Mr. John Elliot

Sermon Transcript

March 15, 2002

Society and You

And as was mentioned in the announcements, the letter from Mr. Holladay targeting our young people in the church. You young people are a very important part of God’s family. And I want to talk especially to you young people today, but young people of all ages because we all comprise God’s family and what lessons apply to one group of the family generally apply to all of us. But you youth are a very precious part of the church. At the same time, you find yourself at an impressionable time of life. A time when you are looking forward to your future, you are being told many different things from people that are older than you, many different things from society that’s surround you.

Some of you are in school. Some of you are already into your careers or into higher education. You are contemplating your options. Maybe you’re thinking about a family of your own someday, sizing up your life. And as you do this you’re also sizing up society around you and seeing what it has to offer because it is marketing itself to you as being pretty grand, pretty exciting, and many have found that perhaps a more appealing way of life is out in society, and we don’t have too many young people in the church in contrast to those who perhaps are out somewhere else today on God’s Sabbath doing something else than what God has asked us to do. And so you’re sizing up where you’re going to be, what you’re going to be, what your values are. You’re sizing up the church as well and your place within all of these.

You and I are part of the family of God. We all are enhanced, influenced if we want to be by God’s spirit, even if you’re not baptized, even if you’re a little kid or a great big kid. If you’re not baptized, still God’s spirit is available to work with your mind if you want to have a relationship with God you’re sanctified; God will listen to you; God will be involved in your life. You are part of the family of God. You are also part of the human family. We have two families that we belong to—the family of God, the human family.

These two families can be quite different. So let me first of all say, that I once again commend everyone as God does all of us for being here, for honoring God, for choosing to embrace his family, his side of the family. Today, I want to tell you a few things you won’t hear at school. You’re not going to hear these in the work place. Tonight when you flip on the TV they won’t be there. They won’t be there tomorrow morning if you watch some of the religious things that are on TV as well.

I want to begin with a fundamental directive from God himself, a personal directive from God. It’s found in Deuteronomy 5:33. Now the ten commandments are given on Mt. Sinai in the 5^th chapter, the beginning. We’re going to go just a little beyond those and read verse 33. God here says…

Deuteronomy 5:33. "You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you…"

These aren’t some laws that Moses commanded or people were commanding each other. This is God speaking.

Verse 33. "You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you…"

Now young people and old alike, you want life to go well. You want it to be well with you, and you want to live both now and forever. And so God is encouraging us to do something that is good for us. Now this Bible is or it was not written to the United States of America. This book was not written to Europe. It wasn’t written to Canada or Mexico, Africa, India. It wasn’t written to the Australians for sure, no, just kidding. I have a few aussie friends that like to banter about. Notice right here what we just read. Right here in the scripture, God says, "you." He’s talking to his people. There’s his people, and there’s people at large.

Deuteronomy 5:33. "You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you…"

God didn’t make these commands for the world at large. He didn’t make them to the Chinese. He made them to his people, whoever those people are, first a physical nation many thousands of years ago, now a spiritual people coming out of all nations and all races and all cultures to be leaders in the world tomorrow. "You," he says.

So we begin to see here there is a contrast between the people of God and society, between the family of God and the family of man. You can see this contrast as we go back to the book of Corinthians. Let’s go to II Corinthians 6:14. The apostle Paul here is talking to a group of church members just like you. Just like you. And to these church members he was drawing a contrast between the two families. In verse 14 of II Corinthians 6 he says, if you just look in verse 11 you’ll see he says, "O Corinthians," he’s talking to the church at Corinth. In verse 14, he says…

II Corinthians 6:14. "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers."

Now the term unbelievers refers to those who do not have God’s spirit, those are unbelievers. So there is a separation right here where Paul says don’t be yoked together unequally with unbelievers. Now this is a general term that applies to any kind of a teaming up or yolking as it were that would bring the two groups, the people of God or the people at large, into some sort of a union, that would include marriage, that would include all types of relationships that would be a close union of some sort. And he said…

Verse 14. "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?"

These two suddenly split, don’t they? There’s quite a gap between them.

Verse 14. "And what communion has light with darkness?"

That’s a really big contrast. Light and dark.

Verse 15. "And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?"

So we as a Christian who are about to make a choice, not telling, talking to those who already made a choice and came into the church with a certain arrangement, but those who were about to make a choice. He says, don’t choose to be yoked together with an unbeliever, a person without God’s spirit.

Verse 16. "And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people."

So here we see that God has a people and then society is also there.

Verse 17. "Therefore "Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord."

You can’t get any clearer than what the scriptures are telling us here from both the Old and New Testament right through these passages that there is a separation between the people of God and the society at large. And God’s people are to come out from among them and be separate says the Lord.

Verse 17-18. "Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty."

So it’s not just a people, but a family that God is creating and it certainly shows the difference here. Now today I want to ask you a question. How much is society rubbing off on the people of God? How much is the family of man influencing the family of God who are in the flesh today? We could make this very personal and say, how much is society affecting you and me? I want to deal with that today. I want to know, I want you to be aware and to know what you’re accepting, what you’re adopting from this greater family of man, this society that’s surround us, the society that God tells us to stay away from and not be a part of.

Sometimes people confuse the two groups. Sometimes people confuse the people whom God is blessing because he promised Abraham that he would bless the physical lineage of the house of Jacob down until the second coming of Christ. And they confuse the blessings that God gives to people with the people of God. Kind of there is a little similarity there at times. Let me give you an example. During the Civil War in 1861 Secretary Chase, who was over the mint at the time, commissioned a man named James Pollock with a job, and he wrote him a note.

Regarding a motto for our nation’s coins, he said…

Oh, hey, we have a link, therefore, by saying things like that he’s talking about our nation. We in the church now have a link because he’s talking about, acknowledging the fact that no nation can exist and be strong without the strength of God, right? So now, we’re all together, we’re all happy, and we’re all in the same boat, right? See how sometimes we can grow up in a nation that talks about God a lot or around religions that talk about God a lot and somehow we think, oh, oh we’ll just kind of be among them and pick up what they pick up and, you know, it’s kind of all the same. People of God, people blessed by God—kind of the same thing, right?

He goes on to say…

True statement. The trust of our people should be declared on national coins, and so in 1860 something, they stamped James Pollock’s brainchild onto the two-cent piece. And it said, "In God We Trust." Now about a hundred years later President Eisenhower declared, with the acceptance of the Congress, that the phrase "In God We Trust" is the official motto of the United States. That took place in 1956. "In God We Trust." So are we linked to society now? Is society and the church, we have this bond, this link, we’re the same, we’re together, the same people who are outside today doing whatever they’re doing? We’re not.

In 1892, there was a magazine that went out to the youth of the nation called "The Youth’s Companion." You can just imagine kids gathering around the old oil lamp reading "The Youth’s Companion." And in there the circulation manager Francis Bellamy wrote some words for them to recite on the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus Day. And these were the words that he encouraged children across America to all stand up and recite on that one day, a one shot deal…

And eventually this became mandatory for all school children to read in the United States. Now about sixty years later in 1954, same President, President Eisenhower, had an amendment made to add the two words "under God." Okay, that was never there before, but he added the words "one nation under God." In that way, he said we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future and in this way, we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war. What will be? The term "under God?"

See there is a little bit of a gap here, isn’t there? We can see that our nation has had recognition of God, but does that mean our society is then godly? Does that mean that the pagan institutions and the false worship of God on false days and in false ways, that God actually commands against, is godly just because people pick up a few phrases? Does that mean that it’s okay to mix in because they use phrases like that? Is it okay for us to be a part of society around us? Think again we grew up perhaps, at least in this country and other countries that were descendants of the Israelitish nations, and they picked up religion of some form, typically it came from paganism, but it brings in certain commandments of God, and when people live by any of God’s commandments, it embellishes their life, doesn’t it? It really does, it helps them.

Let me read you some recent news items from the Washington Times…

And it goes on to say they find it particularly inappropriate to slander the Constitution by including religious graffiti, such as the motto ‘In God We Trust.’

Another article from the Washington Times…

"Government officials in states including Indiana, Kansas, Colorado and Kentucky have lost attempts to display the ten commandments in public."

Now what should we do about this? If we have a strong link to society, we feel that this society is really God’s society and godliness exists there, well, maybe we should all campaign or become congressmen ourself or go burn flags or whatever and try to change the world around, you know, before it’s too late. We might say, how can a nation adopt a biblical code if it’s invisible? If no one can see it. It’s illegal to mention it. How can they hope to obey it when the messages are coming out encouraging atheism and promiscuity and perversion. While in the meantime, our children are taught that they evolved from primordial slime.

I cut myself this week, the blood ran out and stopped, and I thought, huh, proof that evolution is false. The first guy wouldn’t thought of that one. He would have been dead on the ground—bled to death. Let’s go to Deuteronomy, back to Deuteronomy, next chapter Deuteronomy 6:7. Again, here right after the ten commandments are given, Deuteronomy 6:7, here’s what God told Israel.

Deuteronomy 6:7. "You shall teach them diligently to your children…"

Now you young people today have heard the commandments of God, but you didn’t hear them at school, you didn’t hear them on television, you didn’t hear them on your video games. Adults you didn’t hear them on the nightly news. You didn’t hear them at the movies. You didn’t hear them in your novels. You know, where do you hear them? The only precious place that the commandments and laws exist are within the church and within the family and those are the last outposts. So you shall teach them to your children…

Verse 7-9. "…and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

Of course, physical Israel abandoned these long ago; they went into all out paganism, some very, very dark chapters of paganism down through the last few thousand years and then they popped up adopting a false form of Christianity which itself was steeped in paganism. That’s what made it attractive because all of their old paganism just kept going, whatever country or culture they came through and from, they just slapped that onto their form of Christianity, and here it is for the most part still going today.

We have a booklet called the "United States and Britain in Prophecy" and that traces the history of the physical nation of Israel. It also talks about the promises that God said would happen to them because of the faithfulness of Abraham, and we are witnesses today of the promises made way back then, we are enjoying those promises and many different countries around this world. In Deuteronomy 11, a couple pages over here verse 22, let’s notice. God here says to his physical nation and to you and me…

Deuteronomy 11:22-24. "For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do--to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him--then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory."

That’s quite a large area, even a little bit wider than what we would call modern Palestine.

Verse 25. "No man shall be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you."

So with this promise and this blessing or this option, but it could be that big if you obey God. Notice in verse 22…

Verse 22. "For if you carefully keep all these commandments…"

This is the promise.

Verse 26-28. "Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known."

So we have physical blessings here for physical obedience from a carnal nation.

Now in other news the Supreme Court ruled that even students may not initiate their own prayers to God in schools. It states that prayers do not qualify as free speech under the first amendment. In June 2000, the US Supreme Court also ruled…

Somebody is going to feel bad.

And so we don’t want anybody to feel like an outsider, so we’ll all be outsiders. Okay, together. Isn’t that amazing? So in fast turnaround, society is out there continuing to do its thing. Sometimes embracing a little of God and a little of godliness and recognizing the blessings, which is true and sometimes drifting the other way and distancing itself from God. This society is not godly. This society was never godly. Don’t get it in your head that sometime in the past society anywhere was godly. It wasn’t. It never happened. They just, again, accepted some of God’s way. They saw the logic that, boy, if you don’t do this, you don’t get that. Why don’t we make that one of our rules, you know, so we don’t keep hitting ourself over the head, it hurts. No hitting yourself on the head, tired of the pain. But some new generation comes along and says, hey, why don’t we all hit ourself on the head? Yes! You know, sooner or later a few generations from now if time goes on somebody will re-write the old law. No hitting on the head—hurt too much.

That’s the ebb and flow of humanity kind of following its own version of taking the fruit off the tree of good and evil, deciding right and wrong, finding its way, deciding for itself. An example of this distancing is, society is banishing religion with the so-called constitutional amendment of the first amendment, demanding the separation of church and state. Now you all have heard about the separation of church and state, and of course, it’s rock solid, it’s nailed down, there’s nothing you can do about that—church has to be separated from state. We all know that, we’ve heard that so many times and that comes from the first amendment to the Constitution.

Question. Is there really a requirement in the Constitution for a separation of church and state? You know what, there isn’t. You know what that’s one of the biggest lies we’ve ever heard. There is no such statement. The first amendment of the Constitution is only one sentence long and only the first half of that sentence is tweaked with to try to get separation of church and state out of it. The second half is about free speech. I’m going to read it to you. Here’s the first half of the sentence applying to this so-called separation of church and state. This was radified in 1971.

That is the amendment. What’s all this about separation of church state and not allowing people to have any kind of recognition of God? That’s the prohibition of the free exercise of religion. They’re keeping people from exercising religion, the exact opposite of what the constitution says. It just shows how crazy humans are, how much they want to banish God and get their own way. It’s twisted and like I said, it prohibits the free-exercise of religion and really, what it has caused as, what is I guess the result of this twisting of this amendment is, that now we have a recreation of one nation, out from under God, divisible, with fewer liberties, and fewer justices for all. It’s kind of where we’re headed. It’s my take on it anyway.

One of our members, and ex-Cincinnati policeman, recently was having lunch with a colleague, and they weren’t even at work and over lunch he asked her, so what religion are you? And her reply was, we can’t talk about that. If somebody overheard us talk about that subject or you even asked the question, we could both lose our jobs. And he says, we’re a block-and-a-half from the building, the government building we work in. She said, doesn’t matter, we could lose our jobs. And that’s how serious they took that or that she took that. It made no difference where they were.

So society has convinced itself that it has this duty to exclude any trace of God from its government. It’s gone from the leadership, it’s gone from the education, it’s gone from the process of teaching and training and influencing our children. Of course, we can load in the filth; we can load in the garbage; we can, you know impress on them deviant sexual practices; we can foster ideas of murder and corruption and greed into everything they see and do, but we have to exclude any trace of God. What does this mean to us? Let’s go to John 17 and see what all this that’s going on in society means to you and me. This is the prayer that Jesus Christ prayed right before he was crucified. John 17:11, he’s praying to the Father and he says…

John 17:11. "Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world…"

You and me and our forefathers in the faith, he’s talking about. We are in the world, but he is going to this father in heaven.

Verse 11. "…and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me…"

The reason why the church has always had the name church of God, irrelevant is what’s tacked on the beginning or the end. We’ve always had the name church of God is because of this verse right here.

Verse 11. "…Holy Father, keep through Your name…"

The church of God is what we believe is what should be our name because of what he said.

Verse 11. "…those whom You have given Me…"

So the Father gave some people to Jesus Christ to be in the church to be begotten children of the family of God we could say.

Verse 11-14. "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them…"

There’s a contrast here. The world has hated them because they’re not of the world. We are not to be of the world.

Verse 14-15. "…just…" he says "…as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world…"

You know God didn’t take you and me out of society, out of the world. We don’t have a church commune that we all live in. You know somebody didn’t buy up a hundred acres, and we all built homes, built a wall around there and we go in there and we have skinned the whole thing in aluminum foil so that no radio waves can get in, you know, no bad TV or anything, we’re just in there by ourselves, quite the opposite. We are the salt of the earth and just like you shake salt and it scatters around your plate of food; we are scattered around the earth, and we are in the world. I don’t know how many of you even live next door to someone in the church. It’s probably pretty rare. We tend to find ourselves in large cities, small cities, and out in the country, in between. So here we are not of the world.

Verse 15-17. "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth."

So here is the truth of God that we are to be sanctified with. It makes us different. So we are a people not of this world. In II Corinthians 1:12, we see the apostles example through a statement that the apostle Paul makes.

II Corinthians 1:12. "…we conducted ourselves in the world …"

So here we can see first-hand the apostles who were the foundation of the church and they’re in the world, and he says…

Verse 12. "…we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity…"

You know God’s way is simple. It’s right here. It’s very simple. You have outgoing love for God and others. It’s simple, it’s clear. It is not a mystery religion, you know. We don’t have mysteries and back slapping political relationships and re-writing and tweaking of laws and lobbies and voting and all kinds of issues that come up and regional differences around the world between various sections of the church. No, it’s very simple. God says it, we do it. So he says…

Verse 12. "…we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity…"

And also he talks about that purity in godly sincerity…

Verse 12. "…not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God."

So we are in this world. The question always is how much are we of this world? Now you and I are of the family of God. We’re also of the family of man. You and I are in the world, but we’re also a little bit of the world at times. Remember Paul said, that part I hate, I find myself being apart of that. The question is how are we doing with society? How much of the world is actually rubbing off on us, influencing us, how much are we adopting this world and its god who attempts to conform us if I go along with them.

The current issue of the "Good News" magazine tells us that the news media has a menu all made out for us, and we are just chomping away as people on their menu of what they dish out are all these objectives directives that they want to take this country in, the minds of the people in, and so they’re serving up a daily diet of things that will condition, that will change the thinking in the direction that they want it to go. We need to be alert to this. We need to be walking carefully through the darkness, following God’s way of light, and very wise to the fact that there’s a lot of determination to make us compromise our beliefs, to make us compromise our convictions to God and his way. And we can’t ever let down.

You’re not going to hear on national TV that okay, it’s been another day and people are succumbing to the new far left wacko, you know, satanic mentality of sinning against God and hurting themselves and hurting each other. We’re just one-step closer to nuclear war. No, they’re not going to tell you that. It’s just another day of day, another day of news, what’s going in the world. Another day of entertainment on TV, just another good day of life, another 10,000 advertising messages hit you today. Just another day in the life, and we just munch, munch, munch right through it, see. We can’t do that and be not of this world.

In Matthew 24:11, Jesus warned that this age of man is coming to an end. It’s not always going to be good times in the western hemisphere, but suddenly this whole thing is going to come down. It says in Matthew 24:11…

Matthew 24:11. "Then many false prophets will rise up…"

During that time.

Verse 11. "…and deceive many."

In the church, he’s not talking to the world. What do you mean? False prophets are false teachers in the world. They’re all false teachers in the world and will deceive many. What do you mean the whole world is deceived the Bible tells us. We’re talking about the church here. Many false prophets will rise up in the church and deceive many in the church.

Verse 12. "And because lawlessness will abound…"

…in the church. Obviously, it has always existed in the world.

Verse 12. "… the love of many…" in the church "… will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved."

We’ve got to be aware of these things. Somebody is going to come along and try to trick you and make you think that lawlessness is good. How do you do that? I was asked the question, well, how do you think that will happen? Well, the way it always happens. Somebody is going to convince you that your way is the right way. That’s it. Oh, wow, I really want to go my way, and it turns out God wants me to also, and so it’s a religious experience. I’m going my way; I’m getting my way. Whenever that happens it’s not of God. I don’t care if there’s marching bands and miracles and love healings of the sick. Wonderful gestures of outgoing compassion, which you know is going to be part of that, just adds to the deception—it’s so loving, and it’s so outgoing, and it’s so juicy, it’s just so emotional and it’s just so impressive. These people just love so much. There’s so much good being done and oh, ah-ha it makes me feel good, too. You know, with a magnet, brethren, there’s a magnet and it works for some people.

Christ said, he who endures until the end, here doing God’s will, the same will be saved. We can’t fall for the stuff that’s coming out of society. In verse 42, Jesus says the following…

Verse 42. "Watch therefore…"

Now what is this talking about mainly? Is this talking about keep track of what the Pakistanis are doing, keep track of al-Quaida? In fact, maybe even start your own cell watch in your area. Maybe put up a web-cam at the temple mount and watch for somebody impeding sacrifice in the temple. You know, if watching were the criteria here, watching world events were the criteria, then all the folks at CNN would be in the kingdom right ahead of us. You know, because they’re out there, they’re out there with a, like it’s their job watching. They’re watching everything. They’ll make things happen if nothing is happening, that’s how close they’re watching.

It turns out this word watch from the Greek is gregoreuo. There’s quite a word for you. And it means stay awake or be alert to your calling is what Christ is talking about, not necessarily just to world events, but to your calling. Stay alert. Don’t get sucked in. Don’t get tricked. Don’t get pulled in to society. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t be one of the five virgins who loses the oil and the lamps go out. Don’t be one of the Laodiceans who’s lukewarm, that kind of likes society, and they kind of like the family of God, you know, kind of they’re of two opinions at the same time. They’re real lukewarm. Don’t be like that. Rather keep your crown is another way you could put it. Don’t let anyone take your crown. Stay alert like a person who is on guard.

Jesus gave the parable. If you knew when the thief was coming, you would have been on guard and wouldn’t have let him rob you. And so we need to keep our senses brethren and as we go through this society, not get duked into leaving God’s way of life and being committed to it. Are you young people alert? Are you awake? You know many times I hear the young people sort of embracing the thought patterns of well, there’s many different lifestyles out there, and we have to be tolerant. These are just other people’s choices, personal choices, and there are several sets of values, and it’s up to each person to choose what’s best for them, and these people choose what’s best for them, and it works for them, and it all mixes into a goo, so there’s no right and wrong, there’s no values, it’s a value neutral country. And anybody who does stick their head-up with values, the press shoots down.

So are you awake? Society is in a free fall. It’s falling faster than you can imagine and they’re trying to lure all of us to imitate them, lure us to admire the popular people in society—the ones whose lives are chaotic and tragic. Let’s go over to Romans 1:22. This is nothing new, nothing new at all. Romans 1:22. Paul is writing to a group of church people who lived in Rome. It’s kind of a modern western culture. We copied Rome, so not a lot of difference, at least especially in the direction we’re heading. We’ll probably pass up Rome and all of the things it was doing. Romans 1:22. These people who were coming up and becoming so enlightened and so progressive…

Romans 1:22-24. "Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to…"

What? Brilliance? No. He gave them up to…

Verse 24. "…uncleanness…"

If you ever ride to Yuma, make sure you take the old Maricopa highway I think it is because there’s about thirty miles of open range there where they range cattle and no fences. And at night the cows are dark, the road is dark. In the day time, you see what’s left of the cows. I don’t know what happens to the cars. But those big old twelve hundred pound cows that are dead beside the road sit out there in the hot Arizona sun, a hundred and twelve degrees baking day after day. And it’s not a pleasant smell when you come by. All of a sudden all the flies stick on your windshield as you pass one of those things.

And so it says here he…

Verse 24. "…gave them up to uncleanness…"

That’s uncleanness. That’s stinky, rotten, nasty stuff. My wife was looking at one today, she says, have we seen that one before? Kind of like, oh yes, we’ve seen that one. We watched that one go done. Now it’s hard leather just baking out there in the sun. So God gave them up to really stinky, lousy stuff.

Verse 24. "…in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie…"

Exchanged the truth here with a lie.

Verse 25-26. "…and served the creature…" or the creation "…rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature."

<inaudible> talk show host just popped up and say, oh, I’ve decided I’m a lesbian—I thought you’d all want to know. And the press go, oh, that’s nice, we’ve got a lesbian talk show host. You know, and everybody’s happy with, everybody’s comfortable with that, that’s fine.

Verse 27. "Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful…"

Verse 28. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge…"

Oh, we must have a separation of church and state.

Verse 28-29. "God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness…"

And he begins to list it. Paul is talking about his society. He’s telling people in Rome, you know, there’s a contrast between the church and society—I’m telling you today there’s a contrast between church and society because there’s…"

Verse 29. "…sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness…"

Sounds like one of the new movies out.

Verse 29. "…full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness…"

Sounds like one of the video games.

Verse 29-30. "…they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters…"

Sounds like music.

Verse 30-31. "…inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving…"

Sounds like school.

Verse 31. "…unforgiving, unmerciful…"

Sounds like the legal system.

Verse 32. "…who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."

And that’s the culture in which we are in. They approve and they applaud those who do all these evil things. The world hates America and with just cause. America should make a great giant apology to the world for all of the filth, all of the trash, all of the deviancy that it pumps out and distributes around the world and encourages people to follow. We should get down on our knees and beg forgiveness from God. But no, we not only do the those things as a country, we approve of them and approve of those who practice them.

Now young people don’t realize yet that you reach a stage not too far into your life where you get tired of change. You get tired of everything changing around you. It’s kind of like sports. I got tired of sports when I was a young man because everybody on the team kept changing and moving and it was always moving, and I got tired of learning all the new names and said forget it. It’s kind of like that with music. You get tired of learning all the names. I got so many old songs in your head anyway, who needs new ones? You get tired of learning all the new actors, and all the new actresses and all the new this and all the new that. You get tired of the new programs for your computer. Can’t everything just work? You get tired of the new cars and everything’s moved around the dash. And the new clothes and everything has got to change, you see?

So at some point you become an oldies person. You know, whatever year you’re from there’s a station on the radio with that music. And so you pop that on as number one, and you hang out there more than anywhere else. And so consequently, as we age we lose track of what our young people are being fed. We’re not in the classroom with them. We don’t realize the garbage and the trash that they are learning on the local level, let alone from the under-graduate level, let alone when you get into graduate work in our universities. We don’t realize what the young people are bombarded with in their entertainment and in their music.

We’re not used to on our oldies station hearing about killing cops and raping people and dismembering people and all the other stuff that goes on there. It’s terrible, but our young people are bombarded with it. Our young people, you have to live with that. We don’t understand the new stuff. If we’re in college, it’s because we’re the professor. Typically. And so, increasingly, we’re distanced from some of the modern things that just really come in and are working against our youth, but you are out on the front lines of society. You are in the schools. You’re in the college. You’re in the entertainment, the social scene, the workplace. Generation X and Y depend more on visual and audio sources for their education and feeding of information than other generations did.

So some of us might kick back and watch old movies, watch old re-runs of TV shows that we liked. "Leave It To Beaver" was a nice TV show. I just think "Leave It To Beaver" and "Lucy" and all these things, but the kids or the younger people, the younger generation are watching cartoons that would, I mean little kids are watching cartoons that are satanic, they’re deviant, and from there it gets worse as you grow up, as you go into the older media productions.

Media today is illicit sex, it’s gross violence, it’s increasing perversion and all of us, including the young people, have to learn to be selective. You have to say, I am of the family of God and therefore, the family of man has things that I don’t want, I don’t need, I don’t want to go there. You know it’s good if you have about five radio stations, so that you can listen to a song and channel hop because if you’re going to let good things enter your mind, you’re going to have to move around a little bit. You really are. And we’re going to have to also as a child of God say what’s this piece of entertainment about? What is this piece of entertainment? What’s the gist of it? Now you know it’s going to have some stuff in there that we wouldn’t put in or you wouldn’t put in, but what’s it really about?

Society wants freedom. It wants few rules. Once it gets few rules then it wants fewer rules. That’s the direction society wants to go. How about us? How about you and how about me? What should rule over us? Should our nature and our passions rule over us? Should society’s values set the standards for us? In Colossians 3:15, we are told what should rule over us.

Colossians 3:15. "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts…"

Here we have a Greek word translated rule.

Verse 15. "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts…"

Peace comes from God’s holy spirit. We want God, God’s mentality, his spirit to rule in our hearts. What does rule mean? Well the word means to act like an umpire. So this umpire is going to make decisions. We’re going to let God and God’s word guide us and direct us and rule or make the rules as it were—be the umpire for our hearts. God’s spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 shows the components that help us in our decision making, that influence us, and we’re to let them be our umpire. This spirit of God is to rule that part of our innermost being, our minds, to help us to come to godly decisions in our lives. In II Timothy 1:6, the apostle Paul here talks to Timothy telling him to stir up a certain gift.

II Timothy 1:6. "Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands."

Timothy had the spirit of God in him. He has a gift of God. He says…

Verse 7. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and…" and my translation says "…of a sound mind."

The translation of the Greek for "sound mind" would better be rendered self-control or self-discipline. Now notice how this reads with self-discipline.

Verse 7. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-discipline."

So we within the body of Christ within the family of God, within the church has a spirit to guide us that is self-disciplining if we use it. It is powerful and it’s whole purpose is love. The love of God in this Bible is all about the love of God. It’s very different than society. We’ve got to keep that awake just like Paul told Timothy, stir up that spirit. We all need to stir that up and today I want to encourage you to stir up that spirit of a desire to hold fast to godliness and to throw off things from society that are lawless by nature. The reality of our Christian walk is found in I Corinthians 6:9.

I Corinthians 6:9. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?"

Who are the unrighteous? The unrighteous are those who don’t do the will of God. The unrighteous will not inherit. Now the unrighteous are the enlightened. They’re the tolerant. They’re the compromising. They’re the religious. They’re the loving. They’re the society that’s around us. Remember? We’ve got to see this society for what it is. These will not inherit the kingdom of God. The next phrase is…

Verse 9. "Do not be deceived."

Now you can get all soft-headed and soft-hearted and determined in your head that, no, we really, these are wonderful people, well, we just like them and everything that they stand for, things they stand for are really good and pretty soon you mix it all up and you can’t see society any more. He says…

Verse 9. "Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites…"

Sodomite was a type of a homosexual hooker I guess for men. But these are what our society is really pushing right now. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals…

Verse 10. "…nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners…"

None of these will inherit the kingdom of God. Do we see Sodom and Gomorrah around us? Do you see Sodom and Gomorrah around you? The churches that Paul served were in Sodom and Gomorrah, and we’re headed rapidly in that direction. Homosexuality was also common place in his day. Fourteen of the fifteen Caesars were what we would call bi-sexual. The Caesar that was on the throne in Rome when Paul wrote this was engaged to be married to a fourteen year old boy. His name was Sporus if you care. But you know today we see every form of our modern entertainment is a perversion of God’s law. This is not God’s way. These are not his people. And this is coming to an end as it says in Isaiah 3. Isaiah 3 is a prophecy that this wonderful blessing that God gave Abraham is not going to continue indefinitely.

Isaiah 3:1. "For behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, Takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah The stock and the store…"

He’s going to take away all of these wonderful things that we have to buy.

Verse 1. "…The whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water."

Drought is already coming. We don’t know if this is the start of the end.

Verse 2. "The mighty man and the man of war…"

Yes, the great military strength that we have.

Verse 2. "…The judge and the prophet…"

We see the failing of human religions and this honorable so-called prophets. The counselor.

Verse 4. "I will give children to be their princes, And babes shall rule over them. The people will be oppressed…"

And so on it goes.

Verse 8. "…Because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord…"

Verse 9. "The look on their countenance witnesses against them, And they declare their sin as Sodom; They do not hide it."

They don’t hide it. They don’t want to hide it. Just find a movie or a TV show today that doesn’t sport some homosexual thing in it, some other lifestyle.

Verse 9. "Woe to their soul! For they have brought evil upon themselves."

We are the chosen children of a different father, of a different family, of a different generation. In closing, turn with me to Ezekiel the 33^rd chapter. Ezekiel 33:12 talks about sinners and people who are trying to obey God and be righteous. It says…

Verse 12. "Therefore you, O son of man, say to the children of your people: 'The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression…"

So if you’ve been in the church, if you’ve been pursuing God’s way of life, but then you get sucked in, deceived and become unrighteous, your previous life isn’t going to save you and vice versa. It says…

Verse 12-13. "…nor shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins. When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered…"

That’s a warning. Hold onto your crown. Don’t let society take it from you. But notice verse 14…

Verse 14-15. "Again, when I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die."

So brethren, we’ve looked at some scriptures. We see the clear contrast between society and the people of God. Let’s be firm adherents to God’s way. Let’s not be duked into following the slippery slope that this world is sliding down.