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Amen, the title of my sermon this morning is expanding on God's commands, expanding on God's commands. Now we just looked at the list of God's most famous commandments, the Ten Commandments. And some of these commandments are pretty simple. Things like, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal. But what I want to preach to you this morning is the fact that there's a lot more contained in these commandments that meets the eye. In other places in the Bible, these commands are expanded to include a lot of other things. And so when we read the Bible and we come to God's commandments, we don't want to only just take what they're literally telling us, but we also want to expand that to the spirit of what's being commanded. And let me show you what I'm talking about. Go to Matthew chapter 5. We're going to take lessons from Jesus Christ himself on how to expand on God's commands and how to properly interpret the commands of God when we come to them in the Bible. Look at Matthew chapter number 5 in verse number 21. Jesus is going to make reference to a few of the Ten Commandments here in Matthew chapter 5. He says in verse 21, Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Rekha, shall be in danger of the counsel. But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. So he's saying, look, it's not enough just not to kill, but that we should also not be angry with our brother without a cause or hate our brother in our heart. Jump down if you would to verse number 27. The Bible says, Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Jump down to verse 32. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery. And whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, comitteth adultery. So according to the Bible, that commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery, that also means that we should not look on a woman to lust after her. It also means that we should not marry her that is divorced, okay? So there's more to it than just not going out and literally physically committing adultery. We should also not fantasize about that or crave that or think about that. When it comes to murder, yeah, we shouldn't murder someone, but we also should not fantasize about murdering someone or hate our brother in our heart or get angry without a cause. We could expand it further and say that we shouldn't just beat someone within and into their life, but is he dead though? I mean, but did I kill him though? No, but obviously in the spirit of the law here, there's the attitude of loving your neighbor as yourself. And that's why God even said that those last five commandments are all briefly summed up and comprehended in this one saying, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So in Matthew 5 here, we see Jesus expanding on thou shalt not kill, expanding on thou shalt not commit adultery. Flip back if you would in your Bible to Proverbs chapter number 6. Proverbs chapter number 6. Elsewhere in the New Testament, we can see where some of these commandments are expanded upon. Like, for example, the commandment, thou shalt not covet. It says in Hebrews 13, 5, let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So included in the command of not coveting is the reverse of that, be content. Because when you covet, you're desiring something that does not belong to you. Well the opposite of that is contentment, being happy with the things that you have. So when God says thou shalt not covet, he's also saying be content with such things as you have. When he says thou shalt not kill, he's also telling you to love your neighbor as yourself. When he says thou shalt not commit adultery, he's not just telling you not to literally lie with your neighbor's wife, although that's obviously the primary meaning. He's also telling you don't fantasize about that. He's also telling you to be faithful to your wife. So he's giving a positive command with the negative command. He tells you don't covet, but you should be content. He's telling you don't commit adultery, do be faithful to your wife. Love your wife. Love your husband. What about the commandment thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor? Now what this would literally be saying is don't go into court and testify under oath falsely against your neighbor and say, yup, I saw him do it, your honor, and give false evidence in court bearing false witness against your neighbor. That's the literal commandment there, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. You're testifying against him that he committed a crime or did something evil. But let's expand on that. Look at Proverbs chapter 6 verse 19. It says a false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among brethren. Go to Proverbs chapter 12 verse 17. While you're turning there, I'll read for you from Proverbs 19, a false witness shall not be unpunished and he that speaketh lies shall not escape. Verse 9, a false witness shall not be unpunished and he that speaketh lies shall perish. Look down at chapter 12 there verse 17. He that speaketh truth showeth forth righteousness, but a false witness deceit. Look at chapter 14, Proverbs 14 verse 5. Proverbs 14 verse 5 says a false witness will not lie, I'm sorry, excuse me, a faithful witness will not lie, but a false witness will utter lies. So when we look up all these verses in Proverbs about being a false witness, we find out that a false witness is somebody who lies. And we also find out that the opposite of that is telling the truth. So when God says, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, he's not saying, hey, it's okay to lie, just don't bear false witness in court against your neighbor. No, no, we need to expand on that and get the spirit of what's being said. Don't lie, tell the truth. So in the commandment not to lie is built in the reverse that we should tell the truth. So thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not bear false witness. There's more to it than just what's literally being said. The Bible expands on these things, okay. Now let's take the commandment thou shalt not steal. Obviously literally that would be referring to going and laying hands on someone else's goods and taking them for yourself. That's what stealing is. But if we expanded on that, then we would say, okay, what if you go to work, you clock in and you don't do your job. But you're taking a paycheck and you didn't do any work, you spent hours fooling around or not doing your job and then you turned in a timesheet that said you were working, isn't that stealing, right? So we don't want to just only take the most literal understanding of God's laws. We also want to go beyond that and expand on them. That's the way Jesus taught the Ten Commandments. That's the way the New Testament teaches the Ten Commandments and that's how we should read the Bible. The Bible says whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. So when he says thou shalt do no murder, he's also saying don't hate your brother in your heart. That's included in that same commandment. So there are many, many examples of this. Go if you would to Ephesians chapter number five, Ephesians five and I'm going to show you some more examples of this from the New Testament. In Colossians, the Bible said in chapter three verse five, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and watch this and covetousness which is idolatry. So the Bible says that covetousness is idolatry. So when we go back to thinking about the Ten Commandments, one of the Ten Commandments is thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. So there's that commandment, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. And obviously, we should always go first with the primary meaning of don't carve idols and worship them. Don't carve images or have molten images and bow down and worship them. That's the literal meaning of what idolatry is. So when we talk about idolatry, we're talking about a carved image. We're talking about a molten image. But if we expand on that, we can say, okay, not only should we not bow down and worship a little statue, but we should not worship mammon or worship money. And there are people who are covetous or their life is ruled by the love of money and they could worship, quote unquote, their car or worship their fancy house or the boat or the RV. So we expand on that command not to worship idols, to flee idolatry, and we understand that also to mean not to love other things on this earth more than we love the Lord. Not to love the car or the boat or the house or the bank account or the stocks and bonds more than we love the Lord. Now when we go with these expansive understandings of God's commandments, we never want to lose sight of the literal meaning. You know, obviously it would be very foolish to go with the expanded meaning of not loving your car or your money or your house more than you love the Lord. But then having a carved little Jesus in your house is fine. No, that's not fine. That's the primary prohibition. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. That is idolatry. So I've heard some people, they go so far with this where they don't even see idolatry anymore as statues. They just say, oh, it's just when you love a, no, no, no, it's a statue. You carve an image of a false god or a demon or a saint or whatever you think that is that you're bowing down and praying to or worshiping or kissing or venerating that image. That is literal idolatry. We go beyond that and say, you know what, we don't want to have any idolatry in our lives, even an idolatry that's less obvious. So we're expanding on God's commandments. Jesus said to a man, he said, thou knowest the commandments, Mark 10, 19. You don't have to turn there. He said, thou knowest the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honor thy father and mother. Now defraud not is not exactly listed verbatim in the Ten Commandments, is it? But why is he listing that with these other commandments? Because that's included if the Bible's telling you not to covet what belongs to your neighbor, not to desire his money, not to desire his goods or his wife or his house or anything that belongs to him, and if God's telling you not to steal from him, then included in that would be the idea of not defrauding him. Because if I don't desire his stuff, if I'm not going to steal his stuff, then that means I'm not going to rip him off. Because what's the purpose of ripping someone off? What's the purpose of defrauding them? So that I can end up with more and he can end up with less. And so when the Bible says thou shalt not covet, he's also telling us do not commit fraud. Do not defraud your neighbor. That's the way Jesus understood it. When Jesus is referring back to the Ten Commandments, whether it's Matthew 5, Mark 10, or whether it's the Epistles of Paul, he's expanding on these commandments. Now let me give you some examples now that we kind of understand this biblical principle of how to understand the commands of God. Not just going with the letter of what they say, but also going with the spirit of what they say. Let's apply this to some other commands in the Bible. How about this one? Look at Ephesians, chapter 5, I've got to turn there myself. This is the famous verse telling us not to be drunk. It says in Ephesians 5, 18, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit. Here's how we would expand on that. Don't smoke pot. Don't snort cocaine. Don't shoot up heroin. Okay, it would be very foolish to say, well, I know the Bible says not to be drunk, but he didn't say anything about marijuana. He didn't mention cocaine. He didn't mention methamphetamine. He didn't mention, you know, prescription drug abuse. Look, obviously the spirit of what's being said is be sober. So with the negative command not to be drunk comes the positive expansion that says, hey, be sober on the other hand. And you know what? We should understand the prohibition against drunkenness to be a prohibition against getting high as well. It's just as wrong to smoke pot, shoot up heroin, snort cocaine, or whatever other drugs that people are using recreationally. It's just as bad. Now, let me give you an illustration for this. Let's say I were to tell my children, now listen, we're going to be going on this trip. We're going to be stopping at some restaurants. We're going to be stopping at some gas stations. We're going to be getting food and drink and snack along the way of this trip. I don't want you to drink any Cokes on this trip, all right? No Coke. Do not drink Coca-Cola on this trip. Would they understand that to mean, well, he didn't say Pepsi. But this is the way a lot of people are reading the Bible. Well, no Coke. Obviously if I said unto my children, hey, on this particular trip, thou shalt not drink Coke. I also am saying not to drink root beer, not to drink 7 Up, not to drink Sprite, not to drink Pepsi, not to drink Mountain Dew. And I shouldn't have to say that. Look, the Bible is long enough, friend, with 31,000 some odd verses. God is not going to prohibit every stupid thing that you can think of by name verbatim because it would be too much. The world itself wouldn't contain all the books that could be written. And it's like my wife is always saying to the kids, I can't dream up every stupid thing that you're going to think to do. So what you have to do is take the commands that are there, the things that mom and dad have told you not to do, the things that God has said not to do, and you have to expand on those things and say, OK, why did mom tell me not to order a Coke? Is it because she's just a diehard Pepsi fan? No. She said, don't order a Coke because she didn't want me getting the genetically modified high fructose corn syrup. She didn't want me getting that 40-some grams of sugar per serving. She didn't want me getting that sodium benzoate, harmful preservative. She didn't want me getting the caramel color. OK, that's what it's all about. It's a health thing. She wanted me to be healthy. Or maybe she just didn't want me to waste money, right? So guess what? If I buy Pepsi, I'm still wasting money. I'm still getting the same flavor, color, caffeine, whatever's in it. And so obviously, God, when he commands us something, that command needs to be expanded. Here's a really foolish example of how people understand the Bible, if you would flip over to Deuteronomy 22 while I'm giving you this one. But at the end of the book of Revelation, he says that if anybody adds to God's word, right, he'll add unto him all the plagues that are in Revelation. And if anyone takes away from his words that God will take away his part out of the Book of Life and out of the Holy City and from the things that are written in this book, I can't even count how many times I've had somebody say, well, that's just Revelation. Well, you can't apply that to the whole Bible. Right. So God's fine with you tampering with, adding to, and subtracting from the other 65 books in the Bible, but just don't mess with Revelation. Isn't that a dumb way to understand the Bible? Expand that. Hey, if we're going to expand thou shalt not kill, expand thou shalt not steal, expand thou shalt not commit adultery, expand thou shalt not commit. Look, if he says, do not add to my word, do not subtract from my word here, he means everywhere. That should be obvious. That should be a no-brainer. And obviously, there are other places in the Bible. The words of the Lord are pure words. As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. Then he says in Proverbs, every word of God is pure. He's a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar. That curse at the end of Revelation, that goes for any part of the Bible. Okay. If you're tampering with Genesis, it's no different than when you're tampering with Revelation, folks. Don't be this smart aleck Pharisee that says, well, he said no coke, but he didn't say anything about Pepsi. That's what they're basically doing when they read the Bible that way. Okay. He didn't say marijuana, he didn't say cocaine, he just said alcohol. Okay. No. Use your head when you understand this stuff. But look at Deuteronomy 22.5. Here's another one. And before we read this, let me say this. I'm not saying to read things into the Bible that aren't there. Okay. Because, yeah, you could just start reading things in and making up rules that don't exist. I'm talking about looking at the commandment that is there and understanding the full meaning and scope of what is there and the spirit of what is there. You're not adding anything to the Bible if the Bible tells you don't be drunk. You're not adding anything when you say, okay, if there are other substances that also impair me mentally, I shouldn't do those either because it's the same thing. Okay. That's not adding. That's expanding what's already there. And we're following Christ's example. We're following his lead. Look, if it says don't steal and I say, hey, you shouldn't commit fraud, that's just expanding what's there. That's not adding something new. That's interpreting the Bible right. This is a right interpretation of the Bible is what it is. Just like if mom says no cokes on this trip, we're not adding something when we say, hey, put that root beer back in the case. We're not adding, well, you're adding to what mom is, no, no, no. I'm saying if mom prohibited coke, she also doesn't want you to buy something that's the same price and will do the same thing to your body. That's pretty obvious. This is what we're talking about when we talk about expanding on God's commands. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 5, the Bible reads, the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. Now how would Jesus read this command? If Jesus were reading this command, he wouldn't just understand this to mean, oh, well, you don't put on a woman's garment, but you can paint your fingernails and toenails as a man. You think that's how Jesus would read this? No, because what's the spirit of this law? The spirit of this law is that men and women would look differently, that they would not be cross-dressed, okay? I was out soul winning the other day, literally like, I think it was three weeks ago, I knocked on the door of a guy and he is an ordained minister of a non-denominational church and his toenails were painted black with nail polish. I've seen dudes painting their nails, fingernails, toenails. Now you say, well, the Bible didn't say not to paint my nails, the Bible didn't say not to wear pink and have lace on my underwear, where's that in the Bible? Because the Bible is saying here, don't put on a woman's garment, what's the point? What's the point is to look masculine and not to look feminine, that's the point here. So if we're going to read this the way we should read the whole Bible, we would understand this to cover a whole gamut of men looking like a woman or women looking like a man. Now if you would go to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, because a lot of people will try to pull out something like, oh, well, that's Deuteronomy, Old Testament, we're under grace and try to throw this out, as if God changed his mind about this, as if God got into some new gender-bending dispensation or something like that, the dispensation of gender neutral. But look, that's what people say when you hit them with Deuteronomy 22.5. They want to just reject that verse out of hand. But what do we have in the New Testament? The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 14, did not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it's a shame unto him. But if a woman have long hair, it is glory to her, for her hair has given her for a covering. So if we have a guy who's got short hair and he's in a man's garment, but he's got makeup and his nails painted, well, he's in compliance. He's in compliance with scripture. Wrong. Because we need to expand God's command and not just get the letter of the law, but get the spirit of the law. If God's telling you, have men's hair on men and women's hair on women, wouldn't that be pretty much reiterating what he taught back in Deuteronomy 22.5? This is showing that God's view of Deuteronomy 22.5 has not changed. It's the same viewpoint that he had back there of men dressing, appearing, looking, and being groomed as men, women dressing, appearing, and being groomed as women. He just wants there to be a difference between the genders, folks. It's not that hard to understand what God's getting at here, and he shouldn't have to prohibit every little thing. You know, okay, men, that means no skirts, no dresses, no lace, no pink shirt, no what? No polka dots. Thank you. I know I was missing something. No polka dots, no makeup, don't paint your nails, don't paint your toenails, don't paint your fingernails. I mean, it'd be like, okay, good night, that'd be a long book of the law to read. The Bible would become like an encyclopedia at that point. You know, God's expecting you to realize that when he says these things, there's a reason behind them, and we're supposed to get the full meaning of the commandment and expand that to everything that's similar or the same thing, okay. Go to Leviticus chapter number 19, Leviticus chapter number 19. So what are we talking about this morning? We're talking about expanding on God's commands, getting a full understanding of what God's means when he says, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Well, he's not just only saying, don't have any other gods before me. You know what he's also saying is, worship him, give him glory, exalt him. When he says, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, don't bow down thyself to them, don't serve them, he's also saying, don't worship anything more than you worship me, don't love anything more than you love me, because even covetousness is idolatry, okay. When he says, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, okay, he's not saying, well, I can only not take that name in vain, just the Lord thy God, just the tetragrammaton, just the four-letter name of God. No, because he doesn't want us to take any of his names in vain. Well, you know, we just don't want to take the name of Jehovah in vain, but we can use Jesus as a cuss word, wrong. We shouldn't say, oh my God, we shouldn't say, oh my Lord, we shouldn't say Jesus as a cuss word, we should, any name that refers to God, we should hold in reverence and it should never come out of our mouth glibly or flippantly. Any time any of God's names come out of our mouth, it should be either talking to God or about God in a respectful way. That's how God's name should be used. So we expand that, okay. And look, when the Bible said in the Old Testament, remember the Sabbath to keep it holy, six days shalt thou labor, see, he builds in the expansion right there. When he tells you to rest on the seventh day, you know what's implied? That you're working for six days, right. So, you know, it's like, well, rest on the seventh day, I'm just going to rest all the time. No, no, no. You rest on the seventh day because you worked for six days. Six days shalt thou labor. And then also in that commandment, he builds in some other things because he says not only should you rest, but he says also your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, your cattle, and your stranger within thy gates. So there's another principle that we learn from that, that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And you know what? If I'm going to give myself a day off, I should give my employees a day off and not just run them into the ground, work them seven days a week, they never get a rest, they never get a break. No, what he's saying is that we should treat other people the same way that we want to be treated and we want to give them the rest that we take, okay. So there's a lot more that you can expand on these. When he says honor your father and mother, what does he mean by that? He's also telling you obey your parents. He's also telling you take care of your parents when they get old. Because Jesus takes that command, honor thy father and mother in Matthew 15, and he interprets it as, you know, you take care of them when they're old. That's how it's interpreted also in 1 Timothy chapter 5, okay. You're not just going to leave them out high and dry to be a homeless person or something. You're going to take them in and requite your parents. That's built into that command. And thou shalt not kill. We talked about it. Hatred, anger for no reason are built into that, okay. Not stealing. There's a lot that's built into that, okay. Not committing adultery has to do with loving your spouse, being faithful, keeping yourself only unto him or her so long as you both shall live, okay. That's what the Bible is actually teaching. And then we're going to, you know, carry that over to other parts of the Bible. You know, if that's how the Bible interprets itself, then when we get to the command on not drinking, we're going to expand that to not doing drugs. When we get to the command that says that men should not put on women's clothing or have women's hairdo, you know, we shouldn't do anything feminine about our parents. We should strive to look like men. You know, it ought to be that when somebody walks in, we immediately know if they're a man or a woman. And that if we walk in somewhere, people know what we are. And they're not having to kind of scratch their head like, you know, men's clothing, woman's hair, men's facial features, women's demeanor, and you're just kind of like, you know, trying to figure this out, what this is. And we've all been there frequently in recent years because of the way our country is going. Does it please God? And then people get this attitude of like, well, how short is short? How long is long? Or what exactly is a woman's garment? What exactly is a man's garment? You know, why don't they just get the spirit of the law and go down and dress like a man, for crying out loud. And women, just dress as feminine as you can instead of trying to get as close to the line as they can like a Pharisee and find that little loophole of how they can dress as gender neutral as they can. But let's look at another command from the Bible, Leviticus chapter 19 verse 28. The Bible reads, Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you. I am the Lord. How would we expand this? You know, obviously this is a prohibition against tattoos because he's saying don't print marks on your body. The literal interpretation would be don't get a tattoo. But what about this? How about putting giant disks in your ears? Well, he didn't say anything about that. Well, but he did say not to print any marks on your body. And what's the spirit of that law there? He's also obviously going to expand that to don't put a big rod through your tongue. Don't stick a metal rod through the back of your neck. I mean, what's he going to do? Just go down your every weird thing that you could do? Don't put a disk in your lip. Don't put rings around your neck to try to make your neck longer. I mean, he could list everything or he could just tell you, look, don't print any marks upon your body. Don't make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead. I'm the Lord. And you're supposed to just figure out what is he saying here. I'll tell you what he's saying. He's saying that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you. You're not your own, but you're bought with a price, wherefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. Glorify God in your body. Your body belongs to the Lord. So don't abuse it or modify it in any strange way. So don't just stop at tattoos but say, hey, I'm not going to gauge my ears. I'm not going to put the disk in the lip. I'm not going to do these other things. I'm not going to pierce weird parts of my body and do these strange things. You know, that's common sense. Now, obviously, a lot of people already have the tattoos. And I'm not trying to get on them. I mean, half our church adults probably have tattoos because we've reached a lot of people that are unchurched. Amen? And we're glad about that. And we rejoice in that. And so there's nothing wrong with that. But what we are preaching is for young people, thou shalt not print any marks upon your body. Obviously you can't remove the thing. It's permanent. Okay? These tattoos are permanent. Many of these modifications and piercings are permanent. We're saying, look, don't do it. Don't do it. Use common sense. If God doesn't want me getting a tattoo, he probably doesn't want me to get all the other services that the tattoo parlor also offers. You know, go into that tattoo parlor, oh, Leviticus 19, 28. What else can you guys do to trick me out and make me look as savage as you possibly can? You know, I mean, come on. The spirit of the law is what we're talking about. So that's all covered in that. And if you would, go to 1 Corinthians chapter number 10. First Corinthians chapter number 10. First Corinthians chapter number 10. And we'll talk about another example of this that's timely for this week, okay? First Corinthians chapter number 10, verse 19, the Bible reads, what say I then that the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. So here's a principle here that's being taught. Here's a command that's being taught saying, look, the things that are offered in sacrifice to idols, they're not just offering it to an inanimate object. There's a devil there represented by that. There's an evil spirit that they carved that image in honor of, okay? So when you're worshiping idols, you're not just worshiping a chunk of material. What you're actually worshiping is demons, okay? And look, there are all kinds of clear commands in the Bible about necromancy, sorcery, soothsaying, witchcraft, divination, enchantments, cutting yourself, don't have fellowship with devils. So if we take all these commands and look at all this stuff, you know, wouldn't it make sense that God doesn't want us out celebrating Halloween and dressing up like a goblin and dressing up like a vampire and a werewolf and a witch and a sorcerer and, well, where does it say that in the Bible? Well, it doesn't say that in the Bible. There's nothing in the Bible that says don't celebrate Halloween. But if he's telling you have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them, if he's telling you he that sineth against me wrongeth his own soul, all they that hate me love death, then you could expand that to say, look, I shouldn't participate in a holiday that's all about glorifying death and evil and goblins and ghouls and vampires and whatever else, okay? Obviously, if we expanded that out there, we would say, look, I'm not gonna go out and dress up like a sorcerer. If he doesn't want me to be a sorcerer or a witch or a necromancer or one that deals with familiar spirits, then why would I dress up like one? I probably shouldn't dress up like one and think that that's fun. If I'm not supposed to fantasize about killing people, if I'm not supposed to fantasize about committing adultery, then should I be getting out the chainsaw and the fake blood and going out and going door to door like that? It's kind of a no-brainer. But that's what everybody's gonna be doing on Wednesday night when they ought to be in church. And you know, I want to encourage you, if you're a Sunday morning glory and you don't come to the evening services, I think you should come to church this Wednesday night. Even if you don't normally come on a Wednesday night, why don't you just come this Wednesday night just to get away from all the weird stuff that's out there? Just to get away from all the little demons and demonettes that are gonna come to your door looking for raisinettes, you know? And they're coming to your door to get candy and they're dressed like the devil and they're dressed like witches and whatever. And then you know what the adults do on Halloween? They don't necessarily dress up like a ghoul or a goblin or a Disney character. But you know what a lot of the adults do with the women is they get scantily clad. Right? Isn't that the garb that's worn to a Halloween party? It's the super short skirt or the short shorts or the whatever the provocative sensual attire of a harlot. This is the kind of stuff that's going on this Wednesday night, folks, and you know it's what's going on. It's nothing godly. It's not a night where we all stop and meditate on John 3.16. It's not a night where we all meditate on, and what does the Bible say? Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are a good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things. Think on these things. And you know what? None of that describes Halloween. None of that. Okay. So if the Bible's telling us dwell on true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, virtue, praise, what's he telling us not to dwell on? Gore, violence, death, perversion, demons, Satan, sorcery, witchcraft. Isn't that what he's saying we don't want to dwell on and think about and we shouldn't set any wicked thing before our eyes? And then you say, well, the kids are going to be disappointed because the kids just love Halloween. Well, who taught them to love Halloween? Who taught them that? You know, did they learn that from you? Well, then shame on you for teaching them to love that. Or did they learn that at school? Well, shame on you for sending your kids down to the Babylon Unified School District, okay? And so the bottom line is, you say, well, they love it, but you know what? Our flesh loves a lot of sinful things. You know what I mean? Look, in my flesh, there's all kinds of sinful things that I would love to do. In my flesh, that's why we need to walk in the Spirit so that we don't fulfill the lust of the flesh, okay? And why don't you start teaching your kids that the Christian life is a life of sacrifice, instead of just teaching them, oh, you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have the best of both worlds. You can indulge in everything the world does, no matter how weird it is, no matter how bad it is, you can indulge in that and still be a great Christian. Really? No, why don't we choose whom we're going to serve? Are we going to serve the devil or are we going to serve the Lord? And you know what? I'm all for celebrating holidays that venerate the Lord. You know, I'm for celebrating the birth of Christ. I'm for celebrating the resurrection of Christ. I'm for celebrating things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good or bad. Halloween's not celebrating any of those things. What is Halloween celebrating? What does that word even mean, Halloween, Halloween? I don't know what that means. I don't care what that means. Whatever that means, it's nothing about Jesus, okay? And if it's about Jesus, explain the chainsaw massacre kid that's going to walk down my street on Wednesday night with a butt covered in fake blood. If it's about Jesus, explain the witches and sorcerers and devils and goblins and whores and whoremongers that are going to be walking around asking for candy and threatening that they're going to play some trick on me if I don't give them candy. Trick or treat, right? Give me a treat or else is what they're basically saying. That's what that means. Explain to me what that has to do with anything wholesome or right or good or godly, okay? Now look, you say, well, I'm going to go celebrate. You go celebrate Halloween then, okay? You go out and celebrate Halloween, but you know what I'm going to be doing? I'm going to be worshiping the Lord in God's house. Hey, I know not what road others may take, you know, but give me chili rather than death, you know, because look, I don't like death. I don't like gore. You know, look, my brother-in-law is a paramedic. I was talking to him recently and I said to him, man, you know, you have a rough job. You have a difficult job because he deals with death every day. You know, he's constantly seeing gore and people dying and everything like that and you know, I salute him for doing his job because you know what? That's a hard job to do because of the fact that, you know, somebody's got to do it obviously. You know, when we call 911, we want somebody to show up and stop the bleeding, okay? But the people who actually do that job, and you know, that job's not for everybody. Some people, they start doing that job and they just say, I can't do this job, okay? Other people can handle it and praise God for people who can handle it, okay? But at the end of the day though, that's not something that we as human beings enjoy and you know, I'll tell you this. My brother-in-law, he does that job but he doesn't enjoy the gore, right? That's a necessary evil of his job. He doesn't enjoy seeing the dead bodies and stuff. That stuff's hard. You know, now he can handle it but it doesn't mean he glories in it or enjoys it or delights in it. No normal person enjoys that. And the Bible says, him that loveth violence, God's soul hateth, Psalm 11, right? The Lord tryeth the righteous but the wicked and him that loveth violence is soul-hated. If you delight in seeing gore and people dying and being ripped apart and blood and guts and death and dead bodies, you know, then you're a sick individual. And you know, movies and video games contain a lot of that junk for one reason. Because people want to see it. I mean, if people didn't want to see it, then why would they put it in the movies so much? Why would they put it in the video games so much? There are people out there who just love that stuff. They eat that up, they delight in that, you know. I mean, a normal person, if they saw something like that, should want to look away. Like, oh man, you know, they don't want to see that, right? See, ah, you're just a baby. No, no, no, actually I'm just a human being who has empathy for other people and doesn't love violence. Because if you love violence, what does the Bible say? The Lord trieth righteous, but the wicked and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth. The Bible says all that hate me love death. Okay. So if you're a lover of death, a lover of violence, then you don't love the Lord. That's what the Bible is saying. Okay. So again, when we read the commandments of the Bible, we need to get the spirit of the law. Not just the letter of the law. We need to also get the spirit of the law and we need to expand God's commandments. And I'm not talking about adding commandments that aren't there. I'm not talking about teaching for commandments the doctrines of men. I'm not talking about reading into it things that aren't there, our own preferences, our own likes and dislikes. We don't want to start making up our own commandments and making up our own rules. I'm talking about taking the commandment that's there and interpreting it the way Jesus taught us to interpret it, the way the apostle Paul taught us to interpret it, the way that the Bible itself interprets it, which is to expand that commandment and get not just four little words of thou shalt not steal, but to understand the whole gamut of what is meant by that. What does that mean? What is it that he's after when he tells us not to have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness or to not put on a woman's garment? What's the point? That's what we need to ask ourselves and then we need to expand that using common sense. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. We thank you for your commandments that are a light unto our feet and a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, Lord. Please just help us to walk in the light of...