Please take your seats.
If you are please tell me the song number 423.
Song number 423.
Joy to the world.
The Lord is mine.
Let earth receive her peace.
Let every heart prevail in truth.
Let heaven and nature sing.
Let heaven and heaven and nature sing.
Joy to the world.
The Savior reigns.
Let heaven and nature sing.
Let fields and floods rise, fields and lakes.
Repeat the sound we've drawn.
Repeat, repeat the sound we've drawn.
The Lord has given us our own.
Because today this place seems more.
What has the first is now?
What has, what has the first is now?
He rules the world with truth and grace.
And makes the nations prove.
The glory is of his righteousness.
And wonders of his love.
And wonders, wonders of his love.
So today, let's give your beloved one a prayer for us.
Amen.
Will you please tell me the song four twenty six?
Song number four twenty six.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day.
Hear, oh, familiar carols play.
And while they speak the words repeat.
A peace on earth would build to me.
I thought I had learned it enough.
But I'll praise the Lord for it should come.
And roll along the road with something.
A peace on earth would build to me.
In this where I found my way.
Where is the peace on earth I said.
For he is strong and was the son.
A peace on earth would build to me.
He healed the bills for the valley king.
God is handed, Lord God we sing.
The rock shall fill the bright river.
With peace on earth would build to me.
Till we keep singing, God is here.
The world revolved from night to day.
The voice of Jesus.
A peace on earth would build to me.
Alright, it's time to go through our announcements tonight.
On the inside of our bulletins we have the service time.
Sunday mornings at ten thirty is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six thirty.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
Tonight we're in Luke chapter seventeen.
We have the soul winning times listed there below.
As well as salvations and baptisms.
Across the page the Bible memory passage.
First John chapter five just wrapping it up.
We're just doing this one giant verse at the end.
And then it's all downhill from there, right?
Little children keep yourselves from idols.
Amen.
Piece of cake after that.
So below that we've got the birth announcements for the Rizzo's and the Landry's.
So be sure to congratulate them if you haven't already.
On the back we've got the note about Christmas caroling.
This is only six days away.
We're going to be singing Joy to the World and Oh Come All Ye Faithful.
We'll hand out a song sheet for you to bring with you.
If you don't know the words.
It's great because they're on opposite pages in the hymnal.
So I just xeroxed off like two hundred of them.
Folded in half and boom.
That's your song sheet right there.
So we'll have two hundred song sheets.
Because we've got two hundred people coming, right?
No, I'm just kidding.
I don't think there's going to be two hundred people.
But last year, I'm pretty sure we had over a hundred people last year.
I forget the exact number but we definitely had well over a hundred Christmas carolers last year.
We broke into five teams and we had more than twenty people on each team.
So this year we might even have more teams than that.
And we'll bring some Christmas CDs too so that after we sing we can leave them with a CD.
And who's planning on coming Christmas caroling next Tuesday night?
Alright, lots of people.
Great.
So don't be shy.
You can always just kind of fade toward the back.
It's a good time, good fellowship.
And so we will not be having the preaching class next Tuesday night because this will take the place of the preaching class.
So anyway, that's next Tuesday, December nineteenth.
Below that we've got the note about the Christmas cookie bake-off on December twenty-fourth Sunday.
We're going to have our normal Sunday morning, Sunday night services on Christmas eve and on New Year's eve.
So we don't change it for the Super Bowl either.
So we definitely don't cancel church for the birth of Christ, alright?
So church services will all be at the normal time but we'll have some extra activities on that day.
And then other upcoming events are listed there below.
One thing that's not listed though is that there's going to be a North Phoenix Soul Waning Marathon at FWBC North on January thirteenth.
It's Saturday nine AM.
Meet at the church for breakfast at nine.
We'll provide breakfast and lunch for you.
So also the trips to the Indian reservations.
There's a trip Friday to the Navajo reservation up to Window Rock.
An overnighter that leaves on Friday morning and comes back Saturday night.
All the details are in the last few pages of this clipboard.
But there's still room for two more people in the church transportation.
So we got slots for two people to go to.
Yes, two people will go on an all expense paid trip to the rez.
So it is a beautiful place up there.
So meals, lodging, it's all provided.
You just show up and be ready to win some souls and come along for the ride.
Is there anyone who, do we have any takers right now for those last two spots?
You want to grab them real quick right now?
Going once, going twice.
All right.
Well, after the service, you can check out the clipboard if you want to go.
But we've got a bunch of people already signed up.
So I'm sure they'll have a lot of people saved up there.
And I believe that's it for announcements.
Let's go and count up the soul winning from the past few days.
Going back to Monday, which would have been December eleventh.
Anything from Monday.
All right.
Two for brother Rich's group.
Anything else from Monday?
Oh, 16 for the group that went to the San Carlos Indian reservation.
How many did I see over here?
One.
Okay.
Anything else for Monday?
All right.
And then how about Tuesday?
Anything from Tuesday?
One over here.
Brother Shelley, did your team have anything on Tuesday?
Camille, did you have one on Tuesday?
All right.
Is that Tuesday?
All right.
Anything else from Tuesday?
All right.
And then today, I know the church van group had one.
And then nothing else for your group, right?
Anything else from today outside of that?
One more?
All right.
Anything else from today?
All right.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
That's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and sing our next song.
We're going to sing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen off the Christmas sheets here.
If you don't have a Christmas sheet, just pass them around near you.
If you have extras, just try to spread them out, pass them around, get near somebody who's got one.
And let's sing it out on that first verse.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, let us be new this day.
We remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day.
To save us all from Satan's vow when we turn on a stray.
Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, let us be new this day.
Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy.
Oh tidings of comfort and joy.
All right, at this time we'll pass our offering plate.
And as the plate goes around, let's turn our Bibles to Luke chapter 17.
Luke chapter number 17, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with brother Jesse as he reads Luke 17, starting in verse number one.
Luke chapter 17.
Then said he unto the disciples, it is impossible that offenses will come, but woe unto him through whom they come.
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, and that he should offend one of these little ones.
Take heed to yourselves.
If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him.
And if he repent, forgive him.
And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day, turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.
And the apostles said unto the Lord, increase our faith.
And the Lord said, if you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say unto this sycamore tree, be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea, and it should obey you.
But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he has come from the field, go and sit down to meet, and will not rather say unto him, make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me,
till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink.
Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trod not.
So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants.
We have done that which was our duty to do.
And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.
And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers which stood afar off.
And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
And when he saw them, he said unto them, go show yourselves unto the priests.
And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed.
And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan.
And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?
They are not found that return to give glory to God, save this stranger.
And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith had made thee whole.
And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.
Neither shall they say, Lo here, or lo there, for behold the kingdom of God is within you.
And he said unto the disciples, The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it.
And they shall say to you, See here, or see there, go not after them, nor follow them.
For as the lightning that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven, so shall also the Son of man be in his day.
But first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation.
And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
They did eat, they drank, they married wives.
They were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
In that day he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away.
And he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed, the one shall be taken and the other shall be left.
Two women shall be grinding together, the one shall be taken and the other left.
Two men shall be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left.
And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord?
And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, then there will the eagles be gathered together.
Brother Nick, will you please pray for us?
Amen.
Man, Luke chapter 17, beginning in verse number 1, the Bible reads,
Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible, but the offenses will come.
But woe unto him through whom they come.
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea,
than that he should offend one of these little ones.
And obviously this is referring to little children.
Now what does it mean to offend them?
Well, the word offend in the New Testament is often used interchangeably with putting a stumbling block in front of them.
So, putting the stumbling block in front of them is to offend them.
It's to basically trip them up, cause them to sin, cause them to go down a dark path.
And this could happen in a variety of ways.
But one of the ways that would obviously come to mind in 2017 America would be those who are molesters.
You know, that's pretty much the worst kind of offender that would offend against a little one.
And the Bible is pretty clear here that they would much be better off to just go kill themselves.
And people think that that's some radical or crazy thing to say, but that's what the Bible said.
You know, this is actually a common way that people would use to kill themselves.
Would be to tie a millstone to themselves and throw them into the sea to drown themselves.
This was pretty common in the Middle Ages, for example.
But that's what he's saying, you know, they'd be better off just to be killed.
And they should be put to death.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court in the United States has ruled, I believe it was about seven or eight years ago,
they said that no pedophiles shall ever be put to death ever again.
They actually ruled against pedophiles getting the death penalty.
So now the only way to get the death penalty anywhere in America is first degree murder.
And even in most places that won't happen.
But it used to be that child molesters were eligible for that, if they were the grossest offenders.
I think any of them should receive it immediately,
as long as they're proven to be guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.
It's wicked.
And so that's what the Bible says here, that they should definitely be killed.
It teaches that in the Old Testament, obviously,
but the New Testament reiterates a lot of these same things because God hates that sin.
And Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world.
And so if we love little children, then we would have to hate those who would harm innocent little children
and do horrific things to them. How could you not?
And then say that you love the children.
And when I find people defending this behavior,
it just makes me think that the person defending it is also a sick pervert.
Because why would you defend that?
Any normal person is so horrified by it that they would not defend that person.
But now we're being told it's an alternative lifestyle.
We're being told that it's an orientation. Sound familiar?
That's what they're saying now. It's an orientation.
That's a different orientation.
It's not an orientation at all.
It's the worst kind of filth and perversion.
It's evil, it's wicked, and they should be killed.
Okay, then he changes gears in verse 3.
He says, Take heed to yourselves, if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him.
And if he repent, forgive him.
And if he trespass against thee seven times a day,
and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.
Now the Bible teaches a lot about repentance.
And this is another great scripture on forgiveness, I should say.
The Bible teaches both.
But the Bible teaches a lot on forgiveness and forgiving our brother
and forgiving those who wrong us and forgiving our enemies.
This has nothing to do with the guy in verses 1 and 2.
That guy needs to be killed.
People want to take verses about forgiving your brother who trespasses against you
and then try to apply that to someone who harms a child.
That's not even a trespass against me.
That's a trespass against some innocent child.
And that molester should be put to death.
So don't twist scripture.
This is talking about if your brother, what does it mean by your brother?
We're talking about your fellow believer, right?
We're talking about your brother and sister in Christ.
Or it could be referring to your physical brother if they trespass against you.
So what are some ways that your brother could trespass against you?
What are some ways that your brother would trespass against you?
What's that?
He might steal from you.
He might lie about you.
Or he might maybe physically smite you, hit you, push you, shove you, right?
Say something bad about you, yell at you, steal something from you.
What else?
That's about it.
Wear the dress on the same day as you.
No, I'm just kidding.
Not shake your hand.
But, you know, the point is that not send you a thank you card.
So the thing about this is that if our brother trespasses against us, we're to rebuke him.
Now this is actually taught in Leviticus chapter 19.
Almost word for word, in Leviticus 19, it talks about rebuking your neighbor.
Now what is a rebuke?
A rebuke is when you tell them that they've done you wrong.
You confront that person and say, hey, you've done wrong by me.
Now we don't want to do this for every little thing.
That's why I jokingly brought up some of the scenarios that would be the wrong scenario.
Like, you know, getting snubbed a little bit.
Or I brought food to the shower and they wouldn't taste my food.
Or, you know, whatever just kind of silly things.
Or they didn't attend my baby shower.
They wore the same dress.
They knew I was going to wear that dress and they stole my thunder.
So we don't want to just get petty and constantly just be rebuking our brothers and sisters in Christ just for dumb little things.
He gave me a dirty look.
He didn't shake my hand.
He walked away when I was in the middle of telling a story.
Just let those kind of things go.
But if somebody actually commits a sin against you, somebody actually does something serious that was seriously wrong,
the Bible does tell us to rebuke that person.
Now, why would we rebuke that person?
Why not just let it go?
Well, if it's something small and you're able to just let it go, then great.
Let it go.
But a lot of times as human beings, we might struggle just to let it go.
So it'll help if we get it off our chest by just going to that person and telling them,
look, you did wrong by me.
You know, I can think of some examples where I've done this in the not too distant past.
That's where I went to somebody and said, hey, I don't appreciate what you did there.
You know, you did wrong by me.
And then the person said, I'm sorry.
And then basically we were friends again.
And it was just good to just clear the air, get it off my chest, tell them what the problem was.
And then we were able to be friends.
And then there's no bitterness because the worst thing that can happen is bitterness that festers day after day, week after week.
The Bible tells us we're not supposed to let the sun go down on our wrath.
And in that same passage, it says be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake had forgiven you.
And so we want to be able to forgive people and not let the sun go down on our wrath and not have bitterness that rots and cankers and gets worse.
So we want to always, when we're offended by something and it's actually something that's serious enough where we're not just being a total snowflake about it, you know, just go to that person and just tell them.
And the goal with that is to make things right, just to let them know you did wrong.
And then that person says that they're sorry.
And what does the Bible say?
If he repent, forgive him.
Now, here's one of my biggest pet peeves in the world.
When you apologize to somebody and they don't forgive you.
And I'm not talking about a fake apology.
You know, well, I'm sorry that you took it that way.
That's a fake apology.
Well, I'm sorry what I said offended you.
You know, I'm talking about when you give somebody a sincere apology, when you go to somebody and just say, look, I was wrong.
It was my mistake.
Please forgive me.
And they don't forgive you.
I mean, first of all, it's wicked.
It's unchristian.
It's wrong.
And when you, now look, just because you forgive somebody, it doesn't mean that you have to be best friends with that person.
But you should be able to forgive that person.
And if somebody tells you I'm sorry, what's the right answer if somebody says I'm sorry?
What's the answer?
No problem.
It's okay.
I forgive you.
And, you know, sometimes you'll see this in public.
You know, let's say you're pushing the shopping cart.
You accidentally cut somebody off.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
What should that person say when you say, oh, I'm so sorry?
Oh, it's okay.
No problem, right?
That's forgiveness right there.
But you know those people who are just like, watch where you're going.
You know, you've already said you're sorry.
You've already taken full responsibility for what you've done.
So when you take, when somebody takes responsibility and says you're right, I shouldn't have done that, I'm sorry, you must forgive them.
It's not optional.
Not you should, but just you must just forgive them.
Well, but this person's already done the same thing before.
But what does the Bible say here?
It says that if, and obviously Jesus is just using an extreme example here just to drive in the point.
If he trespassed against thee seven times in a day.
So seven times in one day he sins against you and then turns again to you saying, I repent.
Thou shalt forgive him.
Now obviously that's ridiculous.
That's probably never going to happen.
But what's he doing?
He's using that extreme example just to say there's no limit on this.
If somebody repents, you must forgive them, right?
Without limitation.
And then later on his apostles say, well, you know, so it's just till seven times, right?
Now he said seven times in one day.
But they come to him and say, you know, how many times do I forgive my brother till seven times?
He said, I say not unto thee till seven times, but until seventy times seven.
Okay.
Four hundred and ninety times.
So obviously, what's he trying to say?
Just as many times as they do wrong and they're sorry.
That's how many times you forgive them.
So forgiveness is pretty important.
We must practice this.
And it is never excusable to have bitterness in your heart.
And right now there could even be people in here right now.
I don't know of any situations, but there could even be people in here right now that have bitterness towards someone else in this church in their heart right now.
And let me tell you right now, I don't care what it is, you're wrong.
Unless it happened today.
Then I'll let you stew on that until tomorrow morning, okay?
But do not carry these things with you.
And you know how you can tell when people do this?
Because you'll do somebody wrong, or at least in their mind you did them wrong, and they start pulling stuff out from three months ago.
Pulling stuff out from six months ago.
Pulling stuff out from a year ago.
What does that mean?
That means they've been thinking about that.
Because otherwise, why would that just roll off their tongue?
And by the way, how about in your marriage?
Right? When your husband or your wife does something wrong, do you just start pulling stuff out from a month ago?
A year ago? Five years ago? Ten years ago?
People do, and that's when they have a bad marriage.
You gotta let things go.
You gotta start, I mean look, the longer you're married, the more offenses are gonna rack up.
You gotta let that stuff go.
You gotta keep pushing that reset button.
Because if you, I mean look, I've been married for 17 years.
What if my wife just brought out to me tonight when I got home, everything I've done wrong in the last 17 years?
And then I said, well yeah?
And then I pulled out everything she'd done wrong over the last 17 years.
First of all, the fact that I remember it shows I've been brooding on it, dwelling on it.
Otherwise you'd forget those things.
And we should forgive and forget.
Now, let me just give one caveat here though.
This does not mean that you must be friends with everyone at church.
You can refuse to be friends with anyone you want to at this church.
You reserve the right to refuse friendship to anyone.
Okay, now, what am I saying?
There are gonna be some people that you just don't get along with.
They're just not your type of person, personality conflict, whatever you want to call it.
You're not allowed to be bitter to that person, grudge against that person, have ill will, hatred, contempt in your heart toward that person.
But it is okay just to decide, these are the people I want to be friends with, these are people that I don't care for, I don't want to be friends with.
But you still have to be polite to them, friendly to them, you greet them.
You don't treat them rudely, but they're just not gonna be your best buddy.
They're not gonna be your bosom buddy.
I've had people come to me and want me to force other people to be friends with them.
And I tell them no. I say no, those people don't have to be friends with you.
They told their kids not to hang around with my kids.
That's up to them. That's their prerogative.
If they don't want their kid dating your kid, or they don't want their son dating your daughter, or they don't want their kids being buddies with your kids.
You know what, that's their prerogative.
Now we should all be able to treat each other well, and be friendly, and serve the Lord together.
And we can all go soul winning together, and work together.
But, we don't have to be friends with anyone.
And look, if somebody doesn't want to be your friend, that's okay because there's 300 other people to choose from.
Just find a different friend.
And that's what normal people do by the way.
Normal people, they get the hint.
Normal people want to be friends with people who want to be friends with them back.
That's what a normal person does.
So when they extend a hand of friendship, and they're rebuffed, they just move on to the next person.
But there are some people who go crazy with this.
And they just won't let it go.
And they must be your friend.
And that is not normal behavior.
And so that's not what I'm saying when I say you must forgive.
But you must love all of your brothers and sisters in Christ.
And be civil with them, and be friendly with them.
But you don't have to be their friend.
You don't have to hang out with them.
So there's a distinction there.
So there's no limit on forgiving people that do you wrong in the church.
You just keep doing it.
You just keep on doing it.
And there's no limit to that.
Then the Bible says in verse 5,
And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
And the Lord said, If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed,
you might say unto this sycamond tree,
Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea, and it should obey you.
But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle,
will say unto him by and by when he has come down from the field,
Go and sit down to meet,
and will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup,
and gird thyself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunken.
Afterward thou shalt eat and drink.
Doth he thank that servant, because he did the things that were commanded him?
I trow not.
So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you,
say, We are unprofitable servants.
We have done that which was our duty to do.
What's the Bible saying here?
Don't pat yourself on the back too much just for doing your job,
just for doing your duty.
And he says, Look, if you've done everything that's commanded you,
he said that you should say, We're unprofitable servants.
We've done that which was our duty to do.
What's he saying?
You haven't done anything above and beyond.
So don't just pat yourself on the back because you just showed up to church.
Oh, wow, you read your Bible, you prayed, you showed up to church,
you did some soul winning.
You know what? That's great.
That's what you ought to be doing.
But don't get too puffed up and high-minded
because that's the stuff that's just your duty to do.
The Bible says that offering ourselves to Christ as a living sacrifice
is our reasonable service.
It's our duty.
And by the way, husband, when you go out and work your job and pay the bills,
that's your duty.
And wives, when you cook three wholesome meals a day
and clean the house and raise the children, that's your duty to do.
And you shouldn't expect to be thanked every time you do the housework
any more than your husband should be.
Expect to be thanked every day he comes home from work.
Thank you, honey, for going to work today.
Thank you for going to work again.
Now look, if you want to thank people overly like that
and just thank them every time they turn around,
that's one thing, but we shouldn't just expect thanks
every time we do the most basic thing that's requested of us.
You know, sometimes I've been criticized
because while I was in the middle of preaching,
somebody came up and gave me water while I was in the middle of preaching,
and I didn't stop and say,
Why, thank you, sir, and then go back to preaching.
And they said I should be modeling, you know, polite behavior
by saying thank you when my child or my wife comes up and brings me a glass of water.
Now look, let me say this.
I frequently use the words please and thank you with my wife and children.
And I do use polite words and am friendly with them.
But you know what?
There are a lot of times when I actually just tell my kids to do something
and I don't say please and I don't say thank you.
You know why?
They need to learn also that they're not doing me a favor by serving me
because that's their duty, that's their job.
They're children and they're to obey their parents,
they're to fear their mother and father
and honor their mother and father as the Bible says.
So it's not like we're on an even playing field,
me and my teenage son, you know.
So I say to him, go get me a glass of water.
He better just go get the glass of water and bring it to me,
and I say please and thank you and whatever.
That's not the point.
You say, well, I don't agree with you.
But what does the Bible say?
The Bible says here that when the master tells his servant,
look down at the Bible there,
we will not rather say unto him,
make ready wherewith I may sup and gird thyself and serve me
till I've eaten and drunken and afterward thou shalt eat and drink.
Did he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him?
I try not.
So, you know, you don't expect your boss to say thank you
every time you do something for him at work
or to ask you pretty please with sugar on top
to tell you to do your job and obey, right?
So we in America can sometimes go a little bit overboard on politeness,
perhaps because this is from our British progenitors over in England.
You know, they're a little bit too polite sometimes.
So I'm all for being polite.
I'm all for using good manners and saying please and thank you.
But it's a little bit overboard
when we're constantly feeling like we have to do that within our own family,
telling our own children what to do.
You know, it's not always necessary.
Sometimes it can be over the top.
And we need to teach our children respect also.
Manners are great, but you know what else they need to learn is respect nowadays.
And there are some weird ideas about parenting going around right now.
My wife is always telling me all these horror stories she hears about.
We're living in some strange times in regard to parenting.
People who don't spank their children,
they don't even tell their children no in many cases.
There are types of parenting now.
Forget lack of spanking.
They don't even believe in telling them no.
A lot of this attachment parenting, is there another term for it?
What's it called?
Radical unschooling or something.
They call it unschooling,
where not only do they not send them to school,
but they don't even homeschool them.
They just let them do whatever they want.
They don't teach them anything.
They want them to just kind of learn on their own.
And their goal is to have semi-feral children basically.
And that's even their stated goal.
Okay.
So we're living in some really weird times.
And people are spending like $500 on each child for their Christmas gift.
$1,000 per child on Christmas gifts.
Just crazy.
Just spoiling them.
Just spoiling them rotten.
And then, you know, it's demonized even making your kids do housework.
Like, well, that's your job to do the housework.
You know, they're just a kid.
You need to take it.
Look, in our house, the kids do housework.
Let me tell you something.
And I refuse to do any chore in my house that my sons are able to do.
Because, you know, when my wife sometimes will ask me to do something like take out the trash,
I always say, you know, I took out the trash for years,
but I didn't have nine children so that I could take out the trash.
You know, why should some able-bodied teenager sit on his butt while I go take out the trash?
I'm going to sit on my butt and my teenager is going to go take out the trash.
That's the way things work in my house.
And you know what?
We're going to raise a generation of spoiled brats if we just give them everything on a silver platter,
don't make them work, everything is, oh, would you please, son, would you please?
Pretty please with sugar on top?
Do this.
Hey, I say to my son, I say, give me a glass of water.
Give me a pint of milk.
Give me a pint of water.
Give me, right?
And they bring it to me.
And sometimes I thank them and sometimes I don't.
And it's not optional.
And they better do it with alacrity.
And they better do it quickly and they better obey and they better work.
And you know what?
They help take care of the younger children too.
Oh, you just keep having kids and making the older kids take care of the younger kids.
You got it right.
That's the plan.
And you know what?
I always tell people the more kids you have, it just gets easier.
The hardest part of having a big family, you know, besides paying for it,
the hardest part of that, the hardest part of having a big family is when they're all too young to help.
So it's really like the first four.
Because people think like, oh, it must be so hard to have nine kids, ten kids.
But really having four kids is the hardest.
Because it's not like we keep adding younger kids.
We always have a baby in diapers.
We always have a few, you know, it's like we always have that one-year-old, that three-year-old, that five-year-old.
Those ages never change.
We're actually adding them on the top if you think.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
You know, instead of having five, three, and one, we have seven, five, three, and one.
Then we have nine, seven, five, three, and one.
Then we have eleven, nine, seven, five, three, and one.
Well, what do you think is harder?
Having seven, five, three, and one?
Or having fifteen, thirteen, eleven?
You know, because what?
The fifteen-year-old, the thirteen-year-old, the eleven-year-old.
Hey, you know what?
They're changing loads of laundry.
They're doing dishes.
They're sweeping the floor.
They're mowing the lawn.
They're taking out the trash.
And you know what?
At least they're learning how to work.
And they're learning respect.
And they're learning that the world doesn't owe them a living.
That they earn their keep.
They pull their own weight.
And that they are a part of the family.
They're going to eat.
They better pitch in.
If they don't do their chores, then they're not going to eat.
Well, you know what?
They're not going to end up bums on the street corner.
They're going to end up working hard, doing their job.
And look, when I got a job,
I was thankful for all the times that my dad had pushed me and made me work hard.
And he sure didn't say please and thank you when I worked with him on electrical work.
He was rough to work for.
And I remember, I mean, he was hard to work for.
But I remember I got a boss later on in life that was worse than him.
And I told my dad, I said, Dad, this guy I'm working for now,
he makes you look like Mr. Rogers.
Like, this guy's so mean.
And I was like, thank you, Dad.
You know, you prepared me because I'm making great money at this job.
And I'm the only guy who can handle this boss.
You know, everybody else keeps quitting and everything.
But I stay because, you know, I'm home.
I can handle this.
So, you know, I'm for manners.
I'm for saying thank you.
But what the Bible says here, this is from the Bible, everybody.
What the Bible is saying here is that there are situations where a thank you is not necessary and is not appropriate.
And so if the boss at work tells you to do something, he doesn't have to say thank you.
If your parents tell you to do something, they don't have to say thank you.
Even Jesus, what did he say to the woman at the well?
Woman, give me the drink.
So there's a place for manners.
And there's a place where we get so over the top with our manners that we're actually training our children possibly to think that they're on some kind of an even playing field with us.
And that they're doing us a favor when they bring us a glass of water or fetch the paper or the slippers or the pipe or anything else.
Amen.
I don't smoke a pipe.
But anyway, let's go down to the Bible here.
It says in verse 11, it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.
And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers which stood afar off.
And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us.
And when he saw them, he said unto them, go show yourselves unto the priests.
And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed.
And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet giving him thanks and he was a Samaritan.
And Jesus answered and said, were there not nine, I'm sorry, were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?
There are not found that return to give glory to God save this stranger.
And he said unto him, arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.
That's a great story.
So when, in the Old Testament, when they were cleansed of leprosy, they were supposed to go and show themselves to the priests.
Remember those chapters in Leviticus that go on and on about leprosy?
And they tell you that when you have a discoloration in your skin, you're supposed to go show it to the priest.
And he either declares you unclean or he certifies you as clean.
Okay.
So he's kind of like a doctor in this regard in that he's diagnosing the situation.
Now there's no cure for it at that time.
So he's not doling out any medicine or anything like that.
The purpose of his diagnosis of unclean was so that you would not be contagious to other people.
So the person who was found to be leprous, they had to dwell away from the rest of the people that were clean.
And not only that, but they had to put a cloth over their mouth, sort of like what we would have as a, what do you call those things?
Surgical mask.
Basically like a little surgical mask.
They would have a cloth that would come down from their upper lip here and would cover their mouth so that they would not spread germs.
By the way, this is way ahead of its time because germ theory is only a couple hundred years old.
And the Bible talks about washing your hands and running water, cleaning the bed that the sick person was on, cleaning the chair that they sat in, the cup that they drank out of.
Even a few hundred years ago, people were failing to do that.
And doctors would wash their hands in a basin of water that was not running water.
The Bible says running water.
They would pour water.
Remember, Elisha poured water over the hands of Elijah.
So in that scripture, it talks about how they're to show themselves to the priest.
And if he declares them unclean, they have to basically sound an alarm, ring a bell, and they had to yell out,
unclean, unclean, and have that thing covering their mouth just so people could get a safe distance from them.
And people wouldn't get too close to them and pick up the germs that they were carrying as lepers.
It's pretty easy to understand, isn't it?
Well, but if you go to Bible college and Bible seminaries and you get your Master of Divinity and you get your Doctor of Divinity
and you actually become a scholar and a theologian, you'll realize that the King James Bible did not properly render the Hebrew here when it said unclean.
What it really should say is ritually impure.
Ritually impure is what it should say.
Now, what's so stupid about this?
And by the way, it's coming from the Jews because the Jews, the Talmud and the Hebrew scholars and the rabbis, they say,
oh, that leprosy, that's not what we know today as leprosy.
It's this other thing.
And they say it wasn't contagious at all.
This is what the Hebrew scholars will tell you.
This is what the PhDs will tell you.
This is what the rabbis will tell you.
Look it up.
They will say, hey, this had nothing to do with being contagious because the disease in the Bible known as leprosy was not contagious, says the Talmud.
And it wasn't that they were unclean like.
Like what do you think unclean, let me ask a young child.
Okay, let's find a young child.
What do you think, what does unclean mean?
Just what does unclean mean?
It means it isn't clean.
It means it's not clean.
How old are you?
Nine.
All right, good job.
Or you're ten, all right.
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
Unclean means it's not clean.
What's another word for something not being clean?
Unhealthy.
Unhealthy, yeah, that's true.
Yeah, but if something's not clean, it's?
What's the opposite of clean?
Dirty.
Dirty, there we go.
Okay, so you could save a lot of money by not going to Bible college, young lady.
Because you've already got this figured out.
That unclean means it's not clean, it's dirty.
Right, everybody got that?
Now look, if somebody's sick and they've got germs and they say, hey, unclean, right?
Why?
Because things that aren't clean carry germs and make you sick.
Everybody got that?
Now, the rabbis hate the Lord.
How do we know that?
Because they hate Jesus and Jesus is the Lord.
And you know what?
Jesus said, he that hateth me, hateth my Father also.
That's what he said.
So if they hate Jesus, we know that they hate who?
God the Father.
That's what Christ told us.
So, because they hate the Lord, they don't even want to give the Lord credit for understanding
germ theory 3,000 years ago.
Right?
Which, I mean, should really glorify God, the fact that Leviticus is so up to date
from a medical, scientific standpoint of saying, wow, they're saying that bed's unclean
because the sick person sat on it.
Now, that's pretty advanced thought.
And we take that for granted in 2017 because we grew up learning that.
But to people in the Middle Ages, that would have been revolutionary.
That could have saved their lives to understand this concept.
So, Leviticus is way ahead of its time, but the rabbis, they don't want to give God
the glory.
So what they say, oh, it has nothing to do with sanitation.
It has nothing to do with being clean.
It has nothing to do with germs.
It's just ritual impurity.
And in a lot of the modern Bible versions, they'll even change it to where it says
that the guy is supposed to walk around saying, ritually impure, ritually impure.
Who's that stupid to think that somebody actually walked through the street when they
have leprosy saying, ritually impure?
And wouldn't it make more sense if they said, unclean, right, so that everybody could back off?
I'm sick, everybody.
I'm not clean.
Keep your distance.
Okay.
So that's what that's about.
That makes sense.
And it makes sense that they cover their mouth to keep the germs from coming out.
That these modern Bible versions and these so-called scholars professing themselves to
be wise, they became fools.
That's why we should just trust what the King James says.
It makes perfect sense.
This new so-called scholarship, it doesn't even make sense.
Like, these people, it's like they're so out of reality in these seminaries.
It's like, hello, can you land the spacecraft and just think for a second?
They have leprosy.
They're not clean.
It's contagious.
That's why they're ringing a bell.
It has nothing to do with rituals.
You know, it has nothing to do with ritual impurity.
So basically, these guys are being sent to the priest.
Jesus runs into these guys that are lepers, and he tells them, go show yourself to the priest.
What's he telling them?
Obey the Bible.
Right?
Because the Bible says that when you're a leprous, you're supposed to go show yourself to the priest.
Now, maybe they'd already shown themselves to the priest, and they'd already been declared unclean, and so forth.
But he's telling them, go show yourself to the priest.
So on the way there, while they're going to do that, their leprosy just goes away.
And they notice that all of a sudden their skin looks right on the way to showing the priest.
So the reason that Jesus was telling them to go show themselves to the priest was because of the fact that he knew that they're going to be healed on the way there
so they could show themselves to the priest and get certified clean again.
They could go about their lives.
Just like another time when a leper came and kneeled before Jesus, he said, Lord, if thou wilt, if you want to, you can make me clean.
And Jesus had compassion on him, and he reached forth his hand and touched him and said, I will, be thou clean.
And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
What did he tell the guy to do next?
This is in Mark chapter 1.
He said, go show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them.
You know, he's telling them, follow Leviticus, follow the Bible, follow the protocol.
By the way, you know what the NIV does to that story?
In the NIV, Mark chapter 1, verse 41, instead of looking upon him with compassion and saying, I will, be thou clean,
the Bible says he looked on him with anger, with indignation.
So this guy comes to him, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
I will, be thou clean.
That's how it is in NIV.
I'm telling you, these people are complete idiots.
They're idiotic.
Like, who in their right mind would say, oh, that's what it's supposed to say.
But this is why there's so much weird stuff like that in these new versions.
One of the rules of their textual criticism is that if they have two manuscripts, two Greek manuscripts,
and one of them sounds weird, and one of them sounds right, they always go with the one that sounds weird.
You say, well, why is that?
Well, here's what they say.
They say, well, if there's one that sounds weird and one that sounds right,
the one that sounds right, somebody probably changed it to make it sound right.
I'm not kidding.
Read any book on textual criticism.
Any book on textual criticism, read James White's materials, and that's what he tells you.
He says, you go with the weird one because the one that sounds a little too good,
sounds a little too right, sounds too perfect,
that's obviously some zealous scribe was fixing the error.
But I want to know what Mark wrote.
I don't want to know what some scribe changed it to.
You know, Mark wrote.
It makes more sense that Mark wrote he was mad at the guy,
and then some scribe said, well, this can't be right.
Why would he get mad?
It's all changing.
He had compassion.
No fool.
Obviously, it said he had compassion because God didn't write a book that doesn't make sense.
And by the way, 99% of the manuscripts are usually on board with the King James.
The majority text is usually, the vast majority of the time, on board with the King James, not the modern versions.
The modern versions are usually based on very few manuscripts that have it wrong.
You know, what actually happened is that some careless scribe messed up and left out a letter or added a letter,
and sometimes just changing one letter in a word can make it into a totally different word, right?
And it can even just completely, dramatically change the meaning.
So what it is is that there are some corrupted manuscripts out there,
and these modern versions, they love to go with the corruption.
That's why in John chapter 1, when it says the begotten son in John 1-18,
the begotten son, there are a few, a very small minority of manuscripts that say the begotten God.
Well, they're like, that sounds weird.
Begotten God?
That must be right, because that sounds weird.
No, who would change it to that?
You know, they think that the zealous scribe, oh, it must have meant son.
No, no, no, it's the begotten son.
Begotten God was the mess-up, okay?
That's why there's so few of them, and that's why it sounds weird and doesn't make any sense.
So anyway, I don't want to go on and on about that, although I do want to go on about that.
I'm not going to.
So in the story, only one of them comes back to say thank you,
and Jesus seems to indicate that the guy who said thank you to him was doing the right thing by saying thank you to him.
That was a good thing, that he came back and said thank you and glorified God.
And the guy who said thank you happened to be a Samaritan.
That's a common theme that comes up in the New Testament of Samaritans doing good things, right?
Especially in the book of Luke.
Samaritans that are being godly or Samaritans that God loves.
And I think God's just trying to show us that he's not a respecter of persons here.
So he'll show sometimes stories where the Jews are doing the wrong thing and the Samaritans do the right thing.
There are multiple stories like that in the book of Luke, because God's not a respecter of persons.
He's trying to show us that their nationality doesn't really matter.
And so here, the Samaritan says thank you, and he tells him, arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.
Now, this is a great illustration that has often been used in regard to soul winning, okay?
Let's say we go out and get ten people saved, right?
Well, if we get ten people saved, are all ten of them going to come to church?
But the non-soul winning fools, though, that's what they say, isn't it?
The people who are against soul winning, oh yeah, well where are all these people that you want in the Lord?
You know, you claim that you had all these hundreds of people saved, thousands of people saved, where are they all?
Well, the truth of the matter is that most of them are going to be like these nine lepers, where they get cleansed,
but that doesn't mean that they're going to come follow Christ or say thank you.
They might just go their way and just be cleansed.
Now look, these guys didn't get, he didn't say, okay you nine, you didn't say thank you, you all have leprosy again.
They went away and remained clean. They remained cleansed, okay?
So it's the same way with soul winning.
You know, when we go out and win somebody onto Christ and they believe on Christ, they're saved, they're cleansed.
Their faith has made them spiritually whole.
And whether or not they come to church, whether or not they thank us, whether or not they ever serve God with us side by side,
it doesn't mean that they didn't get saved.
Now the reason why this doctrine is so convenient is because there are people who get nobody saved,
and then there are people like us who get lots of people saved.
Well, the people who are getting nobody saved, that's embarrassing to them.
So they have to have some way to explain why they're not doing anything for the Lord.
So the way they have to explain it is, well, you guys aren't doing anything for the Lord either.
So let's stop and think about this.
According to us as Fundamental Baptists, we believe that we are going out and getting thousands of people saved,
because we have 200 people out soul winning every week, and we're taking missions trips all the time.
We got a couple of our guys in Jamaica right now going soul winning on a weekly basis.
Almost every day they're out doing something, winning souls,
setting up appointments for our big missions trip that's coming up on January 28th,
where we're going to be preaching in schools.
We're going to preach to thousands of students, God willing.
We're going to give the gospel to hundreds of people one on one through soul winning.
So we've always got all this action going on, right?
Like this Friday, we got the trip where we're taking a group up to the Navajo reservation
and doing a couple days of soul winning up there,
and rolling up our sleeves and working all the time, week in, week out, month in, month out.
And as a result, we get thousands of people saved.
As a result, we end up baptizing hundreds and hundreds of people.
As a result, the church grows, right?
Now, so according to our belief, we're having success,
and then we'll look at the dead church and say, oh, they're doing nothing, right?
They're doing nothing.
They haven't baptized anybody in months or years.
There's no soul winning. There's nothing going on.
So according to what we believe, we look at these dead churches and say, wow, they're not doing anything.
And then we're doing something, okay?
Their answer is, well, all those people that you guys are reaching aren't getting saved.
Here's why that doesn't make sense.
Just think about this from a logical standpoint.
Then according to them, nobody's getting a lot of people saved on the whole planet then.
Because they know they're not, and now they're saying that we're not.
So here's my question. Who is?
Who is, right?
And if they looked at the liberal charismatics and the TV preachers,
they don't think that they're having a bunch of people saved, which they're not.
So here's my question to all these dead, non-soul winning Baptist churches that criticize soul winning.
Where are all these people that you want to look?
Here's what I want to know.
Where are the multitudes getting saved that we see in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts?
In Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, we see multitudes of people getting saved.
All throughout the book of Acts, they're getting hundreds of people saved.
Thousands of people are getting saved.
Thousands of people are getting baptized.
What? So that just doesn't happen anymore?
Well, we're living in the wildest sea in church age.
And these, it's just so funny how these people, they think they're so right,
and that the soul winning churches are wrong,
as they sit in some tiny church that never grows and never wins anybody the Lord, hardly at all.
Look, when I was a teenager and I read the book of Acts,
I expected to see something like that in reality.
You know, if I'm reading Acts and I'm seeing all this preaching and these exploits
and all these salvations and baptisms, and I'm seeing persecution,
and then I look around at my church,
I mean, the church I went to at that time, when I first read the Bible cover to cover,
had baptized like one person in the last five years.
And that, to me, that didn't jive with what I was reading in the Bible.
That's why I knew there was something wrong with that church.
That's when we ended up switching to an independent, fundamental Baptist church.
And lo and behold, tons of people are being saved, baptized,
the church is growing, there's action.
I mean, the book's called Acts.
That's short for action.
So it doesn't make any sense, this attitude that says,
oh, the people that you guys are getting saved out of soul winning,
they're not really getting saved.
Because, in fact, soul winning doesn't work.
Because you can't get these people to show you an alternative that's working.
You know what I mean?
They can't show you other ways of getting multitudes of people saved that they're doing.
It's just like, oh, well, I just practice lifestyle evangelism.
I just sort of befriend people and slowly kind of show them the love of Christ over time.
And just to answer the question of where are all the people that we win to the Lord,
well, here's the thing.
A lot of them live four or five hours away.
That's why they don't come to our church.
Now, does that really shock you that much,
that when we go to Tuba City and Kayenta and Window Rock
and San Carlos and Cibicue,
does it really shock you that those people don't just hop in the car on Sunday morning
and drive four hours each way to come to our church?
Well, they must have not really gotten saved then.
Think about how dumb that is.
Most of our soul winning now takes place at least 20 minutes from our church,
or 30 minutes from our church.
And some people that aren't diehards aren't going to drive that far to come to church.
By the way, a lot of people that we win to the Lord don't even speak English.
Because we win to the Lord in Spanish.
So is it really shocking that they don't come back and say gracias?
Where are the nueve that were cleansed?
They don't even speak English.
Or how about this?
Aren't a lot of the people that we win to the Lord teenagers?
They don't even drive.
They don't even have a ride.
It's not even up to them where they go to church.
It's up to their parents.
Or how about people that we win to the Lord that are already in church?
And they already go to a Baptist church, but they're not saved.
You think everybody at a Baptist church is saved?
No, because you'll run into people who are already going to a Baptist church,
but they're not even saved.
But you know what?
After they get saved, a lot of times they'll just continue going to the church
where their friends go, their mom goes, their dad goes.
Or I've won people to the Lord and then they're immediately recruited by their saved relatives.
Who didn't bother getting them saved,
but are all the more ready to suck them up into their liberal church.
So the point is there are a whole multitude of reasons why people don't come to church
after we win to the Lord.
Sometimes it's just because they're shy.
And just showing up at a church where they don't know anybody is a lot to ask.
So there's a whole multitude of reasons why everybody we win to the Lord
isn't going to come to church.
But at the end of the day, if we're winning people to the Lord,
and a bunch of people are being baptized, and the church is growing,
we're fulfilling the Great Commission.
Because we're teaching all things that Christ commanded Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.
And the thing about that is that when our church started 12 years ago,
it was my family of five and a few visitors.
The first service had nine people in it.
Sunday night had seven people in it.
Wednesday night was just my family.
The next Sunday morning we'd grown from nine to eight.
So here we are 12 years later running over 300 on Sunday mornings.
So if we started 12 years ago with seven, nine people,
five, seven, nine, ten, that was our attendance.
And now we're running over 300 on Sunday mornings,
somebody got discipled somewhere along the way.
Oh, you're just winning people to the Lord, but you're not discipling anybody.
Somebody got discipled, apparently.
So, you know, their arguments don't hold water.
Why they're running 20 and never doing any soul winning,
never winning anybody to the Lord, doesn't make any sense to then turn around and say,
well, you guys can't be succeeding.
This can't be the Holy Spirit.
This can't be, you know, actually working.
Because otherwise, why isn't it working for us?
It's not working because you're not doing anything.
That's the true story, folks.
And I got to hurry up.
I'm not going to get through the whole chapter tonight.
But the Bible says in verse 20,
and when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come,
he answered them and said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation,
neither shall they say lo here or lo there,
for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Now, this is one of the most abused verses in the Bible.
People will take this verse and try to just throw out the whole book of Revelation, right?
Throw out all the end times prophecies elsewhere in the gospels,
even throw out the rest of the chapter, of this chapter,
that talks about the rapture and Christ's return and everything like that.
Hopefully by now, if you've been with us here for the last 16 chapters of Luke,
you've heard me talk about this a lot in the book of Luke,
about the fact that when Jesus is talking to the Pharisees,
unbelievers, or just the multitudes at large,
that he often answers them in a tricky way, right?
Do you remember me saying that over and over again?
And we've seen numerous examples of this in Luke,
where when he talks to the multitudes, when he talks to the enemies, the Pharisees,
he'll answer them in these really dark sayings and tricky sayings.
But then what does he do when he gets alone with the disciples?
He explains everything crystal clear and there's no misunderstanding.
But people will take what he says to the multitude and run with it
and ignore the clear teaching that he gives to the disciples.
And this is another case of that right here,
where look at who the audience is, verse 20,
and when he was demanded of the Pharisees.
Now look, does that sound like they're asking him because they want to learn?
I mean, the word demanded, isn't that kind of a strong word?
Like, they're demanding of him.
So they're basically challenging him, putting him on the spot.
Oh yeah, well, since you know everything,
let me demand you to answer me this.
When is the kingdom of God going to come?
You know, they want to know the timing.
And this is what today people obsess about.
And what does the Bible tell us?
It's not for you to know the times or the seasons,
which the Father had put in his own power.
So it's not for us to know the times and the seasons,
but, you know, they demanded of him signs and wonders.
They demanded of him when the kingdom of God should come.
So he answers them and says,
the kingdom of God cometh not with observation,
neither shall they say lo here or lo there,
for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
That's a pretty cryptic answer.
That's it. That's all he says.
But then look at this.
And he said unto the disciples,
the days will come when ye shall desire to see
one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not see it.
And they shall say to you, see here or see there.
Now, notice in verse 21, what does it say?
Lo here or lo there.
Look what it says in verse 23.
See here or see there.
Now, what did he tell the Pharisees?
Oh, it doesn't come with observation.
The kingdom of God is within you.
He leaves them with that cryptic non-answer.
Then he goes to the disciples and he tells them,
he brings up the same stuff about,
you know, people are going to say,
see here and see there, but don't believe them.
Why? Because the kingdom of God is within you?
No. Because why?
What does it say?
Because as the lightning, verse 24,
that lighteneth out of one part under heaven,
shineth unto the other part under heaven,
so shall also the Son of Man be in his day.
But first, must he suffer many things
and be rejected of this generation?
And he goes into great detail explaining his second coming,
explaining the rapture.
He explains it in even more detail in Luke 21
when he talks about Jerusalem being destroyed,
talks about the anti-Christ and everything like that.
And then in the book of Revelation,
there's just tons of detail.
There is a kingdom of God coming on this earth.
There is a millennial reign of Christ.
There is a second coming.
There's so much scripture on it,
but I've literally seen people just take this one verse,
the kingdom of God's within you,
and just throw all that out.
And he's just answering them in a tricky way.
Now what did he mean by that?
When he says, you know,
oh, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation,
neither shall they say lo here or lo there,
for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
See, he's talking about something different to them.
What he's talking to them about is the fact basically
they're not even saved.
And when Christ came to this earth to die on the cross,
okay, it wasn't to set up his earthly kingdom
like they thought it was.
They thought the Messiah was going to come.
He's going to set up the kingdom.
And that's why even after the resurrection,
what did the apostles say to him?
Lord, will thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
That's what everybody was looking for,
a physical kingdom to be set up.
What did Christ actually do?
He came and set up a spiritual kingdom in our hearts.
Okay, because in the book of Daniel,
it talked about those four kingdoms
that would come on the earth.
Babylon, Medes and Persians, Greece, Rome.
And then he said after that,
there's going to be the kingdom
that's never going to be destroyed, right?
Well, that's what we saw with Christ's first coming.
He came during that fourth kingdom,
the Roman Empire,
and he set up a kingdom in our hearts,
a spiritual kingdom.
He's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
He rules in our hearts.
The kingdom of God right now is within us,
even today in 2017,
because Christ rules and reigns in our hearts, right?
Okay, well, but that does not mean
that there's not going to be a literal kingdom
on his second coming.
And so he's going to come in the future.
He's going to set up a physical kingdom.
But he's not revealing that to the Pharisees.
He only reveals that to his disciples.
What he's dealing with the Pharisees
is what they needed to deal with right then and there,
because they're not accepting the kingdom of God
that's being presented to them,
because these are the Pharisees that reject Jesus Christ.
They need to understand, no, no, it's within you
that Christ needs to rule and reign,
that he needs to set up his kingdom.
So he says that to them.
And you say, well, is he lying to them, though?
Because obviously God would never lie.
Christ could never lie.
Well, no, because when he says to them,
the kingdom of God cometh not with observation,
what he meant by that
is that basically cometh, present tense, right now,
what's coming right now,
the kingdom of God at this time, at the present,
cometh not with observation,
the kingdom of God's within you.
Why?
Because he's not coming at that point
to set up a physical kingdom.
It's his spiritual kingdom that he's setting up,
in the heart.
Now, what he did not say
is that the kingdom of God
is never going to come with observation.
It's never going to happen where you could see it,
because what does it mean to come with observation,
meaning where you could look at it and see it happening?
Well, here's the thing.
Will the kingdom of God someday come with observation?
Yeah, I mean, someday,
but it was long after these people are dead and gone,
so it's not really for them
because they're living during his first advent.
They're not living during his second advent.
So in the future, yeah,
Christ's going to come in the clouds,
and every eye's going to see him.
It's going to be like the lightning.
He's going to rain fire and brimstone on the earth,
but that wasn't really what pertained to them,
so he just focused with them on the spiritual
and just shut them up with that.
Then he took his disciples aside
and explained to them in detail.
So when you're studying the four gospels,
always put more weight on what he says
to the disciples in private,
when he's being clear,
when he's being blunt with them,
and always keep in your mind
that when he's talking to the crowds,
when he's talking to the multitudes,
that he's often using tricky language,
dark sayings, parables.
Why?
That seeing they would see not,
that hearing they would hear not,
that he might confound them.
And so that's a pretty important thing to know.
You get a lot of false doctrine
if you just start taking what he said to the Pharisees
and running with it when he's being tricky with them.
Why would he trick them?
Because they're bad people.
He wanted them to be deceived
because he said,
I want them to hear and not understand.
I want them to see and perceive not.
He said, their heart is waxed gross.
They're dull of hearing.
But, he says to his disciples,
unto you it is given to know the mysteries
of the kingdom of God,
but unto them it is not given.
The rest of the chapter here
is about the rapture.
I've already preached about it a whole bunch of times.
And so I'm just going to end the sermon there.
You know, watch after the tribulation
for crying out loud.
And I go through this whole scripture
and I preach this scripture till I'm blue in the face.
It's one of the best scriptures
for defeating this left behind model
of everybody disappearing
and nobody knows what happened.
I mean, this chapter just demolishes that.
But we don't have time.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much
for this great chapter, Lord.
And we just pray that you'd help us
to put these things into practice in our lives, Lord.
Help us to not sin against the little ones in any way,
even in a way of just causing them to sin
by even just letting them see us live a sinful life
and being a bad example to the little ones, Lord.
Help us not to offend or cause a stumbling block
to any of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And when people do us wrong, Lord,
help us to forgive them
when they say that they're sorry.
And help us to sincerely, from the bottom of our hearts,
forgive everyone who does us wrong, Lord.
And help us to be thankful
and all the other lessons from this chapter.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
We shall rise to be
the holy, holy, holy,
merciful and mighty,
God in great persons,
blessed Trinity.
Holy, holy, holy,
all the saints are holy,
blessed and their holy
friends are proud and blessed
to see the Lord
who's here with us today.
Holy, holy, holy,
grace work and glory,
heaven and earth shall be.
Holy, holy, holy,
all the darkest night,
glory at a simple end,
life will be with us here.
Holy, holy, power holy,
where is God beside you?
Earth, let me have it,
love and glory be.
Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty,
all that works shall
praise thy name with earth
and smile at sea.
Holy, holy, holy,
merciful and mighty,
God in great persons,
blessed Trinity.
.