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Man, the title of my sermon this morning is, His Commandments Are Not Grievous. His commandments are not grievous. The Bible says in 1 John chapter 5 verse 3, For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous. What does that mean when the Bible says that God's commandments are not grievous? It basically means that they're not a pain in the neck. They're not something that's going to make us sad or depressed. They're not something that's going to make our life worse. They're going to make our life better. They are an improvement on the ways of this world. God's commandments, they shouldn't grieve us. We shouldn't look at them as a drag. God's commandments are not grievous. If we love God, we will delight in his commandments, in fact. Now the Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 12, you stay there in Deuteronomy, but in Hebrews 12 it says, Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. But he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness. So the Bible tells us that we have fathers of our flesh. We have our physical dad that we grew up with, and when we disobeyed, our dad punished us. Our dad disciplined us. And it says in the Bible that they chastened us after their own pleasure. You see, part of the reason why parents discipline their kids is because they love them, but part of them is because their kids are going to be a pain in the neck if they don't discipline them. I mean, the Bible says, Chasten thy son, and he'll give thee rest. He'll give delight unto your soul. And obviously, that the foolish son is a calamity unto his parents, right? The foolish son ruins the life of his parents. So parents have their own interest as well in disciplining their kid so that their kid will not put its footprints all over the ceiling and destroy everything it touches. Kids have to be obviously brought into subjection in order for the household to function. But the Bible says that God disciplines us for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness. God disciplines us for our benefit. God's commandments are a benefit to us. They're a blessing to us. They're not a restriction. They're more like a safety guardrail. It'd be like if there were a cliff and there were a guardrail on the edge of that cliff. You say, man, they put this fence up here so we can't go where we want to go, man. Well, it's like, well, if you go there, you're going to die. And that's how sin is. Sin is going to take you off the cliff. God has his commandments there as a safety rail, as a guardrail. Instead of getting mad, be thankful for it because it can save your life. Now look at Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 1. The Bible reads, Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Of course, who doesn't want to live and possess a wonderful land that flows with milk and honey? He says in verse 2, You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish ought from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Look at verse 5. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me that you should do so in the land whither you go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. The Bible is saying that God's rules, God's commandments, make so much sense that even the unbelievers, even the heathen, will admit these rules make sense. These are wise statutes and judgments. Just an intelligent person, just from an objective standpoint, just from a secular standpoint, would just look at God's laws and say, Hey, this makes sense. This is wise. This is understanding. This is going to give you a better life than if you live contrary to God's commandments. Look what the Bible says in verse 7. For what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? People will recognize that God's laws make sense. They're logical. They're not grievous. They're a benefit to us. They're a blessing to us. And the way that God tells us to live our lives in the Bible is a better way to live your life than the life of sin. You're going to be happier. You're going to be more blessed. It just makes sense. The Bible says in Psalm 119 verse 128, Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way. He said, look, God is right about everything. All his precepts about every single thing are always right. Now if you would, flip over to Romans chapter 10. This is kind of an interesting verse in Romans chapter number 10. And Romans 10 is actually a quotation from Leviticus chapter 18. And then this is brought up again in Ezekiel chapter 20. But I'm going to read for you from Leviticus chapter 18 verse 5. The Bible says, Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. I am the Lord. And then he goes on to describe all the things that they should not be doing, all the sins. And he especially goes into a lot of perversions and things of the land. But he says that if you do these things, you will live in them. Look at Romans 10 5. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. Now what's interesting is that in Romans chapter 10, God is contrasting the righteousness of the law with the righteousness which comes by the faith of Jesus Christ. Where we believe in Jesus Christ and we're declared righteous in the sight of God. He's contrasting that with the righteousness of the law. And he says the righteousness which is of the law says that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. Now here's where it gets interesting. Look at Galatians chapter 3. There's another reference to this in Galatians chapter 3 verse 12. Galatians chapter number 3 verse 12, the Bible says, And the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. Now what does he mean by that? The law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. What it's saying is that you don't have to have faith in order to see that God's laws work. Because you can just see that with your own eyes. Even the heathen nations, even unsaved people who had no faith in the Lord still said of Israel, hey, this is a wise and understanding people. These people have great laws. These people have a great form of government. These people have wise and righteous judgments. I read a secular political book by an unsaved unbeliever and he was bringing up some of the greatest law codes and some of the greatest governments that have existed throughout time. And one of the ones he brought up was ancient Israel. And he was going through and explaining the system of the judges and he said this was a good system. This makes sense. So you don't really need faith to understand that God's laws work because the man that doeth them shall live in them. You will live to see the results of following God's laws. Now it's not going to get you to heaven. Because in order to get to heaven you're going to have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Keeping God's commandments doesn't get you to heaven. A lot of people will say this, well, when the Bible says believe, that means you also have to do what he says. But what does the Bible say right here? The Bible says, well, the law is not of faith. So you can't mix the law with faith, can you? They're two totally distinct things. There's the righteousness which is of the law which says if you do these things you'll live in them. And then there's the righteousness which is of faith that says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. That's the righteousness that comes by faith. So there's faith which saves us, which is what? Believing that Jesus died and was buried and rose again, believing that Jesus is the Son of God, that's what saves us. But the law is not of faith. The law, you that do those things will live in them, right? You will be blessed by following God's commandments. Now let's think about some of God's commandments and how they just make sense and how stupid it is to throw out the commandments of God. We're living in a society in 2018 America that wants to throw out God's laws, throw out God's commandments, and I mean even the most basic commandments, they don't believe in them anymore. And so we are seeing a de-Christianization of our nation and as we do, we'll see the results of not following God's laws. Now let's think of some of the laws that God has in the Bible. You know God tells us in the Bible, thou shalt not commit adultery, right? Thou shalt not commit adultery. Now a lot of people today though in 2018 America, they don't believe that. They just think, well who cares, you know, if it feels good, do it. You know, just free love, open marriage. I mean this is what is being promoted now in the United States of America, but if you actually stop and think about the result of that kind of a lifestyle, the end thereof are the ways of death. And when we say thou shalt not commit adultery, we could also talk about the fact that God tells us not to commit fornication, which is having a physical relationship before you're married and it also speaks against incest, it speaks against getting divorced and so forth and marrying someone else, you know, switching wives. The Bible says no to these things. But if you stop and think about it, all of these rules make perfect sense. Let's say you were to repeal these laws, right? Let's say for example somebody said, okay, it's not wrong to commit fornication. You can sleep with as many people and you can sleep together before you're married and every once in a while you'll get these bozos who try to say, oh, the Bible tells you, or the Bible never says that you can't go to bed with someone before you're married. They'll try to say that's not what fornication means or something. Well, that is what fornication means. It's pretty clear what the definition of fornication is. But think about how stupid that would be if you had a bunch of teenagers going around, what would they be doing? Producing a bunch of bastard children. How would that work? That would not even work for society. That would not work. People would be ruining their lives left and right. You say, oh, well, we've got birth control. Well, first of all, birth control is kind of a new thing as far as being widespread and available like it is. It's always been around in some degree. But being as widespread and available as it is right now is a relatively new thing. But not only that, it's not foolproof. It's not 100% effective. People might be using birth control and still get pregnant anyway. And think about how stupid it would be to just have a bunch of 13, 14, 15, 16, 17-year-olds going around fornicating, producing a bunch of bastard offspring, having a bunch of teenage pregnancy. I mean, that is going to ruin people's lives. It's going to ruin society. It makes no sense. And what kind of an idiot would think that God actually intended 13, 14, 15-year-olds to be producing children? It makes no sense. It's crazy. But that's the world that we're living in today that wants to sexualize children and young teenagers and get them involved in those activities long before they're ever able to actually be responsible and have a child. And let me explain something. If you're not ready to have a child, guess what? You're not ready to sleep together. And you need to wait until you get married. You need to be a virgin when you get married. And then you'll produce children in a family with husband and wife the way God intended. That makes sense. It's crazy any other way. And that's why even many non-Christian societies have that same ethic of waiting until you get married and so forth. But think about adultery, how if adultery were allowed to happen, how it would ruin people's marriages, how it would cause people to get depressed, how it would produce more bastard children through adultery. And think about how many suicides there would be. I've known people who committed suicide because their spouse cheated on them. It's so hurtful. It's so offensive to your spouse that it causes people to even take that horrible step. And so obviously it just makes sense not to have adultery. What about incest? Well, that would create all kinds of birth defects and genetic abnormalities. You say, why do you have to preach about this? Well, for the Muslims, right? With all their incestuous perversion and being with teenagers and everything else. And you know what? I believe, let me just say it right now, I believe that it is wrong for you to marry your cousin. Now a lot of people, they're confused on this because when they go through Leviticus and he breaks down exactly, don't marry this person, don't marry that person, he doesn't specifically bring up not to marry your cousin. He tells you, don't marry your aunt, don't marry your uncle, don't marry your nephew, don't marry this, that and the other. Don't marry your half siblings. But he also just flat out says, don't marry anyone. He actually doesn't say marry, but he says, don't lie with anyone that is near of kin unto you. So that's the principle right there. Do not lie with one that is near of kin unto you. And guess what? Your half sibling is genetically about the same as your cousin as far as the similarity in the DNA. And the Bible specifically says not to marry a half sibling. Plus what we have to understand is that over time it becomes more important not to marry someone who is near of kin to you. Because our genes as we go forward as humanity are getting more and more degenerated. You know Adam and Eve were two perfect people that lived to be almost a thousand years old. So they had great genes, they had great DNA and they had very diverse genetics. Well over time different genes deteriorate and get damaged. And so the reason why you don't want to marry someone who is a relative of yours is because the genetic problems and abnormalities they begin to stack up. So let me give an example. My wife and I get married and we pass on our genes to our children, right? Well there are all kinds of genes to choose from. Now they might take certain attributes from me and they take certain attributes from my wife. So when they have blonde hair, you know, they got that from my wife, right? When they have brown hair they got that from me and obviously I'm oversimplifying. But you know if they have blue eyes then they got that from her. She's got blue eyes, you know, and I've got brown eyes and I'm oversimplifying. Don't come at me with the fruit flies after the service. I know it's a lot more complicated than this and I understand it more deeply than I'm explaining it right now. But I'm just oversimplifying and saying, look, they got certain traits from their mother and they got certain traits from their father. Doesn't that make sense, right? They pick and choose. And here's the thing. My brother and my two sisters, you know, we all take after my mom and dad. But some of us take more after dad. Some of us take more after mom, right? Because we're taking genes from both. Now here's how it works. When somebody has a genetic defect or a genetic problem, okay, then what will often happen is that the child can use the good gene from their other parent that's not messed up. Like, oh, this one from mom's messed up. I can use this good one from dad. That's the one that will be passed on, okay. Whereas when you're marrying your cousin or your near relative, you both have all the same genetic abnormalities that have been passed down. And so there's no good option. So you go with the bad option. So that's why, and I'm not trying to give a real deep lecture on this. But my point is that if you marry your cousin, your kids will have birth defects. They could have mental deficiencies, physical abnormalities, health problems, diseases. Now a lot of people will ask the stupid question of, well, you know, then why could Adam and Eve's children reproduce? This is what atheists will try to do to try to pick apart the Bible or something. Well, here's the thing. Because Adam and Eve are the first people and they have just the ultimate genetics and the ultimate diversity, no deteriorated genes, their children were able to marry their siblings in order to populate the earth in the beginning. The Bible flat out says that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters, sorry atheists who say, where did Cain get his wife? Well, you guys didn't get to chapter five when Adam and Eve had lots of sons and daughters, okay. So yeah, they did marry their near of kin back then. And obviously when they got off of Noah's Ark and you've got Shamham and Japheth and they've got their children, they obviously married their cousins at that time. So back in the olden days, closer to the beginning, yeah, people did marry their half sibling or marry their cousin or whatever the case may be, but we in 2018 should not be doing that. By the time Leviticus 18 came along, he said, don't marry people that are near of kin to you. And in 2018, we should be even more restrictive, which is why in the United States in most places, you know, you're not even allowed to marry your second cousin. I think you have to go to your third or fourth or fifth cousin before you're allowed to get married. You're just not supposed to marry any relatives, folks. Don't marry Kentucky, West Virginia, but no, I'm just kidding. But anyway, you know, you get all kinds of problems and defects. So God's law is there to protect you. He wants your children to be healthy. He wants you to live a normal life. He's giving you the right advice here when he tells you, don't fornicate, don't commit adultery, don't marry someone who is near of kin unto you. And he speaks against divorce. The Bible says that God hates putting away. He says that if you divorce your wife and marry another, you're committing adultery. And if you marry her that is divorced, you're committing adultery. Now, a lot of people, they think that that's a really bummer of a law. I mean, I hear people say that all the time of just, oh, that's so mean of God and, you know, I can't believe that God would just make people suffer like that and that he just wants to ruin their lives by that, by making that rule that they can't get remarried. Well, here's the point. If you don't get divorced, then you don't have to get remarried. You see, it's not that God is just hell-bent on keeping you divorcees miserable. He's trying to keep people from not getting divorced in the first place. And if everybody had it in their mind, okay, my options are getting divorced and marrying someone else or staying with my current spouse, a lot of people want to trade up. But if their options are stay married or be alone for the rest of my life, all of a sudden your spell starts looking a lot better. All of a sudden he's not such a bad guy after all, right? That's the whole point. The point is to prevent you from getting divorced in the first place. Because if divorce is just allowed no problem, then what's going to happen? Every little problem, people get mad at each other, they run into problems, and what are they going to do? They're going to get divorced at the drop of a hat, and that's what we see happening in America today. Show me the Hollywood actor that can stay married for more than a couple years. And I'm sure there's one or two, the exception proves the rule, but you know most of them are on their fourth spouse or they get married for six months, four months, a year, two years. And people today in 2018 America, when they get married, they're thinking about the fact, well if it doesn't work out I'll just get divorced. They go into it with that attitude, and that's why you see so much divorce. You see like half of marriages ending in divorce, and even amongst Christians you're seeing the same thing because pastors aren't preaching what God says about divorce. But is that law about divorce just there to be a drag for us? No, that law is actually to protect us and our children. Because what if we get divorced, what's going to happen to our children? Then they have to grow up in a broken home. I said broken home, a broken home. That's not the best thing for the children. And then you got the single mom bringing in all the boyfriends, and the kids are getting molested by boyfriends and weirdos. And you got all kinds of problems, and I know it's not popular to talk about that, but that's the reality that if you're growing up in a home with a single mom, your statistics for getting molested go through the roof, because you got all these strange dudes coming through. God is trying to protect us, and you know what? Even when your marriage is at a low point, and you wish that you could get a divorce, guess what? You'll be glad that you didn't. When you ride it out, when you stick it out, and when you actually stay faithful to your vows, things are going to get better. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. And there's light at the end of the tunnel, there's hope, where you'll be glad that you stayed married, not just for your kids' sake, but for your own sake as well. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but if you're smart, you'll rejoice in the wife of your youth and not get divorced. So it's not that God's trying to punish divorced people and make them miserable, it's that he doesn't want people to get divorced in the first place. And if you put it in that perspective of, hey, you get one shot at this, you know you're going to put forth more effort, aren't you? You're going to work hard to make your wife happy, to make your husband happy, to get along if you know, hey, this is a one-shot deal. Not just think, well, if it doesn't work out, I always got plan B. Wrong. Go to Proverbs 23. What about God saying, thou shalt not steal? Well, that should be pretty obvious that if stealing were allowed to happen, there would be a complete breakdown of society itself. There would be all kinds of looting going on. There would be all kinds of violence going on. And you say, no, man, let's just do like John Lennon said, just no possessions. Well guess what? If there's no possessions and nobody owns anything, now nobody has an incentive to work because they don't want to go work hard and then someone just takes their stuff away. So then if everybody doesn't have their own stuff, then they're not going to have an incentive to work harder. Everybody will slack off and say, well, you know, why should I work hard so everybody else can use my, everybody else is sitting around, I'm going to sit around too. That's human nature. So if stealing were not a thing, then you'd have looting, you'd have violence, you'd have a complete breakdown of society, you'd have no motivation to go work hard and build something because why would you want to build something so someone could just take it away from you? So God's laws are right when he says, thou shalt not steal. What about when God told you, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right? Of course, children must obey their parents. What if children didn't obey their parents? What would you end up with? Kids playing ball in the freeway, running out in the middle of the street, sticking a key in an electrical socket, you know, sticking their hand on the stove when it's on? Does I want to do what I want to do? You'd have children whose teeth are rotting out because they wouldn't just have their own volition go brush their teeth when they're three, four, five, six years old, their teeth would rot out of their mouth. They would eat all the worst possible junk food. They would become fat, lazy, sluggish, horrible people. They certainly wouldn't learn how to read. Look, folks, children must obey their parents. Why? For their parents' good? Yeah, but also for their own good. What about drunkenness? You say, well, you know, what's wrong with drinking? You know, why has God got to be so strict? He's got to be this teetotal in God and make us abstain from alcohol. Well, look what the Bible says about alcohol in chapter 23, verse 29. Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? Now, are these the things that you want in your life? You want to be sad? You want to fight with people, say stupid things, get wounded, bloodshot red eyes? He said in verse 30, they that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women and thy heart shall utter perverse things. Look, God is trying to get you not to drink alcohol for your own good. He's warning you that it's going to bring you misery, suffering, heartache. Look, there are plenty of unsaved people, non-Christians who don't even believe in God, who figured out how stupid the life of drinking and drunkenness is. And so they quit without even going to church. They just quit drinking because it's ruining their life. When they get the DUI or when they lose their job or when their wife leaves or whatever, when their friends get sick of cleaning up after their vomit mess and listening to their stupid babbling and embarrassing shenanigans. So the Bible, when it tells us not to drink, that's a blessing to us. What about covetous? What about murder? I mean, obviously these things are all bad for us. They're bad for society. They're bad for the people around us. You say, what's wrong with covetousness? Well, it leads to stealing. What's wrong with covetousness? You're not happy with what you have and you desire what someone else has, you're miserable at that point. Murder is going to lead to the breakdown of society, obviously. Nobody's going to feel safe and there's going to be all kinds of fatherless children when men are being killed in the streets left and right. Look, it doesn't matter which of God's laws. We could go through just all the laws in the Bible, all the statutes. We don't have time to go through all the hundreds of laws. I'm just bringing up kind of the big ones. Every single one of them makes sense and every single one of them, it would be foolish to disregard no matter what. If you go out and do these things, it's not going to help you. It's not going to be a blessing to you. So we shouldn't get an attitude as Christians that says, oh, God is so restrictive. God's ruining our fun. No, actually, God's making you a better person. God's keeping you safe, protecting you, and giving you a better life. This is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. Why? Because the Bible says, be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. All the bad things that you do in life are going to come around and bite you anyway. So if God keeps you living a clean and good life, you're going to be blessed. That's a better way to live. The Bible says in Proverbs 13, 15, good understanding giveth favor, but the way of transgressors is hard. Did you hear that? The way of transgressors is hard. Have you ever looked at an older woman and said, boy, she looks like she's lived a hard life. Who's ever heard that expression before? She's lived a hard life. You know why? Because the way of transgressors is hard. And when they say she lived a hard life, they don't mean like, wow, she must have really changed a lot of diapers as a stay-at-home mom. Boy, she really did a lot of dishes and laundry. She's lived a hard life. Boy, it was so hard for her to be faithful to her husband all those decades. Is that what they mean? No, when they say she lived a hard life, what are they saying? That she drank, that she took drugs, that she slept around, and consequently, she looks rough now. She looks bad. She looks ugly because she lived a sinful life. Why? Because the way of transgressors is hard. You say, oh, I'm just going to take the easy way. Living the Christian life is too hard. Going to church is too hard. Being a fundamental Baptist is too hard. Okay, well, you know what's even harder? Living a wicked life. Oh, man, it must be so easy being a homeless bum. You don't have to go to work. There's no alarm clock. You just kind of wake up and do whatever you want. No, actually, it's hard. It's hard. You've got to drag around that shopping cart, all that junk in it. You've got to sit outside in the heat, sleep outside covered in bugs, but it's even harder mentally to go through life with no purpose, with no goal, with no zeal, with no hope, with no prospect for the future. That's hard. Everything about it is hard. The Bible says in Proverbs 15, 19, the way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns, but the way of the righteous is made plain. So the Bible compares the righteous life to walking down a path where you can see where you're going, where it's obvious where the next step takes you. The trail is plain. It's clear. There's no debris in the way, and you know this is the next step I need to take. I know what to do. But the way of the slothful man, the lazy man, the wicked man is a hedge of thorns. It means it's like the hedges that people put around their yard is like a barrier or a fence. It's like walking through those the long way. It's like just going straight through the blackberry bushes, straight through the hedge. So you think like, oh, I'm going to go out and just live kind of a footloose, fancy-free kind of a life. I don't care what God says. You're going right into the briar patch, buddy. You're going right into the blackberry bushes. You're going through a hedge of thorns. You're going to get cut up, and you're going to move slowly. You're not going to make progress, and you're going to be miserable, because the way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns. Go to Matthew chapter 11. In fact, the Bible calls God's laws the law of liberty. The Bible says, now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And he says in James 1, who so looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein. He being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. In James chapter 2, it says, so speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. God's law is called the law of liberty. It brings liberation to your life. It brings freedom to your life. You know, women, when we get up and preach that you need to get married, and obey your husband, and love your children, and be a stay-at-home mom, and a stay-at-home wife, and take care of children, we're trying to liberate you. This is a women's lib church. We want to liberate you from the 9 to 5. We want to liberate you from that pair of pants that you're in, and get you in a skirt and a dress so you can dress like a lady. We're trying to free you from society's bondage of trying to make you dress, talk, act, and think like a man, and put you in your natural environment being feminine again. You can be happy. And I guarantee you my wife has way more freedom than these so-called liberated women. What time did I make you clock in this morning? She's not in a hairnet. She doesn't wear a name tag. She doesn't have a CCTV camera watching her actions, but 99% of women in the workforce, what do they have? A CCTV camera watching them, a time clock, they got to fill out a time sheet, they got to wear a name tag. And you know what they call the boss at work, sir. So what's wrong with them calling their husband sir? See a woman who calls her husband sir is in bondage, right? A woman who serves lunch to her husband is in bondage. But if you went down to some restaurant and served strange men and said, here you go honey, here you go sweetie, here you go, you know, here you are sir, all of a sudden you're liberated because you got your own job. Well what's wrong with coming home to your husband and saying, here you go sweetie, anything else I can get for you hun? Right, here you are sir, may I serve you? What can I do to help you sir, anything you need, just let me know. You say that to your husband, it's like, oh you're a doormat. But then you say it at the restaurant and, oh you're so liberated, you know, making below minimum wage plus tips. Oh you're liberated. That's not liberation. Everybody's got a boss. Everybody has a boss. Every single person has an authority in their life, period. You say, well I'm going to find somebody with no authority. Well you're going to have to find some derelict homeless bum and he probably has run-ins with the authorities all the time. Everybody's got authority in their life, right? I mean think about it. If you go to your job, you got the boss at work. Say, oh well the men, they get to, you know, we women have to obey our husband. Well your husband's got to go to work and obey his boss. He doesn't just get to do his own thing. He say, well my husband owns his own company. Well you know what, he has to serve the customer. He has the customer beating his door down. He has the customer to make happy and serve them, right? And you say, well you know, what about Jesus? He obeyed the Father. Even Jesus obeyed God the Father. You're going to have to go all the way to God the Father himself to find someone who has no authority over him, okay? So that's just stupid to have this attitude. I'm not going to obey. I'm going to do my own thing. That's false. You will obey someone. Because if you get a job, well now you got to obey. You own a company? Well guess what? You got to follow the general contractor. You know, let's say you're the, oh I own my own electoral company. Yeah, but then you got to take orders from the soup on the job site. There's always going to be somebody telling you what to do. That's just life. But God's law is the law of liberty. You know, why? Because there's so much freedom. There's so many choices when you live for God and there's so many good things that are available to you. The perfect illustration of this is the Garden of Eden. When God put man and woman in the Garden of Eden, he said, of all the trees of the garden now may us freely eat. I mean that's a lot of choices. Oh, but by the way, there's just one that you can't eat. And then the devil comes in and says, oh God's so restrictive. Oh God's so strict. He's just telling you what to do. Why don't you just do what you want to do? You know, and now all of a sudden he puts that stupid idea in their head. Now all of a sudden that's the one tree they want because the devil came and put that stupid idea in their head. And the devil is trying to put that stupid idea in teenagers' heads today. Oh, you know, your parents don't want you to go rock out at a rock concert. Your parents don't want you fornicating. Yeah, I know fornication. It seems like it's going to be fun. But it's the pleasures of sin for a season. It's going to mess up your life in ways that you can't understand when you're that age. Alcohol is going to mess you up in ways that you can't understand. And the rock concert's not all that it's cracked up to be. All hot and sweaty in that mosh pit, getting the crap kicked out of you. You know, it's not what it looks, you know, it looks so fun, you know, until you get elbowed in the face, until you're in the hospital with a broken nose. What's fun about that? Oh, it's so fun to go out and get drunk and party until you're puking your guts up the next morning and hating life and depressed and miserable and guilty and shamed. Look, the way of transgressors is hard. God's law is the law of liberty. Why do you want to go into bondage? Why do you want to be a slave to the bottle? Slave to the needle? A slave to drugs? A slave to gambling addiction? A slave to lust and sin and addiction? It's not worth it. God's laws are not grievous. Follow his laws, you'll be better off. Matthew chapter 11 is where I had you turn. The Bible says in verse 28, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Look, it doesn't look like Jesus is trying to be a drag unto you, does it? I'm going to drive you like a slave driver. Is that what Christ says? You come follow me and I'm going to show you the meaning of pain. Is that what it says in the Bible? Follow me, become my disciple and you'll understand suffering in a way that you never have. He said, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. Now does rest mean sitting on your butt and doing nothing? No, because what does he say next? Take my yoke upon you. No, wait a minute, Jesus, I thought you said we're resting. He says I'm going to give you rest. He says take my yoke upon you. What's the yoke? The yoke represents working because animals put on a yoke and they pull the wagon and they do work, right? He says take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls and you say, how can it be rest if I'm working? He answers it in the next verse, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. It's not that Jesus is saying that you don't have to work. Of course you have to work. God expects us to work. God expects us to serve him. God expects us to learn from him, obey him, be his disciple, but you know what he says? He says my yoke is easy though. Put on the yoke, serve me, work for me, but you know what, my yoke is easy. Way of transgressors is hard, his yoke is easy. So don't get sucked into the devil's lies that tell you that God's laws are so restrictive. And look, I'm not saying that your life is just going to be smooth sailing when you live the Christian life, but I'm saying that at the end of the day, no matter how you live your life, there are going to be challenges, right? Everybody's going to have challenges in their life, whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian. Everybody's going to have bad days, whether you're living for Christ or living for this world. Everybody's going to have good days. Everybody's going to have bad days. Everybody's going to have challenges and struggles that they go through. Everybody is going to go through times of suffering. And everybody's going to have a boss. Everybody's going to be told what to do at some point. Everybody's going to be humiliated at some point or embarrassed at some point. No matter how you live your life, you're going to go through these basic human experiences. But at the end of the day, when you take the Christian life on one side and when you take the world's life on the other side, at the end of the day, you're going to walk away and say, you know what, his yoke's easy. It's an easy decision and it's relatively easy to do the right thing. Even though sometimes it's hard to do the right thing on the surface, it can appear harder. In the long run, it's easier. Like short term, yeah. Short term, when you're 16, 17 years old, yeah, it's harder to remain pure than to fornicate. But in the long run, fornication's harder in the long run because of the repercussions of that. Yeah, in the short term, it might be harder to stay married through a downturn in your marriage. But in the long run, it's easier to stay married. And statistics show that if you get divorced, you'll have like this much less money. Have you seen those statistics of people who stayed married, they make like $20,000 more per year than the people who got divorced or whatever. So in the long run, the people who stayed married, they have a simpler life. They have more money. They have a better relationship with their children. They have a better, you know, and in the end, they're glad they did. I mean, you don't go to a nursing home and ask old people about their regrets. I just wish I hadn't stayed faithful to my wife for 50 years. Why did I stay married? I should have divorced and married someone else. I wish I would have had less kids. I just wish I would have got drunk more. I just wish I would have gone to more rock concerts. You think that's what the old people in the nursing home are saying? No, they're saying I wish I would have stayed with my first spouse because number two and three were even worse. I've heard that many times, that exact statement. Or you know what else they're saying? I wish I would have had more kids because I only had one kid and, you know, because I was too busy out fooling around and partying and not even raising my kid and shipping her off to daycare and school system and college and didn't take an interest, you know, now she doesn't want anything to do with me anyway. You know, she's wearing black lipstick and she got a nose ring and, you know, is tattooed all over her face and neck and, you know, is not sure whether she's a woman or a pangender, gender fluid, gender bender, whatever the latest, you know what I mean? Look, you don't find old people in nursing homes with those kind of regrets. You know, you will find people who say I wish I would have prayed more. I wish I would have read my Bible more. I wish I would have gone to church more. I wish I would have spent more time with my children. I wish I would have loved my wife more. I wish I would have loved my husband more. You know, now that he's gone, I wish I would have expressed more love for him while he was here. You know, those are the kind of things that you hear. So at the end of the day, it might seem hard to obey God. But here's the thing about the Christian life, it gets easier and easier. And here's the thing about the sinful life, it gets harder and harder. Harder and harder. Whoo! Partying in our 20s. The 30s are going to get a little harder. The 40s are going to get harder. By the time you're in your 50s and 60s, you're going to be one of these bitter old people. You ever run into just these bitter elderly people? I mean, you know, just these bitter, grumpy old people. Why? Because they just blushed their whole life and ruined it and now they're depressed about it. Christ's yoke is easy and the way of the transgressors is hard. Don't get sucked into the devil's lie that's trying to tell you that it's so great out there in the world. No. God's commandments are not grievous. This is the love of God that we walk after his commandments and his commandments are not grievous, okay? And here's the thing. If we love him, they're even less grievous. Because if we love Christ, they're a delight and a pleasure unto us. But even from an outside perspective, they're still not even grievous. They just are necessary. It's just necessary that you don't fornicate, don't adulterate, don't steal, don't murder, don't covet, don't get drunk. It's just necessary for yourself and for society in general. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your wonderful laws that you've given us, Lord. And I just pray that we would all be wise enough to listen to your advice, follow your laws, take your yoke upon us and learn from you, Lord. And help us to not get sucked into the devil's lies about what's on the other side of the fence. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.