawsuit is about him not being able to have intimacy, which is like the big that's the big ace in court.
You can get a lot of money if you can't do that short of dying. Right. And I said, so I don't believe it.
The letter came. It looked very official released from an attorney. It was very official and everything like that.
I still didn't believe it. And I didn't do anything about it except I called my area manager and I said, we got this letter.
I said, I'm not going to do anything about it. And in fact, I looked on the date in question and the driver that they say, which was the driver that worked for me, was not working that day.
And so as far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to do anything about it. It goes to court. I'm not going to do anything.
And he said, yep, that's right. And he said, I'll tell you what else has happened.
Eighteen Pizza Hut's all across Toledo received the same letter from the same attorney from the same guy who was hit allegedly in their delivery area by one of their drivers name.
Basically, all they did was they went through the phone book or went through pizza registries or however they figured it out.
And they got a name of the driver that worked at every one of those pizza and they sued a driver and sent a letter.
And basically what they were trying to do is get somebody to make a mistake.
Ultimately, it all got thrown out and nothing happened.
But my boss told me that a number like seven managers had actually entered into negotiations on their own on their own authority with that lawyer promising a variety of things to get it to not go to court because they were afraid.
Now, what they should have done was gone to their boss and talk to their boss like I did.
But what they decided to do was take matters in their own hands and manipulate situation and try to solve it.
Wickedness spreads when your neighbor moves the boundary stone and you go out there and you go, look, I think the boundary stone used to be over there.
Twenty yards now it's over here.
I mean, this looks solid. It doesn't look like there was a stone here, but I'm pretty sure this is not where it was at.
Just like the rules of the Monopoly games.
I think it was an optional rule to play it that way, but I'm pretty sure I'm not sure.
Instead of checking the book, we're going to argue about it for a while or you might just go take the stone and move it back to where you think it was at.
But I submit to you, what is the likelihood if you move it back to where you think it was at?
What is the likelihood that you will get it in the exact right place?
If there's not a mark or something there to put it, how would you get it back to right where it belongs?
And that's the problem.
This game, this testifying false testimony, teaching about the Bible, don't you understand that we have done it when I was at East Lido back in the day in the youth group.
I taught a lesson out of a material that was provided by the church. I taught the lesson.
And it taught, that lesson taught that you had to be baptized to be saved in the lesson, that you had to be baptized to be saved.
And then over the week I got to thinking about it and I did some research and I talked to my pastor and I got out the Baptist Faith and Message little passage about that.
And I realized you don't have to be baptized to be saved.
Now if you're saved, you should be baptized, but you don't have to be baptized to be saved.
And I realized I was wrong. And so I went back and I don't know if Michael might even remember this because he was back there back that time.
I don't know if he was in there at that time or not, but I had to say, look, I taught this last week and it's not true.
Can you mess it up? Can you put the boundary stones where they don't belong?
You sure can, which is why you need to go back to the word and teach it the way it's written.
And let me tell you what it says, not what I think about what it says, but what it says.
And you spend the time and break it down.
I shared this with my son Arden is going through an ethics class and they were talking about the Old Testament scriptures where it says you can't have two types of cloth in the same garment.
You can't have tattoos. You can't wear jewelry. Right. All these different things that they have these rules.
And he's like, well, hot. And since those things don't apply now. Right.
Which they kind of don't apply now. Then what about these other rules?
And his ethics professor was saying that all the rules of the Old Testament were now defunct because there were rules that didn't apply now like they did then.
And if some of them don't apply, then all of them don't apply. Arden says, what's my return argument?
How do I say, well, yeah, we can have two types of cloth in the same garment now and people can have tattoos and people can wear jewelry.
But they still shouldn't lie, murder, steal. Ten Commandments still apply and a variety of other commandments like not moving the boundary marker, for example.
These things still apply. How do I argue that? I feel like I'm in a difficult position. And so we talked it out.
What I explained to him was when you go to the New Testament, the Old Testament to look at scripture, you have to come with a lot with a God filter.
We now know about Jesus, his death, burial and resurrection. Right. We now know.
And God expects us to come to him in person, have a relationship with him. Follow.
And so when you look at that scripture, what does it mean that they couldn't wear two types of cloth in the same garment, have tattoos or have jewelry?
It means they needed to be different from the people around them because all of those things that were being done by the people around them were part of false worship.
They're part of being involved with demons and like that. But nowadays it's not like that. There are Christians who have tattoos.
By the way, the born again thing rules it out. What if you have tattoos and they get born? You can't get born again if you have tattoos or you have to have them all removed.
That's ludicrous. So it doesn't matter anymore, does it?
The reason it doesn't matter is because people are born again who have tattoos and then they still have tattoos after they're born again.
So you can't look different from the world saying I'm never going to have a tattoo. You can't do that. Right.
So that law doesn't apply to us the same way. But what does still apply to us is that we have to stand out and be different.
And you can know how to stand out. You should be doing good. You should be testifying about Jesus. You should be living his word.
That's what makes us different. You see.
The dangers of false testimony is wickedness spreads, bringing the authority of God to bear.
Once revealed, the false witness was supposed to get the punishment expected for the accused. Do you hear this?
If you take God's word and you twist it and use it for your own purposes, what is the result?
You get the punishment that would have applied to the person that you're now not able to win to Jesus because you're bringing a false teaching out of the word.
You're following? Hell.
You're talking about hell.
Talking about separation from God.
You cannot willingly misapply the word of God, move the boundary stone, false testify about the word.
You cannot willingly misapply the word of God and go to heaven.
Like whoa. So you're saying that's an unforgivable sin.
I'm saying if you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and have a personal relationship with him and you misquote scripture and it doesn't bother you, that's a contradiction.
It should bother you.
And if you did it a year ago and you're over it now, then I would assume in the middle somewhere there you repented and you changed and you got back to what was right.
And if it doesn't bother you that you did it, I'm still bothered by the fact that I taught baptism 30 years ago.
That I taught baptism was required for salvation.
It still bothers me that I would allow that to happen, that I was a Bible study teacher and as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and walking with him as much as I knew how every day, that I would teach that, that still bothers me.
Now I'm not guilty. I don't feel guilty about it.
But it's registered as something I need to be aware of.
I do not stand before you and teach the word of God lightly.
I understand I can and will make mistakes.
I submit to you. I want to get it right.
Which is why I call on you that if I get it wrong, that you will help me get it right.
Once revealed, the false witness receives the punishment expected for the accursed.
So you go and say to somebody, well you, you Christian, you can't have tattoos. You're a Christian. You can't smoke cigarettes. You're a Christian. You can't be overweight.
You're a Christian. You told a lie. You can't possibly be a Christian if you told a lie.
Right? If you start doing that kind of stuff and misusing the word of God, those are all misuses of the word of God.
And I can give you some more, but we don't really need to get into it because I think you understand.
If you do that, you are guilty.
You're guilty of trying to bring God's power to bear by your authority, your way, what you reason and think is correct rather than his.
And that brings us to our conclusion, which will take a minute.
Can you imagine someone trying to use God or God's rules to get ahead?
Has that ever been done?
Wouldn't you fear God and go, oh my goodness? Well, yes, it has been done all over the world.
Do you understand that the teachings of the Koran, I don't know what percentage of it is, but I guarantee it's more than 25 percent come from the Bible.
Yeah. And they've twisted it and they've got it all wrong.
And Jesus is just another teacher like Mohammed, Yeshua, one of the greatest ever.
They've got it all wrong. They don't understand that he was God in the flesh and died on the cross for our sins because they've twisted it.
Would someone twist God's teaching to their own benefit? Yep, absolutely. It does happen.
In fact, the word says it will happen all the more. Paul wrote in Second Timothy to Timothy that the time is coming.
World would be quite common. Romans 16, beginning of verse 17, people use God's word to create obstacles contrary to the doctrine.
Second Peter 3 16. This one we'll go and look at.
If you're following along in your Bible, we're going to do some flipping, going to get quick. Good practice.
Second Peter 3 16 says, I'll go back to 14. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace.
Apostles and blameless and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation, just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you.
As also in all his letters, speaking of them, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand.
So in the word, some things are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort as they do also the rest of scriptures.
And boy, if it stopped right there, it sounds really bad. You see what they do? The unstable, the untaught, they distort Paul's teachings and the rest of the scriptures.
But it doesn't stop there. It actually ends with to their own destruction.
The mathematical equation is this. If you misuse God's word and God's authority and what we understand it to be going all the way back to the beginning, you will pay.
First Timothy four, which I quoted a little bit of a moment ago.
First Timothy, Chapter four, beginning in verse one, says this, But the spirit express explicitly says that in later times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits.
And that's bad enough. And doctrines of demons, doctrines of demons, not clearly not what God says, but doctrines of demons.
Verse two says, By means of the hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience, as with with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.
Basically already so early in the life of the church, there were people were teaching you can do this, you can't do that. You can do this this way. You've got to do this this way.
And it wasn't based on what God said. It was already happening then. And it's it's only grown since now you realize that is the direction right of our society.
Our society is literally teaching that don't bother to get married thing right now.
My wife and I just had this conversation very early on before I really got to anything depth deep in this scripture.
And we're talking about how it used to be in the 80s, 90s and read it right up around 2000.
There were lots of shows where there was this tension between the male star and the female star.
And you could just tell they were kind of in love, but they were putting off their feelings for each other for whatever reason.
It was like that for decades. Right. It was really great fiction. You could they would always find a reason not to become romantically involved, even though they clearly had deep feelings for each other.
But now watch what you see now. Everything that's on TV in the last 20 years is there.
They're in it, man. They're at it. They're under the sheets behind closed doors.
They're doing whatever they want to do, but they're on the job covering it up, pretending they don't have a relationship or it eventually comes out and they have to make agreements.
They have to do things because they have a relationship and then there's the tension. So now they're in a shootout.
He's like, oh, whoa, is my sexual partner just been shot? Oh, horrid. Right. That's what we've got on TV now.
But 30 years ago it was was that person that I madly in love with and would like to marry and spend the rest of my life with.
Have they been shot? Oh, no, that ruins my dream of eventually being with them. It's a totally different thing.
The world is teaching now that you frankly don't need to get married. You don't need to be dedicated to one person. You don't need to have a oneness.
Why? Because marriage was given to represent the relationship between Christ and his church.
And if you take out the relationship between Christ and his church, you will have moved the boundary marker so far back there won't be anybody getting saved and becoming the church.
Because we don't understand anymore that Jesus literally died for his bride.
It's also why men have such a hard time being husbands and why women have such a hard time being wives.
Because the rules and the standards that God set have been warped to our thinking, to our reasoning, to our logic, to our comfort.
It's hard to be a husband. It's hard to be a father. It's hard to be a mother.
And if it ain't hard for you, if you're doing it, it isn't hard for you. You ain't doing it right.
And that's what God says. In fact, Jesus was talking about marriage, explaining it to the disciples and the disciples said, well, if this is the way it is, then no one should ever get married. Right.
And Jesus says, I understand that, that it sounds hard.
I'm paraphrasing. I understand it sounds hard, but you need to understand that this marriage is given as an image of what God is doing between his Savior and his church.
Galatians 1, 6 to 9 says that there would be those who would come and want to distort the gospel.
Second Peter, chapter two will go to real quick as we're winding up. Second Peter, chapter two.
False prophets in verse one fall, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce.
I love this that you can secretly introduce a destructive heresy is amazing to me, but that's the nature of twisting God's word. That's the nature of moving the boundary marker.
That's the nature of cheating your neighbor to your own benefit and using God's power and the power of the ancients to do what it is that you want to do.
You can secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
It says, and many will follow their sensuality. That means they'll go after what they want, what they feel like they want.
And because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned. Talked about badly. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.
Their judgment from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. See, God has not taken this lightly.
The standard of your life, my life, the activity of the church, the preaching, the teaching, the gospel delivery that you do must be God's word.
And by no other means. In fact, if you'll look at Revelation 22 at the very end of the Bible, when you've got to get to that little closing passage, Revelation chapter 22.
I'll get there in a second. I cut my thumb and it's making it hard for me to flip pages. Okay, that's funny.
All right. Revelation 22, beginning 18, it says, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book.
If anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book.
In other words, if you alter the teachings of God's word, adding to them for your own benefit, moving the boundary marker, using God's authority, the authority of the ancients to affect what happens in your life today.
If anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, so you back down from it.
You say, well, that doesn't really mean what it seems like it means. I don't really have to do that, even though it seems like it's a command.
Like I don't have to sing and worship. I don't have to memorize scripture. I don't have to read my Bible all the time. I don't have to do take in the word of God, etc.
It says that if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book.
God's standards are immutable. They do not change. Yet, God knows that people will do it.
In Luke 17, Jesus is speaking and He says, there will be much stumbling. A lot of failure. A lot of mistakes. A lot of bad things will happen.
Then He goes on to say, woe to the one who causes the stumbling. Woe to the one who causes the failing.
Matthew 7 verses 12 to 23. I apologize. Matthew 7.
We're flipping, going back to the very beginning of the New Testament. Matthew 7.
Again, Jesus speaking and this is during the Sermon on the Mount. It's later in the text, but it's during the Sermon on the Mount.
He says, beginning in verse 12, a verse that you will find maybe a little bit familiar, therefore, however you want people to treat you, so treat them.
For this is the law and the prophets. Notice it isn't how they treat you, treat them, but how you would want them to treat you. That's how you treat them.
That's the golden rule. So treat them for this is the law and the prophets. Enter by the narrow gate. In other words, let's narrow this down.
Let's get specific. For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction.
I submit to you that that gate is wide because people have moved the boundary stones.
That road that leads to destruction is wide because people have moved the boundary stones. They have widened the road.
And many are those who enter by it, the way that leads to destruction.
For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. And few are those who find it.
Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
And I submit to you here, Jesus is saying they will tell you what you want to hear or they will tell you what they think you need to hear.
But neither one of those things is what you actually need to hear. What you need to hear is the word of God.
Verse 16 says, you will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
Even so every good tree bears fruit but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then you will know them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven.
Now listen, it does not say, he who testifies about the will of my father who is in heaven.
It does not say, he who almost does, or who does it part time sometimes, it says he who basically goes on doing the will of my father who is in heaven.
And how will you know that? You will know the will of my father who is in heaven by his word.
That's how you will know it. And if you alter it and add to it, you will pay the eternal price.
And if you alter it and subtract from it, you will pay the eternal price.
I guess we'd better all become scholars of this teaching that God has given us.
Perhaps we should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.
I think a famous man once said that. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did not we prophecy in your name?
That's a great gift. And in your name cast out demons? And in your name perform many miracles? All those are great gifts.
Jesus says, and then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice, wait for it, lawlessness.
Those of you who do not follow God's teaching. You must, must, must learn the ways of the Lord.
You must follow, beginning with believing in Jesus, and then allow God to teach you.
Allow God to raise you up and show you what it is that He would have you to do.
And that what it is that He would have you to do will never be contrary to Scripture.
It will never be on the edge so that if you just twist Scripture a little bit, it'll fit in.
Your actions must not be governed by what I say or what anyone says, but by what the God of the universe says.
Having been saved, we now can live as if we are saved.
Second Peter chapter two, verses 20 and 21 says, and this is the very end of the verses for the day.
But know this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation.
In other words, it's not about what you think it says. It's not about the way you present it or the way you figure it out or you reason it out.
No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation.
For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will. But men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
God said, men recorded, moved by the Holy Spirit, the Word of God.
This is our governance. This is our set of rules. And if you want to say so, the law. But it's so much more than that.
It marks out the road and the way and the path and the gate.
It clearly shows us that the way to heaven is through Jesus.
God said there was a man and a woman.
God placed them in a garden. It was a beautiful, beautiful place.
It was everything that they could ever need. And they were tending it.
And a wise and crafty animal, which God had also created, came and said to them,
Has God really said that you cannot eat of any of the trees in the garden?
Oh man, how horrible that makes God out to be.
And the woman defended God, the man said nothing, stood by said nothing.
The woman defended God, she said, no, no, no.
God lets us eat of any tree in the garden.
But those two trees, listen real close here, those two trees at the center of the garden,
God said those trees we can't even touch.
See what she did there?
She moved the boundary.
Because God didn't say they couldn't touch them, in fact they were supposed to tend them
like all the trees.
They were supposed to tend to all the trees in the Garden of Eden.
Their names were Adam and Eve, and we were present in them.
And so from them we have had a tendency to move the boundaries of Scripture to our own
liking.
Even you stand up and you'll say, God's a holy God and He's going to punish you because
you hurt me.
Maybe even when you're wrong.
You may want to say about somebody who's living in sin that they're going to hell, but God
may know differently.
That's why it says judge not lest you be judged.
She's talking about judging salvation.
You may want to curse the name of somebody who's hurt you very severely, feeling like
you're just to do so because they've hurt you very severely.
And then in ten years from now they may get saved and go to heaven and you may go there
and have to stand next to them with your hardened heart and worship at the tree.
I submit to you, if you use Scripture that way, you won't be there.
The God of the universe has laid out a pattern.
The God of the universe has marked out His territory.
It is the human soul.
We are to submit to Him in totality, understanding the best we can and living His word, knowing
we will make mistakes.
But oh, woe to Him through whom the mistakes come.
So you be careful and don't misapply the word of God and don't use the word of God and Jesus'
sacrifice as an excuse for your bad behavior because in that way you probably will not
arrive where you want to be.
Don't move the boundary markers.
Don't cheat your neighbor.
Submit yourself to God through His son Jesus Christ and live accordingly for the rest of
your life.
And what God has in store is simply amazing.
When we try to misuse His authority, His authority simply will turn on us and destroy us.
That's what His word says.
But if instead you will wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, justly
and graciously, you will find yourself able to stand in the day of evil.
And when all is done, just stand.
But if you will continue, as some of you may be doing, as I have done in the past, to dismiss
His word, do not think it's all that special, all that important.
It's not necessary to memorize, study, read, intake, listen, whatever.
If you would do that, you will surely make the mistake eventually of moving the boundary
stone, a false testimony, and in so doing, pay the ultimate price.
On the other hand, if you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, God has given
you His Holy Spirit and I know in you, you will find a passion to know His word and to
live it out.
I know this because from the moment the Holy Spirit entered into me, I have had that passion.
And at times, I have failed.
And so I ask you today, have you failed?
Have you stretched the boundary stone?
Have you given a false testimony about what God's word says?
Maybe not even intentionally, but because you didn't know?
It's your responsibility to know.
You've been purchased for an eternity.
If you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you're now a mouthpiece for God
in whatever situation you happen to be in.
It's your responsibility to know.
You take responsibility.
We repent of your having misused God's word or of your lack of passion about God's word.
Turn to the Lord and say, Lord, fill me with your word again today and going forward.
I will.
Will you?
I ask the praise team to come forward at this time and we'll sing our closing hymn.
This is your opportunity to make whatever decision the Lord is laying on your heart
today.
He says, if you will deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father in heaven.
It's clear in his word that we are not to deny him before men.
So you speak up.
If the Lord is working your heart today, you can walk forward and say, I've got a word
to share.
It might be about joining this church or finding a church home somewhere else.
It might be about getting baptized.
It might be about starting a ministry.
It might be about repenting of a specific sin.
You can come forward and say, I've been doing this and I need to stop today.
I'm taking a stand today to stop.
And I'm going to live instead this way for the Lord Jesus.
It could be about whatever God's putting on your heart.
Could be a topic of prayer you just need to pray about and want to make it public so we
can all pray about it together today and going forward.
Whatever it might be.
But if God's moving you, don't you say no.
You're on His side of the boundary marker.
Just stand with me and sing this song and respond if God is leading you to do so.
Jesus, I surrender all to Him I freely give.
I will ever love and trust Him in His presence daily live.
Jesus, I surrender all to Jesus I surrender with me, Savior, holy Thine.
Let me feel Thy Holy Spirit truly flow then thro'wards mine.
I surrender all I surrender all to Thee my Lord, Savior, I surrender all.
I surrender all I surrender all to Thee my Lord, Savior, I surrender all I surrender
all to Thee my Lord, Savior, I surrender all I surrender all I surrender all I surrender
for my rents paid, I'm going to grift, I'm going to do whatever.
I basically had to walk around asking people for money for gas or whatever.
He was asking whatever his excuse was at the moment, and people would give him 50 cents,
a dollar, a couple bucks, and he'd add that up, and that was his rent.
He was like, I'm going to do it.
And I said, my suggestion to you would be to get gainful employment.
You'll make a lot more money, or a lot less hassle, a lot less danger, and you'll honor God.
And he said, no, I'm going to do what I got to do to survive.
You just don't understand.
And I think a lot of times, it's not that people are trying to do what's bad.
They just think they're doing what they got to do to understand.
They got to survive, and they got close to the edge, and then what they got to do
to survive becomes a little bit more, and they push that boundary marker back,
and they say, that's okay, because this is what I got to do to survive.
They push it back a little bit, and then they make back off of that,
and live normally for a while again, and then they find themselves out next
to that boundary marker, where they're completely in the other person's territory,
completely on the other side, because they moved it back 10 feet last time,
and now they're perfectly comfortable going up to the boundary marker,
because they moved it last time, and it settled in.
But then they find they have to move it, and they say, well, I moved it before.
I can move it again.
So they move it 10 more feet, and then they're at the edge,
and they're not crossing the line, because they moved the line.
And then they go back, and they live their life normally for a while,
and then later they come up to the edge again.
Now they're 20 feet outside what's acceptable.
It's further and further out, and that seems to be what's happening in the world.
People are moving that boundary marker, the lines that God has laid out for us.
What's good for us?
Further and further back.
And ultimately they retreat back from that line after they've moved it four or five times,
and they come back, and they live normally.
But guess what?
They moved that line 40 feet out.
They retreated back 35 feet.
They're living normally.
As far as they're concerned, they're thinking.
They're living inside the boundary marker.
Everything is fine, because they're so far from where the line is,
but they've moved the line so far back that they're literally outside
where the original boundary marker was, and they just live.
That's what the Bible calls wickedness.
They're thinking it's okay every day to do whatever I think I need to do, whatever I want to do,
whatever my reason tells me, whatever so-and-so thinks I should do.
God is the same.
The boundary is real.
You move the marker all you want.
It's still there.
There are no painted lines.
So if you move the stone and think the line is over here now, you didn't move the line.
You just moved the stone, because God's the one who set the line.
The ancients, the people that lived a long time before us, they're the ones who set the line.
People who were inspired by God and wrote His word, the lines were set.
You can't change them, and I can't change them.
I don't want to change them, and if I ever do change them,
I hope I figure it out right away and fix it.
I would encourage you to do that.
If we ever move the line and do what we shouldn't do, we'll realize it fast and get it back to where it belongs.
Because once you've moved it, man, generations down the road, which is where we're living,
generations down the road, people are doing all kinds of things, you're looking at people going,
how can they do that?
That doesn't even make any sense.
Well, that's how.
Because they're living in that part of the boundary line, that part of the territory where the boundary line has been moved back,
and they live in a place where you can go, that's a step.
That just doesn't make any sense.
They're hurting themselves, they're hurting their family, they're hurting others.
It just doesn't make any sense.
It's because they moved the boundary line back so much, and it makes perfect sense to them because they're inside what they perceive to be the boundary.
And you still think the boundary is somewhere else, and you might both be wrong.
But God's never wrong.
I encourage you today, even though you're not making your decision publicly, to repent and say,
No, Lord, I want to be with you. I want to walk with you daily.
I want to live my life on the highway following us.
That's Isaiah's words, not mine.
On the road that Jesus marked out for us, on Jesus even, because He is the way.
I want to go through the narrow gate, not be turned away.
Imagine you widen the road, travel it for 20 years, get there, and it faces a wall.
You're like, but there should be a gate here. I can't get in.
But it's because you moved the road off the gate.
No. Let the road go to the gate. Let us be on the road. Let us look for a turn to be with God.
We're going to close in prayer at this time.
We are going to come back in this room in just a few moments for a brief meeting.
Still nothing on the agenda as far as I know, other than just a couple of snippets, announcements that you need, that kind of thing.
And then there could be a membership motion that somebody has to make if there's somebody in the room that needs to do that.
Molly, would you pray for us? And we'll close this out.
Dear Lord, we thank you for this day, for this ability to come here and to seek your word and to learn and to grow.
We ask that you watch over us as we go from here, guide us as we go about our daily lives, and that we would do that in the way that you would see fit.
I ask that you bless this time and these people, especially those that are hurting, that are on the prayer list, that have health concerns or job concerns or whatever that may be.
We ask that you heal us and guide us as we go from here. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Thank you so much.