In the closing moments, let me just make this real clear.
The Bible's right about everything,
no matter what the subject.
Now, a lot of times people, they approach the Bible all wrong.
They approach the Bible to read up on it
and make sure it fits everything that they think it should say,
and make sure that they agree with everything in it,
and then say, OK, well then the Bible must be right then.
Now that I figured out how it agrees with me,
now I know it's right.
What we ought to do, though, is approach the Bible already
believing that it's right.
And then if it says something in conflict with what we believe,
we need to change what we believe
and get on the Bible's program.
Now you say, well, that's just blind faith.
But here's the thing.
Without faith, it's impossible to please him.
And if you say, well, that's just faith.
Then why are you even a Christian?
Then why do you even believe in the first place?
See, I thought that I'm talking here to Christians, right?
Raise your hand if you're a Christian today.
Raise your hand.
All right, look around, everybody.
So we're talking to people.
OK, keep your hand up if you believe
the Bible's the word of God.
OK, see all the hands?
So who are we talking to?
We're talking to people who believe that the Bible's
the word of God.
Now if the Bible's the word of God,
then wouldn't the Bible always be right about everything?
OK, so if the Bible's always right about everything,
then if the Bible says something for people like us
that are Christians that believe the Bible,
it's a case closed.
Now if the world out there says, well, I don't believe the Bible.
Fine, you don't have to believe the Bible.
That's your prerogative.
But to those of us who do believe the Bible,
we know that the Bible is always right about every subject.
And that's all the people that I'm
trying to talk to right now.
And what we need to understand is
that there are people out there who
want to basically judge the Bible
or stand in judgment of the Bible.
Now isn't that ridiculous?
How can the thing formed say to him that formed it,
why hast thou made me thus?
Or who art thou that repliest against God?
So isn't it kind of silly for us to stand in judgment of God?
But yet Christians do it all the time.
People do it all the time.
Here's a great example where people
will try to come at us, usually atheists or people like that,
they'll come at us and say, well, the Bible is wrong
because the Bible condones of slavery.
We've all heard that before, right?
But here's the thing about that, is
that if the Bible condones slavery,
then I condone slavery because the Bible is always
right about every subject.
That's my starting point.
So I don't have to be like, oh man, I
better figure out whether the Bible really
condones slavery.
You know, see, if I want to learn
what's right about, what is the right opinion to have
of slavery, then here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to say, well, let me figure out
what the Bible says about slavery.
And that's what I believe.
Whatever the Bible says about slavery is what I believe.
Not like, well, let me make sure that what
the Bible says about slavery is politically correct.
And if it is, then I'll agree with it.
You got it all wrong.
You better go to the Bible and figure out what you should be
believing about slavery based on what the Bible says,
because the Bible is right about everything, period.
Now, again, it's a whole sermon in and of itself,
the Bible's teachings on slavery.
First of all, just to note that God's law in the Old Testament
never uses the word slave one time.
So, oh, the Bible's just teaching slavery.
The Bible doesn't use that word.
It does use it in Revelation in an unrelated context,
but it never uses it in regard to God's law.
And there are all kinds of reasons
why God did have, quote unquote, slavery allowed
in the Old Testament, because of the fact
that it actually is right.
But here's what the Bible actually teaches, OK?
And there are a bunch of people today
who have disregarded the Bible's teachings
and have actually done worse things to people
in the process.
See, what the Bible actually teaches
is, number one, that if a person can't pay a debt,
then that person has to work it off.
That's one type of slavery that the Bible does condone,
which makes perfect sense.
This is just like in the movies where somebody, you know,
and I've never had anybody say that this happened in real life,
but I think it's just a TV thing, where they can't
pay their bill at a restaurant, so they end up washing dishes.
Has anyone ever actually done that?
Anyone ever had to wash the dishes?
All right.
So it might just be mythical, but everybody
knows what I'm talking about.
That's sort of like the slavery concept, in the sense of,
you racked up a bill, you can't pay the bill,
therefore you have to go work it off.
You know, go to the kitchen, wash the dishes
for a few hours, OK, you can go now.
That is right.
That makes sense.
So nowadays, but we're so much smarter than God now.
God's wrong, we're right.
We're so much smarter.
So here's what we do now.
Somebody racks up some huge bill that they can't pay,
and then you just end up getting stiffed.
You don't get paid.
I mean, I know when I was in business,
I had people not pay me all the time.
And there's just nothing you can do about it.
I mean, is that right?
No.
Or people just go bankrupt.
That isn't right.
That's not biblical.
You know, you're supposed to pay what you borrowed, you know?
And if you rack up a bill, and you take the goods,
you take the goods, and then the invoice shows up,
and you never pay that invoice, and then you use up the goods.
So there are people who had it.
Now, here's another thing, OK?
Let's say somebody commits a crime, like theft,
where they have to pay back fourfold,
and they don't have anything to pay.
They can't pay the fine.
Then what would they have to do?
They'd have to go work for that person,
and be that person's bond servant,
and pay off their debt.
What do we do to those people now?
We lock them in prison.
Listen, locking someone in prison
is more inhumane than slavery.
Prison destroys people's lives.
85% of people who go to prison, their spouse divorces them.
It destroys their life.
And it's cruel and unusual punishment
to lock somebody in a cage.
The human beings are not designed, especially
to put someone in solitary confinement.
I mean, it makes people go insane.
But yet we do that all the time, and don't even
think anything of it.
And we in the United States, we're so humane and so loving,
that's why we have the largest prison population in the world.
And the vast majority of them in there for nonviolent crimes.
And they're locked up.
And they're in a horrible condition.
It's destroying their life.
But that's OK.
But oh, but oh, the Bible condones slavery though.
It's just this basically emotionally charged word,
where people don't stop and think and study
what the Bible actually teaches.
They just get emotional like, oh, well, the Bible,
if it promotes slavery, it can't be true.
But it's not that God is promoting slavery.
It's that God is making allowance for slavery
in certain situations.
Like, for example, people can't pay a bill.
Also, prisoners of war and things like that,
criminals and people that would have to go work off a debt
and so on and so forth.
You know, there were certain people,
there were certain groups of people
that got punished where they did something evil
and God said as a result, if they're
going to stay in the land, they have
to have a tribute of bond service, where
they had to be a hewer of wood or a drawer of water
for the children of Israel or whatever.
Look, I'm not going to sit here and preach
the whole sermon on slavery because I don't have time.
I've taught it in many other sermons.
I'll preach it some other time in the future.
But all I can say is this, whatever
the Bible says about slavery, I agree with it.
I'm for it.
And again, God isn't giving some carte blanche to slavery.
The Bible specifically, listen to this.
Tell me if this is promoting slavery.
The Bible says in Exodus chapter 21 verse 16,
he that stealeth a man and selleth him,
or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
So what a lot of people are thinking of as slavery
is punished by the death penalty in the Bible
because the Bible says if you steal a man and sell him,
you'll be put to death.
Or if you're just one of the people that participates,
if one person steals the man and sells him,
and then he's found in your hand,
meaning you're transporting him,
you're going to be put to death for having anything to do
with that type of slavery.
So is the Bible just pro-slavery?
No, it's not, is it?
But are there certain situations
where God did indicate slavery
or for people to beat their servants?
Absolutely, absolutely, of course.
But you know what?
It's all right, and I agree with all of it.
Why? Because the Bible's God's word, that's why.
So instead of being on the defense all the time of like,
oh, well, you know, I don't know,
I mean, maybe that's not what, you know,
why don't we just say, well, first of all,
I believe the Bible, whatever it teaches about slavery.
I believe the Bible's teachings on slavery,
so no, I do not believe that slavery
is always unequivocally wrong in every situation.
I don't believe it.
That'd be a better answer than to kowtow to the world
because these people, they're never going to get it, okay?
Because you say, well, what do we tell the atheists?
Well, go to Revelation 22, let's close with this.
Let's close with this verse, Revelation 22, verse 11.
I don't know, what am I going to tell the atheists
when they confront me about slavery?
I don't know what to tell them.
Look at Revelation chapter 22, verse 11.
And the Bible says, he that is unjust,
let him be unjust still.
I mean, what is that saying?
It's saying, look, some people are just wrong
and they're going to be wrong,
and okay, it's their loss.
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still.
He which is filthy, let him be filthy still.
And he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.
And he that is holy, let him be holy still.
So whether or not we can convince the people around us
that God's right, he's right anyway, the Bible's anyway.
There are people that are unjust.
There are people who don't know what's right.
There are people who have an unjust or unfair
or unrighteous view of the world.
You know what?
Let them have that view.
That's their prerogative.
But as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
And as for me, this is my final authority.
And I know that there are plenty of people in this room
that agree with me, that God's word is right
about every subject all the time.
And we need to always keep that before us
to remember that God is right.
When we disagree with the Bible,
it's the Bible that's right and it's us that's wrong.