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Jesus, my Lord, come, come away, heroes. With your mighty triumph o'er his halls, heroes are with him through the dark domain, and he lives forever with his saints to reign. Heroes, heroes, hallelujah, Christ the Lord. And cannot keep his way, Jesus, my Savior. He tore the bars away, Jesus, my Lord. Come, come away, heroes. With your mighty triumph o'er his halls, heroes are with him through the dark domain, and he lives forever with his saints to reign. Heroes, heroes, hallelujah, Christ the Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Please turn with me to song 33. Song number 33. Christ the Lord is risen today. Sing it out. Christ the Lord is risen today. Hallelujah. Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia! Raise your joys in triumph's light, Alleluia! Sing ye after earth before, Alleluia! Live'st again our glorious King, Alleluia! Where all death is now my sin, Alleluia! Dying once we all just say, Alleluia! Where thy victory all reign, Alleluia! Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia! Walk of white, the battle won, Alleluia! Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia! Christ has opened them with us, Alleluia! So we now hear Christ's name, Alleluia! All we are exalted in, Alleluia! Face thy kin, thy kin we rise, Alleluia! House of courts ungrace the skies, Alleluia! All right, it's time for our announcements. As the bulletins are being handed around on the inside, we have our service times. Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 630, and then Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. This week will be in Jeremiah chapter number 25. The soul winning times are listed there below, as well as salvations, baptisms, and offering totals. Across the page there, we have the September birthdays. And so next Sunday, a week from today, we will have donuts and coffee before the morning service in honor of everyone celebrating their birthday in September. So show up to church at 10 o'clock next Sunday morning, and we'll have donuts and coffee a half hour before the service. Happy anniversary to the following couples, John Paul and Sheree Art, John and Michelle Ball, Tom and Naomi Wisniewski, and Dale and Andrea Landry. So let's go ahead and sing the anniversary song for all four of our anniversary couples. Sweeter as the years go by, let's sing it out. Congratulations on all the wedding anniversaries down at the bottom there. We've got the upcoming home school activities, the Legoland Discovery Center, and then the Don't Go Back to School Ice Cream Social at FWBC. So that's right here on Monday night, 6 to 8 p.m. All of those who have school age children are invited to attend the ice cream social whether or not you home school. That's on Monday night, September 5th at 6 o'clock. And then it says there that activities are open to any family with at least one student, age 4 and up, always free. On the back we've got the Bible memory passage. Ecclesiastes chapter 3, we're on verse number 16. Anyone who memorizes the whole chapter and can quote it word perfect to a non-relative in church without coaching or stammering through the passage will earn a special price. So we don't want people to just kind of stammer through, just keep throwing stuff at the wall and trying to see what sticks. You know, you have to actually know the passage. You know, obviously you might freeze up a few times, but you need to actually have the whole thing memorized word for word without being coached and making mistakes and so forth. And then down below that, ladies, please join us for a maternity shower in honor of Emily Gonzalez and Jenny Payan this Saturday, September 3rd, so six days from now, 2 to 4 right here at the church building, so all ladies and girls are invited to attend that maternity shower for those two ladies. Down at the bottom there, congratulations to the Yamas family on the birth of Selah Lydia Yamas, born on Tuesday, August 16th at 1025 p.m. weighing 7 pounds, 7 ounces and measuring 19.5 inches, so be sure to congratulate them. And also another announcement is that there's another lady in our church who has joined the ranks of those who are pregnant, and that is Sheree Art is pregnant now, so let's give them a hand on expecting this. Congratulations to the Art family on expecting their next child. And that's about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and sing our next song. Let's turn to song number 335, If Jesus Goes With Me. You jumped there, huh? 335, If Jesus Goes With Me. Let's sing it out on that first verse. Song number 335. Song number 335, If Jesus Goes With Me. Song number 335. There's one thing I know. If it means I'll be free. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere. I counted a few of those here. There's lots to bear. If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. If it means I'm fortunate to marry my possible. Above the wheels, the world is beyond the middle of snow. A room I think we can confess, it does prepare. And if He stays with me, I'll go anywhere. If Jesus goes anywhere, He'll travel to me. And I'm happy if he is there, I'm happy all who is near Is cross to bear, and Jesus does not mean a fool anywhere He is not mine to rest in the dust with salt, my Lord And He is not mine to find, oh, the meaning of His Word But if you overstay, whether you're there I'll be with my Savior between anywhere May Jesus go and He will go anywhere This heaven can be where ever He is, He is there I'm proud and I'm privileged here Is cross to bear, and Jesus does not mean a fool anywhere As the planes go around, let's turn our Bibles to the book of Jude The book of Jude will read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one You can follow along silently with brother Garrett Kirschway as he reads By the way everyone, I just want to mention that this is actually brother Garrett Kirschway's last time reading the Bible on a Sunday morning This is actually his last Sunday morning service with us before he goes to Botswana This is because of the fact that he's going to spend a week and a half in Texas preaching at a few churches in Texas He's preaching at Steadfast Baptist Church with brother Romero And he's preaching at brother Perry's church, Old Path Baptist Church down in San Antonio, Texas And so this is his last Sunday with us He will be here this coming Wednesday night And then also two weeks from this Wednesday night he will be with us And that's actually when he's going to be ordained as an evangelist And we're sending him out as a missionary to Botswana So that'll be a really special service You're not going to want to miss that That's the Wednesday, do you know the date of that Wednesday? The 14th? Yeah because we're leaving on the 15th Wednesday September 14th is going to be a really special service for brother Garrett Kirschway That's going to be his last service But if you're a Sunday morning glory who never makes it out to an evening service Be sure that you say goodbye to brother Kirschway Give him your blessing And be sure to savor the Bible reading this morning because this is the last time Book of Jude the Bible reads Jude the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James To them that are sanctified by God the Father preserved in Jesus Christ And called Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation It was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend For the faith which was once delivered unto the saints For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old Ordained to this condemnation Ungodly men turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness And denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ I will therefore put you in remembrance though you once knew this How that the Lord having saved the people out of land of Egypt Afterward destroy them that believe not And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness Under the judgment of the great day Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and this city is about them in like manner Giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh Are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh Despise dominion and speak evil of dignities Yet Michael the archangel when contending with the devil He disputed about the body of Moses durst not bring against him A railing accusation but said the Lord rebuke thee These speak evil of those things which they know not But what they know naturally as group beast And those things they corrupt themselves Woe unto them for they have gone in the way of Cain And ran greedily after they are of Balaam for reward And perish in the gainsaying of Corey These are spots in your feast of charity when they feast with you Feeding themselves without fear Clouds they are without water Carried about of winds Trees whose fruit wither without fruit Twice dead plucked up by the roots Waging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame Wandering stars to whom has reserved the blackness of darkness forever And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied of these saying Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints To execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them Of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed And of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him These are murmurs, complainers walking after their own lusts And their mouths speaketh great swelling words Having men's persons in admiration because of advantage But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ Not that they told you there should be mockers in the last time Who should walk after their own ungodly lusts These be they who separate themselves sensual Not having the spirit But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith Praying in the Holy Ghost Keep yourselves in the love of God Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life And of some have compassion making a difference And others say with fear pulling them out of the fire Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling And to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy To the only wise God, our Savior Be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and ever Amen Brother Matt Adams, please pray for us In the book of Jude, the verse that I would like to focus on is verse number four Where the Bible reads For there are certain men crept in unawares Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation Ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness And denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ And the title of the sermon this morning is Turning grace into lasciviousness Turning grace into lasciviousness First of all, what does the word lasciviousness mean? It means unbridled lust, licentiousness It means wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, lewdness Basically to understand the word lasciviousness Basically you would just think of somebody just doing whatever they want to gratify their flesh Just if it feels good, do it That's lasciviousness, just a total unbridled lust and fulfillment of the lusts of the flesh And the Bible is warning about false prophets and men that would creep in unawares That would turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness Now, what you need to understand about the book of Jude Is that it's warning us about multiple kinds of false prophets It's not just one type of false prophet or just one false doctrine that's out there False doctrine comes in many shapes and sizes That's why he said woe unto them for they've gone in the way of Cain And ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward And perished in the gainsaying of Korah Those are three distinct men, they did not teach the same lies They did not teach the same false doctrine Cain's problem was a works-based salvation He brought the works of his own hands Instead of just trusting in the blood of the lamb He was basically believing in a works-based salvation, the fruit of his own hands But the gainsaying of Korah had nothing to do with that But Balaam's prophecy for money had nothing to do with that So God is listing all these different types of false teachers and the types of false doctrine He's not just warning us about one guy He's warning us about all different types of false prophets Now some false prophets, and obviously this is the majority, teach that salvation is by works That's a major false doctrine, that's the way of Cain But there's another false doctrine out there that basically teaches that yes, salvation's by grace, it's not by works But then they go a step further and they say that because of God's grace, we can just do whatever we want Now I'm not talking about for salvation folks, because truly if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ No matter how you live, you're still going to be saved Because whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have eternal life But what these people are teaching is that not just in regard to salvation But in every area of our lives, we can basically live however we want And still be blessed by God, still be right with God God's still pleased with us, God's still blessing us No matter what we do They turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness Meaning that they take the grace of God, God's forgiveness And say this is a license for me to just live however I want with no consequence This is just an open door to lasciviousness I can go out and just live a lascivious life I'm going to go out and live a lascivious life Because of the fact that God's grace is there Now this doctrine has some people that teach it in a very extreme form And then there are varying shades of this But let me just say this, because you might think this is an obscure teaching Nobody believes that, nobody follows that But how this manifests in your typical non-denominational church Or your typical neo-evangelical church Is they'll teach you we're free in Christ We have Christian liberty Therefore, don't come at me with a bunch of dos and don'ts from the Bible Now if you've spent any time in the neo-evangelical movement Or in non-denominational type churches You've heard this before If you've been in the Calvary Chapel style churches You'll hear this idea And if I had a nickel for every time I heard it I'd be a wealthy man You see I grew up independent fundamental Baptist And soul winning type churches I was about 12 years old The church that we were in split and fell apart And we struggled to find a good fundamental Baptist church And so we ended up making the mistake Of just throwing up our hands and going to the liberal Baptist church That was sort of the rock and roll NIV style church And we went to two churches like, actually three churches like that Over the course of five years So I spent five years in the new evangelical type Baptist churches The rock and roll fun center type Baptist churches And I can tell you this is what they teach and believe every week I mean it's just, it's constantly this thing of Christian liberty We're free in Christ And what they mean by that is That if you start preaching to them Hey this is a sin you need to stop doing it don't do that They'll just come at you with Hey whoa why are you trying to bring me back into bondage We're free man So they think free means we should just do whatever we want No restrictions, no rules And they often criticize churches that preach hard on sin And they'll say Oh those churches are just preaching a bunch of dos and don'ts But it's about the relationship man It's not a religion it's a relationship But the Bible teaches that religion is a good thing The Bible says Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and the widows and their affliction And to keep himself unspotted from the world To keep himself unspotted from the world God says that our religion ought to keep us unspotted from the world God said come out from among them and be separate sayeth the Lord And touch not the unclean thing and I'll receive you The Bible says the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts We should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world Now what must we do to be saved? Only believe Just believe Okay but what should we do? We should live godly We should live soberly, righteously, godly We should abstain from worldly lust We should get the sin out of our lives There's a difference between what we should do and what we must do to be saved And this is where the confusion is coming in What must we do to be saved? Only believe It's only by grace We're not under the law but under grace Okay that's salvation But when it comes to the way that we live our lives Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments He didn't say keep my suggestions He didn't say keep my promptings and proddings of the Holy Spirit He said keep my commandments Jesus said that the great commission is to go and teach all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe whatsoever things I've commanded you And lo I am with you all the way even at the end of the world He said you need to go out and preach the gospel, yes But not just the gospel You need to teach people to observe everything that I've commanded We are to preach the commandments of God Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so He shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven But whosoever shall do and teach them the same should be called great in the kingdom of heaven God expects us to preach the commandments of God God expects us to follow the commandments of God Do we have to follow them to get into heaven? No But in order to be blessed by God and in order for God to be pleased with us we have to follow them Now it's sort of like the relationship between a parent and a child If my children break my rules they're still my child I'm still going to love them That's the grace of God right there We are still his children even if we sin we're still saved We're still God's children The grace of God has covered our sins But does that mean that I just let my children do whatever they want? Now truly if they do whatever they're still going to be my kids Just like no matter what we do we're still God's children if we believed on Christ But my children if they break my rules are going to be punished And look no parent is happy with their child If their child is just continually disobeying No parent is going to have a good relationship with their child If their child is continually disobeying Okay but this false doctrine basically teaches that God's never mad at you God's always pleased with you And God's blessings have nothing to do with your obedience They're just freely given to everybody who's saved Just blessings and blessings and blessings No wrong If you disobey God's commandments God is going to punish you He's not going to send you to hell because you're saved You have eternal life But he'll punish us in this life He will be displeased with us He will bring chastening and chastisement upon us Now this seems like a very basic truth But I'll tell you out there amongst the fun center crowd They do not understand this And they are constantly when you come at them With a Bible verse that says don't do this This is what they'll say Well I'm glad that the Holy Spirit has spoken to you about that But the Holy Spirit hasn't spoken to me about that You know I just have peace about doing that Even though God said not to do it I just have peace about it And I'm just being led of the Spirit And I'm not under the law I'm led of the Spirit And so you're trying to kind of bring me back under bondage And here's what they'll call you a legalist Ah you legalist You know what I'm a legalist then I'm a legalist You know what legalist let's break it down What does ist mean? It means you believe in something What is a Buddhist? Somebody who believes in Buddha right? What's a legalist? Somebody who believes in the law of God Amen I'm a legalist I believe in the law of God The law of the Lord is perfect converting Oh how love by thy law It's my meditation night and day Do we then make void the law? Through grace? Look at Romans chapter 3 if you would Romans chapter number 3 This is a key verse my friend Romans chapter 3 Because there are people out there That are turning the grace of God Into lasciviousness The true doctrine is that we're saved by grace The false doctrine is That God's grace means That we can do whatever we want And he'll still bless us and be happy with us And no one can tell us to stop Whether it's drinking, fornicating, smoking No don't tell me to stop I'm under grace Hey the Bible says not to print any marks on your body But I can get a tattoo because I'm under grace That's the false doctrine out there Now you can get a tattoo and still go to heaven But God does not approve of you getting a tattoo Because he said don't print any marks on your body But then people print marks on their body because they're under grace This is the kind of nonsense that comes out of this teaching Look at Romans chapter 3 Verse number, well let's just start in verse 28 Because it says therefore we conclude That a man is justified by faith Without the deeds of the law, amen But look at verse 31 Do we then make void the law through faith Are we just going to completely negate the law now He says God forbid Yea we establish the law So we don't make void the law through faith We establish the law God's law is still there God's commandments are still there And God does not just give us a free for all And just tell us live however you want I mean is that what you do with your kids in your home Now some of you don't answer that Because I've seen how your kids behave No I'm just kidding But anyway You know we don't give our kids a free for all We have rules, we ought to have rules for our kids And we need to teach them how to behave themselves in the house of God We need to teach them what is right and what is wrong We need to discipline and chasten them early The Bible teaches And God's the same way He doesn't just have a free for all So you see there's two false extremes The one false extreme is teaching Oh salvation's by works You can't live however you want and still go to heaven That's a false doctrine But then there's another just extreme overreaction that says Well not only is salvation by grace through faith Everything's by grace through faith And you know there's all the blessings of God Are just automatically yours Just because you believe in Jesus Don't ever feel bad when you do wrong things Well what about when James told us to Be afflicted and mourn and weep Let your laughter be turned to mourning And your joy to heaviness Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he'll lift you up Amen Why did God tell us to mourn and be afflicted and weep When we have sin in our lives We're supposed to feel bad We're supposed to get right We're supposed to repent Of our sins on a daily basis The problem is when you mix that in with salvation So we need to separate things here There's being saved, that's real easy Believing in Christ But then once we're saved We can't just keep to sin Oh grace, grace, no no no We need to actually do the work that he told us to do And we need to actually obey the commandments That he told us to obey Now go to 2 Peter chapter 2 2 Peter chapter 2 Another thing to notice about the book of Jude Is that Jude is a parallel passage with 2 Peter chapter 2 Now when we talk about a parallel passage We mean that there are two chapters That teach the same thing And they even go in the same order They kind of hit the same points And God puts a lot of chapters like this in the Bible So that we can compare and contrast And we can learn a deeper truth For example when we compare Matthew with Mark So if we find the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew And then we find the Sermon on the Mount in Luke Those would be known as parallel passages Because they're teaching the same doctrines We can compare them and learn more We could take books like Ephesians and Colossians That have a lot of parallel passages Colossians 3 is parallel with Ephesians 5 And when we compare them We can learn more Well 2 Peter chapter 2 is parallel with Jude You'll find a lot of the same exact wording The same teaching They both are chapters about false prophets And here's where we find the teaching that is parallel to Turning the grace of God into lasciviousness Into just a license for sin Into just living a life that indulges the flesh With no regard for what God is telling us And thinking that there are no earthly consequences for our sins Look at 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 18 It says For when they speak great swelling words of vanity Meaning that it's just a lot of fluff what they preach Not a lot of meat on the bone They allure through the lust of the flesh How do they get people to listen to them? Because they appeal to the lust of the flesh They tell people what they want to hear Because they're giving people permission to go out and do all these things And to live a very loose life He says They allure through the lust of the flesh through much wantonness Now that word wantonness is synonym with lasciviousness With much wantonness Those that were clean escaped from them who live in error Watch this While they promised them liberty Christian liberty free in Christ While they promised them liberty They themselves are the servants of corruption For of whom a man has overcome of the same as he brought in bondage Go to Galatians 5 So the Bible is saying that these teachers will promise them liberty And allure through the lust of the flesh Basically advertising this doctrine Saying oh this is a great doctrine Because it just gives you such freedom I mean you know you don't wake up in the morning Feeling all guilty about breaking God's rules You don't go through life stressed out about a bunch of do's and don'ts You just wake up and just breathe in the grace of God And just realize you know God loves me And He's pleased with me and He's happy with me And you know He just wants to have a relationship with me And if the Holy Spirit prompts me I'm gonna follow it But I don't need to go into the Bible and find all the rules and start obeying them I'm gonna wait till the Holy Spirit brings that up to me Or whatever And they promise people liberty They make this sound very appealing But in reality living a sinful life is anything but liberty And that's why it said that they promise them liberty But they themselves are the servants That's the opposite of being free in a sense You're a servant He said they are servants of corruption For of whom a man has overcome of the same as he brought in bondage This is like when Jesus said in John chapter 8 Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin You see living a life of no rules might seem like freedom And I want every child and every teenager to listen up and look at me right now Let me say this to you young people You might feel like your parents have a lot of restrictions and rules Or that Pastor Anderson preaches a lot of do's and don'ts And that the church is really restraining you and constraining you And you think that if you just leave your parents house You just turn 18 and just move out That you can just live however you want Oh it's going to be such a great feeling of freedom Listen to me It's going to bring you into bondage You're going to be enslaved way more Than when you are a servant to Christ The devil is a much harsher taskmaster than the Lord is God's yoke is easy He said my yoke is easy My burden is light Says this is the love of God that we keep his commandments His commandments are not grievous the Bible says But you know what the devil He doesn't care whether he grieves you or not And when you go out and say Oh man it's so great to just be able to just drink alcohol You know my parents said no The church said no But why can't I have a little fun and drink alcohol Alcohol will make you its slave Have you ever heard of being a slave to the bottle? Oh but that would never happen to you Yes it will Every alcoholic began as a social drinker You start out you drink You know you lose your judgment I might as well have another one You know why not have a third And one becomes four And four becomes six And I already preached a whole sermon about that last week But let me tell you something There are many people who are slaves to alcohol and drunkenness They don't get up every morning and do what they want to do They get up and seek alcohol because they have to Because they must Because they are enslaved to it Every person who smokes cigarettes They don't make a decision Every time they pull out a cigarette They don't say Hmm do I want to smoke? Yes You know no They actually have to smoke Because it's an addiction Okay Oh man my parents told me not to go to the casino But what's a little harmless fun Yeah until you get enslaved Until you're addicted to gambling and ruin your whole life Okay You say oh you know I'm just gonna I'm gonna look at some pornography You know who What's the big deal It's just looking What's the big deal Yeah until you're addicted to it And guess what That's what happens People get addicted to it Hear about it all the time And so there are all kinds of sins We could go down the list of other sins You know those are just a few sins that I'm throwing out there That can become addictive That can become an addiction When you just live a life of lasciviousness Wantonness Where you're just gonna do whatever And you think it's freedom Okay let me ask you this young teenage man That's so smart How free are you gonna be When you knock up some girl and get her pregnant You're gonna be paying child support For the next 18 years That's not freedom When somebody's deducting huge amounts out of your check To pay for your bastard child And being raised in a way that you might not even approve of But you're still paying for it That's not freedom That's not freedom That's not liberty Oh I'm just free I can just And look there are even Some of these teachers These false prophets that Jude warns about Are even teaching now that it's okay To basically go to bed with somebody before you're married And they teach that the Bible doesn't condemn it anywhere And by the way that's what the Jews teach The Judaism In Judaism premarital you know what is accepted It's virtually across the board accepted Why? Because they basically are teaching A lasciviousness Oh you guys are too strict You know expecting us to wait till we get married You're too strict And then they teach that it's liberty But actually it brings bondage It brings enslavement How free is a bird Are you gonna be young lady When you get pregnant You're a single mother Oh that's a really free as a bird I guarantee you that my wife has a lot more freedom Than a single mother Why? Cause her husband's paying the bills She doesn't have to go clock in Clock out Put on a hairnet Put on a name tag Be under cc television No no no She gets up and she actually does what she wants Cause God is the one who gives freedom Where the spirit of the Lord is There is liberty You say well to me liberty means never having an alarm clock Wake up when I wanna wake up But here's the problem with that If you just wake up when you wanna wake up And you never have an alarm clock I'll tell you the enslavement that's gonna bring Not having any money And then you have to rely on other people And then you're not free anymore Have you ever heard of financial freedom I mean money gives you some freedom And I'm not preaching to be rich I'm saying that if you go out and work And pay your own way And make your own money And provide for your own family You can make choices for yourself That you can't make If you don't have any money And you're relying on other people To pay for you So actually setting the alarm clock And getting up early And going and working a long day Actually brings freedom Cause it brings a paycheck That you can spend on what you want As opposed to people who just live a real You know who lives probably the most Footloose and fancy free life children Homeless bums Nobody tells them what to do Nobody makes them get up in the morning And go to work They never get in trouble with their parents But is that what you wanna be kids You wanna be a bum You wanna be out there in the hot sun Waving a flag Holding up a sign That says you know anything helps God bless Is that what you want Or do you wanna go in your air conditioned house After a long days work And eat a well learned meal And sleep a good nights sleep Because the sleep of a laboring man Is sweet the bible says Galatians chapter 5 Is that where I had you turn Man I gotta hurry Verse 13 For brethren you've been called unto liberty Watch this Only use not liberty For an occasion to the flesh But by love serve one another So the bible balances this idea of Yes we have liberty Yes we're free in Christ Yes we're not under the law but under grace But does that mean that we should use our liberty As an occasion for the flesh Should we use the fact That Christ has given us liberty To just indulge the flesh That's turning the grace of God Into lasciviousness Is what that is Verse 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word Even in this thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself But if ye bite and devour one another Take heed that ye be not consumed one of another This I say then Walk in the spirit And ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the spirit And the spirit against the flesh And these are contrary the one to the other So that you cannot do the things that you would But if ye be led of the spirit You're not under the law See if you're led of the spirit God's not gonna lead you into sin So if you're truly led of the spirit Then yeah You're not under the law Because the law is not made for a righteous man But for the lawless and disobedient You see what it's saying is If you actually love your neighbor And you actually do what's right Because you want to And because of the prompting of the Holy Spirit You wouldn't be breaking God's laws In the first place So you wouldn't even have to worry about the dos and the don'ts If you're walking in the spirit But what they're doing is walking in the flesh Saying that they're walking in the spirit And saying therefore Don't tell me about God's laws I'm in the spirit It's like well no you're not in the spirit If you're breaking his laws Because if you walk in the spirit You won't fulfill the lust of the flesh So when I see you committing fornication I know you're not walking in the spirit When I see you watching porno You're not walking in the spirit When I see you drinking You're not walking in the spirit That's the opposite That's spirits Wine and spirits That's not the spirit That's the spirits Oh that's why you got confused When I see you smoking a cigarette And drinking and doing drugs And partying And saying oh I'm free in Christ You know when I see I mean I remember There was a kid that walked into my Baptist youth group Wearing a Marilyn Manson t-shirt And I said that's a wicked t-shirt How dare you wear that in here I said you are supposedly a Christian This wasn't a first time visitor I said that's satanic And everybody's like oh don't judge Don't judge We're free in Christ bro I'm not kidding I've sat in church I mean look Brother Dave Burzins told me he was in a church Where the guy took the offering In a Metallica t-shirt Okay my dad visited a church a few years ago Where the guy taking the offering These aren't visitors These aren't people that just got saved Five minutes ago The guy taking the offering was wearing a Hooters t-shirt In church on Sunday morning I mean think about that This is the kind of junk And anybody who speaks up about it is called a legalist Anybody who tries to bring in some sanity In the voice of reason is told You're bringing us under bondage We're free in Christ No no no These people want to use liberty For an occasion to the flesh And they want to turn the grace of God Into lasciviousness Go to Romans 5 Actually I'm sorry Go to Romans Yeah Romans 5 We'll start in Romans 5 I'll read for you from 1 Peter 2 verse 15 For so is the will of God That with well doing ye may put to silence The ignorance of foolish men Watch this As free God is saying he wants us to live As free Like we're free Comma And not using your liberty For a cloak of maliciousness But as the servants of God He's saying yeah we've been given liberty Yeah no matter whether we do right or wrong We're still saved Don't use that as a cloak of maliciousness What's a cloak? It's a coat It's an over garment That could basically hide You know the sawed off shotgun As it were You know You're using it as a cloak of maliciousness Hiding your ill intentions You're using liberty To gratify the flesh You're using liberty as a cloak For your maliciousness And your wickedness You're hiding your sin behind this Oh it's just liberty Liberty He says no use your liberty to serve Christ Use your liberty to serve one another Don't use liberty To gratify the flesh And to break all God's commandments And displease him Romans 5 19 For as by one man's disobedience Adam Many were made sinners So by the obedience of one That's Jesus Shall many be made righteous Moreover the law entered That the offense might abound But where sin abounded Grace did much more abound That as sin has reigned unto death Even so might grace Reign through righteousness Unto eternal life By Jesus Christ our Lord So what the Bible's telling us Is that where sin abounded Grace did much more abound Okay God's grace is sufficient To pay for all of our sins Meaning that anyone who believes on Jesus Christ No matter how much sin they've committed Can go to heaven God's grace will pay for all their sin So no matter how many bad sins you've done Before you got saved Once you believe on Christ His grace covers it all It's enough It's sufficient And if sin abounds Grace much more abounds Amen Look what he says in Romans chapter 6 verse 1 though He just finished explaining to us In chapters 3, 4, and 5 All three of those chapters Wall to wall 3, 4, and 5 Is just all about how we're saved by faith It's not by works It's not by the law It's all by grace Where sin abounds Grace did much more abound But then he explains in verse 1 of chapter 6 What shall we say then in light of that? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? So if we sin If we continue in sin Grace will abound There's no question about that If you say that God's grace won't abound That's a false doctrine But should we continue in sin Just because God's grace will abound? God forbid How shall we that are dead to sin Live any longer there? Why would we want to do that? Is that really God's purpose for our lives? To just keep living a sinful wicked life after we're saved? No The Bible says for by grace are you saved through faith And that not of yourselves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast For we are his workmanship Created in Christ Jesus unto good works Which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them So we should do works But we're not saved by works And we don't have to do works to be saved And there are people who don't do works And yet they're saved Cause they believed on price Romans 4-5 But should we do that? Absolutely not Why not? Look at verse uh Jump down to verse 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you For you're not under the law but under grace And this is what the new Evangelicals will repeat over and over again The non-denom You know? Not under the law We're under grace When you try to preach against sin What then? Shall we sin because we're not under the law but under grace? God forbid And what is sin? The transgression of the law? Sin is the transgression of the law So because we're not under the law but under grace Is that saying that we should sin? No he's saying No we should not sin Why not? Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey His servants ye are to whom ye obey Whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Once again we clearly see That sin enslaves us And that it's a fake liberty that tells you to live however After you're saved It's a fake liberty It's a false liberty It's a fraud It's a promised liberty that does not materialize Now let me just mention one false teacher out there Now and don't get me wrong because I want to say this This is not a rare doctrine Taking it to its extreme is pretty rare But I'm telling you every new evangelical church that I've ever seen Had this mentality to an extent It's very common It's very prevalent this leaning But there's a guy out there who sort of takes this to an extreme And his name's Joseph Prince Who's ever heard of this guy? He looks sort of like a cross between Prince And Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley all kind of rolled into one Okay? So he kind of looks like a rock star He's got the, you know, the feathered out hairdo And he's got the tight pants And the tight leather jacket And the pencil tie And he's real smooth and slick And he's preaching on a platform washed in purple light And he basically teaches He teaches some right things And this is how people get sucked in He teaches some right things Because he talks a lot about God's grace And he talks a lot about how you can't lose your salvation Well that's a great doctrine Because you can't lose your salvation, right? So whenever lies are taught There's truth mixed in So he teaches a lot of true things But let me just explain this to you The problem with most preachers is not what they say It's what they don't say Let me say that again The problem with most preachers is not what they say It's what they don't say You can go to the average liberal church And listen to 25 minute sermonette They're not really going to say anything bad a lot of the time But it's just that they don't say much of anything Okay? And Joseph Prince, I don't care what anybody thinks Is a positive only preacher That's why he fills in for Joel Osteen's pulpit That's why the two are buddies That's why he travels in those circles Because of the fact that Joel Osteen is a positive only preacher And it's all about the money Look, are they teaching the error of Cain? No, because they're not really, you know Pushing a workspace salvation, Joseph Prince that is But what he will do Is run after the error of Balaam greedily for reward Okay? Greedily preach what people want to hear Allure through the lusts of the flesh And teach licentiousness and this Christian liberty We're under grace Take it to this extreme Where the God of Joseph Prince doesn't chastise anybody He doesn't chastise We're all under his blessing He's pleased with all of us We're all just in good graces with him All the time And so there's no reason to ever feel bad or guilty or anything like that You know what? That's just a lie And there's so many scriptures that could disprove that And what it does is It sets up this straw man For the work salvation teachers to attack When you preach on by grace through faith Then they'll try to lump you in with this weird doctrine Like, oh well you're one of these people that just says to live however you want And they lump you in with this, what they call the hyper grace Where it's this thing of Not only do you not need to do works to be saved You don't even have to do works, period I mean it's just stupid Yeah we should do works They don't have anything to do with salvation But we should obey the commandments We should do right We should get the center of our lives But you know, according to Joseph Prince It's just, it's all done And we just sit back and just enjoy our standing in Christ And of course the guy has 22,000 people in his church or something Cause that's a pretty popular message Just do whatever you want God, he said the Holy Spirit will never convict you of sin That's what he said And of course that's a popular message Why? Because people in the last days the Bible said Would heap to themselves teachers having itching ears What they want to hear What they want to be told And the Bible says that they'll make merchandise of you So there's all these clips of his preaching on YouTube And then it says hey if you want the full sermon go to his website To download the MP3 of one sermon $7.99 for a download of one sermon Okay, so I have 1600 of my sermons on faithforwardbaptist.org for free download So what if I charge 8 bucks each Then I guess to get the whole repertoire You'd have to spend about, what, 13 grand? Just to listen to all the sermons from Faith Forward Baptist I mean imagine spending $7.99 and listening to a one hour sermon It's like, well, okay, that's an expensive habit if you want to listen to a lot of preaching But it's about money, that's why It's not about just preaching the truth, getting the truth out there He sells the CD for $7.99 one sermon DVDs are $28 for two or three sermons on a DVD or whatever You know, and look, I'm not against businesses selling things But you know what, the church itself should not be selling things, number one And number two, it's charging those kind of prices It shows you what the motivation is When basically he's not even putting it out there at all, the information You've got to get the download And it's all the same, just tell you what you want to hear Tickle your ears, kind of false teaching You say, well why are you coming down on Joseph Prince Well how about because he doesn't use the King James, he uses the new King James But worse than that, he doesn't even believe the new King James I looked up, I wanted to see what he said about Jude Where Jude says turning the grace of God into lascivious Cause that's what he's doing So I wondered what he'd say about that I found a video where he's basically, he gets up and says Oh, this doesn't say what you think it means Jude verse four This doesn't mean what you think it means First he read the verse in like five versions He read it in five versions, right? But then he proceeded to explain how all the versions are wrong All 400 and some English Bibles are all wrong Let me go back to the Greek and tell you what it really means And this guy goes back to the Greek a lot So not only is he using the wrong Bible Then when it doesn't say what he wants it to say, he'll just change it and say well, the Greek You know, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they speak Greek in Singapore Where Joseph Prince is from And I doubt that he would do very well if we dropped him in Athens Without a tour guide But he's just, oh the Greek, the Greek, all these 400 versions, they're all wrong It doesn't really mean turning the grace of God into lascivious It means that you've swapped out the grace of God for lasciviousness You're trying to swap, so basically preaching the grace of God prevents us from lasciviousness But that's not what that verse is saying That verse is saying you're turning the grace of God, you're changing it into lasciviousness It doesn't say you're swapping it And by the way, every English Bible says that Even the versions that are wrong, they get that part right at least He's just coming in with some strange translation I mean, it's bad enough when you're shopping Bible versions until you find the one that says what you want it to say Shopping versions, you'll see preachers that will use like five different versions in one sermon Because they shop around for the point that they It's like people keep going to a doctor until one will give you the oxycodone Right? You'll find one eventually Oh, it hurts? Where does it hurt? Everywhere Okay, here you go, oxycodone, there you go You know, you'll get it if you want, right? So that's the thing, they searched versions until they find it This guy, when he can't find it, then he just said, well these are all wrong, this is the Greek He doesn't want to face what this verse teaches because he's guilty of it, because it's about him And here's how he tries to say it's not about him He says, well these people are teaching the way of Cain And we know I'm not teaching the way of Cain because I'm not teaching works at all What he doesn't understand is that this chapter is warning about lots of different false prophets That do lots of different things Look, when he says that they turn the grace of God into lascivious and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ It's not saying that necessarily it's the same person doing both of those things It's not necessarily the same person that's in the way of Cain that's teaching the Gainsang of Korah These are various types of false doctrine and false things that can be taught Now I want to tie this in with something here I want to use this as an illustration for something else And that is the subject of marriage Because I think that marriage is a beautiful picture of salvation We talk a lot about salvation being likened unto a father and a son Because the Bible says, as many as received him to them gave you power to become the sons of God Even to them that believe on his name But in addition to using that as an illustration The Bible also likens salvation unto marriage Ok, let me give you some scriptures on that And if you would, flip over to Romans chapter 7 We're going to go to Romans 7 and then Ephesians 5 if you want to find those two places But the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 2 For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy For I have espoused you to one husband That I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ So again, marriage there is being used as a picture with Christ being the husband And the church being the wife Or the believers being the wife Or things of that nature The Bible often uses that So look at Romans 7 verse 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth But if the husband be dead she is loosed from the law of her husband So then if while her husband liveth she be married to another man she shall be called an adulteress But if her husband be dead she is free from that law so that she is no adulteress though she be married to another man Wherefore my brethren ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ That ye should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead That we should bring forth fruit unto God So you see how the Bible is saying Basically that we are to be married to Christ That's a symbol there That's a picture of salvation Marriage pictures salvation Look at Ephesians 5 I'll show you further Ephesians 5 verse 22 Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord For the husband is the head of the wife Even as Christ is the head of the church So notice the husband and wife is like Christ and the church Do you see that? Even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ So let the wives be to their own husbands and everything Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it So we see over and over again in this passage That marriage is likened unto the relationship between Christ and the church Between Christ and us as believers Now why is this illustration so applicable? Well because of the fact that once we get married It's supposed to be permanent Right? It's supposed to be till death do us part And staying married is not based on our actions or our deeds It's based on a promise Right? It's not based on well I like the way you're acting Therefore I'm going to stay married to you I like being around you I enjoy your company Therefore let's stay married No it's based on a promise I'm staying married because I promised Because you promised till death do us part It's a vow Well it's the same thing with salvation Salvation is not based on our actions Or how we act, how we feel It's based on a promise The Bible says this is the promise that he has promised us Even eternal life So God promised eternal life unto all those that believe And he promised I will never leave you nor forsake you Now when you get married that's what you're promising I will never leave you nor forsake you And it ends at death right? When the husband dies it's over When the wife dies it's over It's not forever and ever and ever it's till death But stop and think about this We're in Christ We've been espoused unto Christ Here's the thing he's never going to die Because the Bible says he was dead but now he lives forevermore And not only that we're never going to die Because the Bible says whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die So our salvation is eternal So that's part of the reason why it's likened unto marriage Another reason why it's likened unto marriage is because in marriage there's an authority structure Where the husband is the head of the wife As Christ is the head of the church Just as the church is to be subject unto Christ Meaning that Christ rules over the church The husband is to rule over his wife The Bible says in Genesis 3 16 He shall rule over thee about Adam and Eve So there's an authority structure That's also another similarity between the two So when we see these similarities And understand that marriage is a beautiful picture of salvation That should show us why God hates divorce Why God said that he hates putting away Because what it does is it ruins that picture It's like as if you could lose your salvation You know what I mean? As if it could end prematurely When in reality it can't end Because God will never leave us nor forsake us And the Bible says that he has us in his hand Inside the Father's hand And no man is able to pluck us out of his hand Now this is why this is such an important thing to talk about Because just as we could turn the grace of God into lasciviousness In regard to salvation, right? In marriage people could turn the grace of marriage Into a license to treat their spouse however What do I mean by that? Well if I know that my wife's never gonna leave me or forsake me I know that it's till death I know that she's made that promise and can't break that promise Does that mean that I should just treat my wife poorly? Cause who cares? What's she gonna do about it? She can't leave Is that a good attitude? Now isn't that similar to a Christian who has an attitude of Oh I'm saved I'm going to heaven no matter what I'm gonna go out and live however Cause I'm going to heaven anyway That's just like a husband who would say Well my wife's never gonna leave me so I'm just gonna treat her however Or a wife who says Well I know my husband's never gonna divorce me I know my husband's never gonna leave me so I'm not gonna obey him What's he gonna do about it? See how it's the same type of a thing Same type of a situation So we could turn grace into lasciviousness Not just in regard to salvation but in regard to marriage as well Now here's the thing about that Truly, no matter how my wife treats me I will never leave her I will never divorce my wife No matter how bad she treats me I'm not leaving And no matter how bad she treats me Or no matter how bad I treat her You know right honey? Right? You know she's not gonna leave me but here's the thing about that That's the way it should be right amongst Christians They should have that attitude that of course It's do or die No matter what till death do us part But guess what though Even if that's the case You should still put forth an effort To love your wife husbands And you should still put forth the effort wives To reverence and submit to your husband Whether or not it's gonna make or break The actual union itself You still should just as we should Obey Christ's commandments If you love me keep my commandments Okay well if you love your husband Obey your husband And if you love your wife Show your wife that you love her Demonstrate that love Live out that love And make it evident to her And don't just have an attitude that says Well she's stuck with me I'll work on other areas of my life That are a little more volatile You know? This is in the bag That's called taking things for granted Now we shouldn't take the Lord for granted But here's the good news Even if we take the Lord for granted He'll never leave us or forsake us cause he's perfect But did you know that your husband or wife They're not God They might break their promise Now God forbid that they would do that But you know what? It wouldn't be the first time If your wife leaves you It wouldn't be the first time that that happened In an independent fundamental Baptist church Would it? Would it be the first time that a A godly Christian family Was in church and serving the Lord And then they neglected their marriage And neglected their marriage And eventually The husband got sick of it and said Hey I'm sick of being treated like garbage I'm leaving Now obviously that's wicked for him to leave Obviously that's wicked for her to leave If she says I'm sick and tired of being unloved And neglected and treated like dirt I'm leaving Look that's wicked But it happens It's out there Why? Because your spouse is not as consistent as God is He's not as trustworthy as God is So therefore Number one Don't have this attitude Toward your wife or husband Oh they're stuck with me So I'm gonna act however and take it for granted Because number one That's wrong That's not love If you love them You'll do it out of love Not out of fear But number two Don't do that Because you know what? It might not be as secure as you think Because stranger things have happened Than adultery Adultery happens Divorce happens Divorce happens And the people who do it are wicked as hell But let me tell you something Don't push your spouse to that Yeah it's their fault when they do it But why would you push them to that Okay let's find that concept in scripture Go to 1 Corinthians 10 I'm not making things up this morning I'm preaching the Bible These are not man's philosophies Man's wisdom That say Hey don't push Your spouse Don't push your husband Don't push your wife Don't test it to see how far you can push it What does the Bible say? Let's get back on the subject of Christ 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 5 But with many of them God was not well pleased Joyce Meyer Joseph Prince Joel Osteen For they were overthrown in the wilderness Now these things were our examples to the intent That we should not lust after evil things As they also lusted Neither be ye idolaters As were some of them As it is written The people sat down to eat and drink And rose up to play Neither let us commit fornication As some of them committed And fell in one day Three and twenty thousand Here's the key verse Verse 9 Neither let us tempt Christ As some of them also tempted And were destroyed of serpents Neither murmur ye As some of them also murmured And were destroyed of the destroyer Now all these things happen unto them for examples And they are written for our admonition Upon whom the ends of the world are come Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth Take heed lest he fall Let me ask you this What does it mean to tempt Christ? What does it mean to tempt him? It doesn't mean to tempt him with evil God cannot be tempted with evil Neither tempteth he any man What it means to tempt It means to test them When God tempted Abraham He was testing him He was trying him So the Bible is saying Don't test God Don't try to push God And see how far you're going to push him And see how much you can get away with it See they tempted the Lord in the wilderness They kept pushing and pushing And then he pushed back And he sent fiery serpents to destroy them Now what was the sin that caused God to send the fiery serpents? It was complaining It was murmuring Read the story Numbers 21 They murmured They complained They whined And they kept pushing and pushing And God Called their bluff Now God's not going to call your bluff In the sense of sending you to hell Because he'll never send us to hell Once we have believed on Christ We have eternal life We shall never perish But you know what God could call your bluff By bringing serious chastisement into your life Serious punishment Serious calamity The Bible says He that being often reproved Hardened at his neck Shall suddenly be destroyed In that without remedy You know don't tempt God Don't tempt Christ Don't just keep murmuring or fornicating or drinking And just keep pushing it And tempting Christ He says the same thing in Hebrews 3 You don't have to turn there Harden not your hearts As in the provocation In the day of temptation in the wilderness When your fathers tempted me Proved me And saw my works forty years He says don't tempt me Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Don't try to test him and prove him And we're not talking about it in a good way Like hey we're going to see what God can do If we give him our best We're talking about the kind of tempting God That says well you know let's see if God Is really even going to punish me If I do this Okay back to what we were talking about Because remember this ties in with marriage Don't be a wife who wants to just tempt her husband And test him And you know what There are a lot of wives out there That push and push their husband They're just trying to find a boundary Just keep pushing him Keep on trying to provoke him Trying to get a rise out of him Trying to get a reaction out of him It's out there Or if we were to flip that over The way that a husband Would tempt his wife would be To just it would be more of a Instead of a more active tempting Like the wife who's just nagging and whining And complaining and cursing And attacking him and telling him off And refusing to obey Refusing to submit I think on the husband's side Tempting the wife would be more like Just how much can I just neglect her And ignore her And just not show any love And she'll still put up with it Right I mean just Just see how far you can push it See how much I mean look It's sort of like my Hyundai Sonata That I used to drive I didn't really give it a lot of tender loving care You know I tend to abuse property Okay I confess I don't treat things very well Be careful if you loan me stuff Okay I'll just put it that way Cause I don't really treat things that well You know And I'm not saying that that's good I'm just being honest And it's funny because my dad Is the exact opposite He cleans his motorcycle with a toothbrush And it looks like it just came off the assembly line yesterday After he's had it for years But I on the other hand I tend to have a philosophy of Well things are to be used You know so let's drive it till the wheels fall off So I had this Hyundai Sonata And man you know I didn't treat that thing First of all I was constantly tossing the keys To young guys and letting them borrow it To do work You know I'd send them on a fire alarm job For me or something Here borrow my car Or use my car for soul winning Or use this car And of course they're just Grinding and Gears and you know just whatever They do all kinds of just Irresponsible things with it And then when I would drive it I would change the oil Every twelve or thirteen thousand miles Consistently Okay I mean I remember one time I was out driving In New Mexico And I was in like a blizzard snowstorm In northern New Mexico And I just Was just do or die I gotta get to this job And I was driving There were these big snow drifts in the road And I just kept bashing through them And if you remember my Hyundai Sonata Who remembers that car that I had That red car Who remembers how the front of it Was like sewn together With bailing wire Yeah That was from me Just bashing through these snow drifts In the road Just trying to get to this job And the road was blocked with snow And I'm just like Argh Argh Argh Argh You know just Just hitting these snow drifts Just busting through them And I think like If I slow down I'm gonna get stuck I just gotta keep going You know and I mean The inside of the car was just I'm shoving like ten foot sticks Of conduit into a sedan It fit Oh you can fit A ten foot stick of conduit In a Hyundai Sonata You take it You put the seat down the back You stick it through the trunk Shove it all the way up onto the dash Up to the window So I have like ten foot sticks of conduit I'm putting a six foot ladder Inside the Sonata Inside this four door sedan I'm shoving all kinds of materials I'm loading it down with parts I'm sleeping in it I'm eating in it They say Oh it's bad for the car To let it run all night I slept in that car Hundreds of times Hundreds of times With the engine running All night Hundreds of times And I'm not exaggerating You think I am? I slept in my car regularly Two to three nights a week For about seven years Okay So you do the math So I was constantly sleeping in the car Trying to save money on business trips And just in a hurry Didn't have time to get a hotel Just pull off at the rest area Whatever So the bottom line is I didn't really take care of this car I mean I was tempting this car I mean I'm basically What am I doing? What can I get away with With this car And it still gets me from point A to point B You know And I never Listen to this That car when it finally just exploded The engine just like exploded I had put three hundred and fifty five thousand miles on that car And I had only broken down once I broke down once At around three hundred and thirty thousand miles an hour That was the first time I ever broke down I mean that was an amazing car Either Either Hyundai makes amazing cars Or God was just Supernaturally blessing that car Or both I don't, you know But it wasn't because I took such good care of it I'll tell you that much So I had three hundred and fifty five thousand miles on it The thing just The engine just Black smoke I had a tow truck come pick it up And I just tossed them the keys And said I'm done with this car It's all yours Best car I've ever had But But here's the thing The whole time I had that car The only thing I did I changed the oil every twelve, thirteen, fifteen thousand miles Admittedly I would put that many miles on pretty fast I changed the tires obviously And I changed the spark plugs once I never changed a belt I never added antifreeze or changed the antifreeze It just It was the same It was the same antifreeze From when I bought the car I'm not kidding It was a two thousand and eight Hyundai Yeah seriously Well you know what's funny is that I talked about this in a sermon Or I did a blog post about it And the Hyundai dealer from Las Vegas Wrote to me and said Your story about your car is the most beautiful story I've ever heard about it He probably tells it to everybody When he's selling that But you know I know about five people who bought a Hyundai Sonata Because of me telling that You know As far as I know for most of it It was a great car for them I think it's a good car Yeah This message was brought to you in part by Hyundai But anyway But the point is You know Here's the thing Your wife is not just this car That you just drive it till the wheels fall off You're spilling food Spilling drinks Shoving conduit Shoving a ladder Loan it to whoever Just let the thing run all night with no rest I mean look Eventually And it might last for three hundred and thirty You know I'm trying to get more than three hundred and fifty thousand miles Out of my wife Amen So you know I don't want her to just eventually And here's the thing I didn't think there was anything wrong with that car Because that car was consistent I mean that car was consistent But eventually it blew up Well here's the thing Eventually your wife is going to blow up Eventually your husband is going to blow up And here's the thing When your car blows up You toss the keys And say Hey That was worth Twenty thousand dollars Or whatever I paid for it How much was that car About twenty grand or something You don't just toss the keys And say Hey that was a good ride That was a good five years That was a good three hundred and fifty five thousand miles Good run Move on to the next one Guess what you can't do that with your wife When your wife blows up When your husband blows up You don't just toss the keys It's not that simple is it It's a lot simpler To sign over the title to that Hyundai When it blows up It blew up We were on the way I was on the way to Who was with me when it blew up Wasn't somebody with me Remember we were on the way to hiking Hell's Gate You know what All the people who You know the problem is I take people on these extreme hikes And then they quit the church None of them were here That car was filled with like Four There were four other guys in that car And they've all quit the church Because I took them on these hellish hikes It was called I took them on this hike called Hell's Gate And it was on the way to Hell's Gate We were driving to Payson We were going up the hill It was just You know black smoke Is coming out and everything We pulled over and I said The hike must go on We got it towed into town We got it towed into Payson Tossed them the keys Called a cab And said take us to the Hell's Gate trailhead And we hiked all day My wife picked us up that night You know and drove us back to Phoenix I never saw that car again But you know what That was kind of just easy To be cool and nonchalant Hey the hike must go on Let's do it Nuts to this car Call a cab The hike to Hell's Gate Here we come Sixteen mile brutal hike But here's the thing The hike doesn't go on When your wife blows up Or your husband blows up Life doesn't just go on Okay You do irreparable damage And so we need to not just take Our spouse for granted Right And just think to ourself Oh well Since it's till death This doesn't need any maintenance This doesn't need any effort Look Marriage takes effort On both people's part Husbands need to put forth an effort Wives need to put forth an effort And there are far too many people Who are just Going through the motions in their marriage And they're not putting any effort in And this isn't just directed at women or men Because I see the same problems on both sides It's not just all the men's fault Or oh it's all the women's fault You know there are plenty of men Who just completely ignore Neglect their wife Don't take any interest in her And just avoid her And just they don't spend time with her And then there are plenty of wives Who are just Tempting and provoking their husband By just being a nag And a pain And you know Not obeying And not submitting Look there's problems on both sides Both people need to make an effort Both the husband And the wife Need to make an effort To do a good job At maintaining their marriage And not to just have this Hyper grace marriage Of just well no matter what I do My wife's pleased with me Because we're married Amen Send your check And become a A destined to reign funding partner You know Joseph Prince You know Okay try that on your marriage Yeah no matter what I do My wife just always is happy with me No matter what I do My husband's always happy No they're not And by the way Especially with women Sometimes their anger Is bottled up And it's not expressed Until the explosion Because men tend to be more expressive Of their feelings right Men tend to tell you How they really feel Men are very direct In their communication right Whereas women tend to be A little bit more indirect sometimes With the way that they communicate So you know If a man's not happy He's gonna speak up about it sooner Hey I don't like the way things are going here But often times Women are just kind of like No it's fine It's alright No go ahead Go ahead it's okay We can cancel our dinner together You can go bowling With your buddies again Or you know It's fine Go no go ahead Have a great time You know And then he's out the door It's like And a lot of times When men When their wife leaves them They don't even see it coming You know what I'm saying Like they don't even see it coming They're like Whoa I thought everything was fine And all of a sudden It's just they come home one day And all their wife's stuff is gone And the divorce papers are there Do you think that that never happens? Or worse yet They think everything's fine Oh I thought my wife was totally satisfied I thought everything was great And then they catch their wife with another man Happens all the time And look This is hell Don't get me wrong There's no excuse for adultery There's no excuse The bible says The adulterer and the adulteress Should be put to death Major sin Wicked But here's the thing Does that mean that Oh well adultery's so wicked That means I'm just gonna keep pushing My spouse Toward that Cause I know they're never gonna do it So I'll just keep pushing And keep pushing No no no That's stupid Because number one You're wicked to tempt That way And number two Maybe they will go off that cliff Because they're a sinner God forbid But maybe they will And I'm telling you man And let me just focus in on the men for a minute Let me tell you something Your wife may not be happy with you Your wife may not be satisfied with you Your wife may not Feel that she Is getting what she wants out of that relationship And you know what You better make sure And give your wife what she needs In this relationship That's what the Bible says This is not my opinion Okay The Bible says That we are supposed to And if you would Go to 1 Corinthians chapter number seven 1 Corinthians chapter number seven And remember Galatians 5 13 said this For brethren you've been called unto liberty Only use not liberty For an occasion to the flesh But by love Serve one another And here's the thing about that You know marriage Is a kind of liberty in a sense Because when you're dating You're constantly You know They can break up with you at any time So you're kind of on your best behavior right When you're dating Because It's not a done deal It's not a sure thing yet So you're really on your best behavior Okay then when you get married You can relax a little bit And let your hair down Because you're not just On thin ice Right But here's the thing And that's a good feeling I like being married I like the fact Of not having to constantly be You know wooing And courting And dating And feeling like I have to impress And you know Because I'm on thin ice You know It's nice to just be able to realize Hey it's a done deal Right So there's a certain freedom Or liberty Where you can kind of be yourself You can relax a little bit You can let your hair down Because you're married You're not dating anymore right But you don't want to use that liberty though And abuse that liberty Of just Well I'm just not going to try at all I'm not going to try to make myself appealing at all To my wife or to my husband I'm not going to try to be You know A fun person to be around at all I'm just going to be a pain in the rear end Because I can See what I'm saying We should use liberty to serve one another We should use liberty To love one another The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 10 And unto the married I command Yet not I but the Lord Let not the wife depart from her husband That's a pretty clear verse Teaching that it's wrong for a wife to leave her husband period But look what it says in the next verse But and if she depart So what's it saying It's wrong But guess what Some of them are going to do it You see that But and if they depart But and if she depart Let her remain unmarried Or be reconciled to her husband And let not the husband put away his wife Go to verse 1 it says Now concerning the things Whereof you wrote unto me It's good for a man not to touch a woman Nevertheless to avoid fornication Let every man have his own wife And let every woman have her own husband Let the husband render unto the wife Due benevolence And likewise also The wife unto the husband The wife hath not power of her own body But the husband And likewise also The husband hath not power of his own body But the wife Defraud ye not one the other Except it be with consent for a time That ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer And come together again That Satan Tempt you not for your incontinency He's not saying here Oh Christians are all above adultery No Christian would ever commit adultery No He said if you're married You better have that physical relationship Otherwise Satan will tempt you For your incontinency And notice he's not just saying that to the man is he He said it both ways He said it to the man and the woman Now most people think of this being as more of a man thing Most people think of this as Oh the wife is withholding the physical relationship from her husband That's how most people think this would work But did you know That that's only 80% of the time If you look at statistically 80% of husbands Or 80% of people who would say Hey my spouse is denying me that physical relationship 80% of them are men and 20% of them are women 20% is substantial That's a lot 20% Not 2% 20% Where it's the woman who's saying My husband is refusing to have a physical relationship with me So it's not just husbands whose wives are withholding a physical relationship with him It's wives whose husbands are withholding that physical relationship Look This is just a taking of your spouse for granted And just tempting them And pushing them And just seeing how far you can push it And listen to me Someday it might blow up in your face You better make sure if you're a husband That you attend under the needs of your wife And if you're a wife You better make sure that you attend under the needs of your husband In the physical area But even outside of the physical area Husbands and wives have other needs Men have a need Of being respected and honored by their wife Wives have a need To be loved and appreciated by their wife Both people have a need Of companionship and friendship And spending time together And you might think to yourself Well I'm totally satisfied with this marriage Okay but is your wife totally satisfied? Oh well I'm totally satisfied Yeah but is your husband totally satisfied? You better watch out Because let him that thinketh he standeth Take heed lest he fall What's the whole sermon about? It's about taking things for granted And it's about abusing liberty That's what it's about It's about turning the grace of God Into lasciviousness Or turning the grace of your husband Or the grace of your wife into lasciviousness It's about just Oh I can get away with it Well then I'm just going to do whatever I want Well guess what There are consequences to that And so we need to make sure That just because we're saved eternally Doesn't mean that we ignore The do's and don'ts that God has for us And just because we're married Lifelong We shouldn't just ignore You know working on that relationship We need to put effort into that relationship And make sure we maintain that thing So that it doesn't just last 355,000 miles But that it lasts us for life Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer Father we thank you so much for Salvation Lord And the free gift of your grace Lord Help us never to pervert or abuse That gift of grace Lord By dressing up like an Elvis impersonator And telling everybody Hey there's no punishment God's pleased with you no matter what God's always happy with you Wrong Lord Help us to walk in trembling and fear Lord Of our stern father who's ready to Discipline us when we do wrong Lord Help us to continue to walk in In the fear of God Even the New Testament tells us Fear God And Lord help us to understand That you know just because We are married for life Doesn't mean that we should just do whatever In Jesus name we pray Amen Song number 406 who is on the Lord's side Song number 406 Song number 406 who is on the Lord's side Who is on the Lord's side Who will serve that King Who will be his helpers Father life to bring Who will be the world sign Who will face the flood Who is on the Lord's side Who forgive the God By thy call of mercy By thy grace be thine We are on the Lord's side Savior we abide Not the way of moving Not for having gone Enter me the glory Praise the warrior's son But for love can claim him Thy show will be done We know Jesus named him Must be on his side By thy love can strain me By thy grace divine We are on the Lord's side Savior we abide Jesus thou hast bought us Not with gold nor change But with thy own life God For thine eye attend With thy blessing fill me Each who comes to me Thou hast made us wily Thou hast made us free By thy great convention By thy grace divine We are on the Lord's side Savior we abide For years may be the wrong thing Strong may be the fool But the little army None can overthrow The crown will stand her waiting If we escape through For this truth of changing Makes a triumph so Joyfully enlisting By thy grace divine We are on the Lord's side Savior we abide We are on the Lord's side Savior we abide We are on the Lord's side Savior we abide We are on the Lord's side Savior we abide We are on the Lord's side We are on the Lord's side