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you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you them in. Amen. Alright, great singing this afternoon. This time, I'm going to go through our hand. We'll make sure that we get one out to you and if you open up to the first page, you will see our service times there. Sunday morning at 1030 Sunday evening, 5 PM, Wednesday night, 7 is our Bible study. We are getting real close. Wrapping up, we got a few chapters left in Isaiah and we're done with that whole book Isaiah 64 this week. It's been over a year in the book of Isaiah and man, what a great book that is and we are going to be, I don't normally announce the next book, the Bible and Bible study, but it's going to be the book of Hebrews. So, we've been doing the Bible memory through Hebrews and and that was kind of a goal or not a goal but a intentional on my part to to get Bible memory going. Uh I think my personal opinion is that Hebrews while it may not necessarily that difficult but there's a lot of there's a lot of people a lot of problems in understanding different parts of Hebrews and a lot of different uh variants of opinions and and what a lot of different passages in Hebrews and and and so my goal and my hope is that people will be memorizing these chapters before I go through and preach them and then that should just help you even more be more familiar with the passage and uh you can decide what makes sense to you, how you understand that passage. I might teach what I believe and and the doctrines that I that I hold firm on those passages but the the point is for everybody to have knowledge and wisdom and understanding, right? So, that's been the plan with the book of Hebrews. So, that is going to be in a few weeks when we start with Hebrews chapter one and I encourage you if you can make it out here on a Wednesday night, come out for the Isaiah series and then definitely come out for the Hebrew series. If you can't make it for some reason, you live far away or you're able to make it. Uh tune in to the streaming for uh for the Wednesday Bible studies. All right, we've got so many opportunities listed there as well as our salvation and baptisms uh for the month as Now, before we count up today's salvation, just real quick, is there anyone that had any soul winning numbers to report prior to today? Anything to report prior to today? Soul winning wise? Yes, sir. Yesterday, how many? One? Saturday one. And did I miss anybody else? From brother Yes. Yeah. The the the other, the West Georgia, I get those from the from the WhatsApp group. So, thanks for bringing it up. I I they've been pretty good about about updating that group and then I just updated offline um when when I get those numbers. So, uh we are keeping those up to date and then uh is there anybody else? I missed. Alright, so then how about for today? If you want out soul winning today and add some salvations uh to slip your hand up to over there brother Jesse, two and one. Okay, one here, one back there. Amen. So, so we're even. We have five over here. We got five over here. Oh, I missed. There we go. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. We got three over here and two over here. Come on. We got one more over here. You gotta even it up. We're although there's less people sitting over here. So, I don't know. Amen. Uh hey, that's that's awesome. Fifteen souls uh saved outsold in today. Praise the lord. Um it's really good. Really good. So, good job uh putting in the time and effort out there uh preaching the gospel and um it's just more more assurance that they did the right thing with the moving the that time back. Obviously, a lot more people get saved over the past few weeks. So, um I know it might be a little bit of a strain on some scheduling but um we're definitely getting a lot a lot more results. So, praise the lord. Alright, very good. Offering to, oh, one more thing about the um this ties in with our with our August challenge, the visitor challenge. Alright, so coming up in August, we're gonna be uh giving prizes for anyone who can bring a first time visitor church and um I got this from last year cuz I just copied and pasted from last year. I'm sorry. It's my all my uh my secrets being revealed. I keep old bulletins and I copy and paste uh follow up cards. So, I went over this a lot more in depth last year and I just wanted to cover it again uh in case there's, you know, you've forgotten or you're newer and you don't, you didn't know anything about it. We have these these cards, these index cards and I might need to to print up some more um the the the goal of these is to just be able to for you personally to be able to follow up with people that you lead to Christ, okay? Or someone that you might think is just a good person to follow up with, right? So, like maybe they're all, maybe they're already saved when you showed up but they express a lot of interest in church or maybe they need to be baptized or something and we use these cards as a tool for you just to help you kind of stay organized with it. So, on the one side of the card, there's the the date and the name and the information. Uh generally, you want to just try to get some uh a phone number there and what we do is we ask first, always just ask, say, hey, would it be okay if I could contact you, right? And then and then if they're like, yeah, sure. You're like, yeah, you know, I just wanna I wanna follow up with you maybe next week. You said you're interested in coming to church and I just, you know, I'd like to be able to give you a call and remind you about church or see if, you know, if you need a ride or anything like that, right? That's uh it's normally kinda what when we're talking to people cuz that's what you're gonna do, right? You're gonna follow up with them. We're not trying to hide anything or be weird or deceitful, right? And if people are uncomfortable giving you information, fine, right? Great. Then that's it. Then you don't do anything but if they want to, if they're like, oh yeah, it sounds good, right? Cuz sometimes you run people who seem really interested, right? And sometimes those same people you're thinking, man, I know this person's gonna show up to church cuz they were really interested. I mean, it was, it seemed sincere and genuine and then you show up to church and then they're not here, right? It happens. Look, I understand it happens and especially because we go out so many on a Sunday, you gotta remember this, most people are used to going church on Sundays. You're there after they would normally go to church. You've got a whole week now from the time that you spoke with them for things to come up in their life or distractions for them to forget about church in general, whereas they may have been very interested on the day you talked to them a week earlier by the time next Sunday rolls around, out of mind. So a good, you know, a good thing to do is to give people calls on Saturdays. Generally speaking, most people have off work on Saturdays, right? Soul winners and other people alike, right? The people who get saved. So it's a good time to do that. It's also the day before church. So you kind of get that plant, that thought back in their mind. Hey, you said before you might be in church. So I let you know we've got this going on in church tomorrow, whatever. Come on out, you know, give you lunch or get you baptized. Let me know, whatever, like whatever. However, that conversation goes and then on the back of this card, there's a there's dates on here. You could put like if they're saved and baptized and the dates and then also dates to be able to put like if you if you had tried giving them a call, you could just mark the date because you don't want to harass people, right? We don't want to be like stalkerish and bombarding people with phone calls. But you also it's good to be like look back at your card to be like, hey, you know what? I haven't talked to this person in a long time. And you have a record of the last time you talked to him. And then you might want to follow up again and say, okay, hey, you know, it's I haven't heard from you. I haven't seen you. Just everything cool and everything fine. And then you just gauge the feeling of the you know, from the person or their receptiveness. You'll know right away if people like kind of don't want to talk to you anymore. It sounded great when they talk to you the first time but then it's just kind of like and just gauge that for yourself. If they if you feel like Yeah, I don't think they're interested at all, then you don't waste your time. But there's it doesn't hurt to give a phone call. It's pretty pretty easy to do. And there's a way of keeping track of that stuff. There's also some other notes on here of like, you know, praying for the convert, excellent thing to do people you get saved, pray for them for you got to work in their in their in their life, and trying to get these things accomplished. So it's it's loosely organized for you. This isn't something that like, everyone must do this, right? It's it's just a helpful tool to help you. So but it's designed for everyone individually to take track of responsibility for yourself, right? Unfortunately, right now, I don't have enough time if everyone turned him into me for me to contact people. And I think it's better anyways, if a convert hears from the person who literally spoke with them anyways, and kind of build that rapport. So that's what we're doing. You choose to do it if you want to or not. I think it's a good tool. I think it's a good tactic. I think we'll get a little a few more people in visiting the church as a result. So those are out in the foyer and grab those and if I need to make more, we'll do that as soon as I can. All right. I just wanted to make sure we were clear on on how that process works. Pray requests. We went over most of this this morning. There's not a whole lot to update on. We added brother Peter's brother Frankie who who's there any news today or no? Anything new? Okay. So pray for him and and that whole that whole situation with the colon and with the you know with the possible possibility of being septic and stuff. So I pray everything will go well there and let's see on the next page went over the August challenge. I don't do any more peaches left or were those all all alright. Good. So other people love the peaches right. We've got got rid of that case. Good job. So we don't have any here it's going to sit and rot Bible memory passage. I gave out a prize for the first six verses for Hebrews chapter three this morning. Is there anybody here this evening that did not get their prize but you did accomplish that? All right. Good. I'm going to try to get the other two prizes. Well actually who's who's going to have the entire chapter either either you have it done or you're intending on having that quoted by tonight. Can you slip your hand up real quick. One two three four five six seven. Amen. Great. Great. Very good. Very good. Oh there it is. I'm going to I'm going to bring this with me I'll update it at my seat but I'm going to use this seven people. Amen. So so very good. I will. And those prizes probably won't come for a few weeks for the for the whole chapter. I want to I'm going to verify next week that the exact number and then we should be good to go. But we are starting Hebrews chapter four this week at 10 weeks to memorize all of chapter four. And of course you get a prize for being able to do that. We got the upcoming events there so winning marathon in Alabama on September 3rd. Yeah I was gonna say if you have any contacts from people in Alabama wait I'll go over that in a little bit. I'm going to get together all my contacts and then if there's I'm going to share that with everyone see if there's anyone that I've missed or maybe overlooked. There's a lot of people who visit our church gone to the camping trip and just have come and visited over over the past few years. And I want to make sure that I get everybody involved on that as soon as possible and try to make a video about that. And I think we're going to get some really good results in Alabama. So that Labor Day weekend if you could come out with that great birthdays anniversaries listed there emissions got birthday tomorrow. Yes sir. Your birthday's on the fourth of August. Thank you. So one two three four we got birthday is the first four days of August we're guaranteed to have a birthday on a church day when you got four days in a row like that. So that's cool. Thank you. Is there anyone else that I missed at least for the first half of August or the last part of July. You didn't have your name on there. All right. We'll add Kristen. Thank you for that. And there are more people. So I just so you know after the 15th of August I just didn't didn't fit them all on the page there. So we will add those for next week. And I think that was it. Am I missing anything. Oh one more thing I wanted to bring up too is just the the expansion. So I brought this up on Wednesday but not everyone is here on Wednesday. I got an e-mail and we are expected to be able to where is it. I got actually got to sign a lease and send it back. I believe they said September. So we've got we've got a good date now of being able to access. There it is. Yes. We'll be able to start September. So I'm ready to get the ball rolling on on all that we had the architect already came out here did all of his measurements put forward the plan for what we need to get done to be compliant with the fire codes. And it's not bad at all from from a perspective of how many things need to be done. So I'm really looking forward to that. Now it just could be a matter of pushing everything through all of the proper channels the city and county and everyone that we got to deal with. Hopefully we could get just pray we get everything pushed through sooner rather than later kind of get that all worked out and then we'll be able to start knocking down walls and and adding more seating and changing our arrangement and moving forward the expansion. So it's pretty exciting. All right. It's why I wanted to bring up that little bit of information and that's about it for announcements for the evening. So I'm going to turn the service back over brother Peter's going to lead us in the next song. Yes, sir. All right, church, we're going to open up your one hundred sixty four song one hundred sixty four. Praise him. Praise him. So one sixty four. First. Praise him. Praise him. Jesus our blessed reindeer See no word is wonderful love proclaim. Hail him. Hail him. Highest archangels in glory. Strength and honor give to his holy name. Jesus will guard his children. He carries them all day long. Praise him. Praise him. Tell of his excellent greatness. Praise him. Praise him. Every joyful song. Praise him. Praise him. Jesus our blessed redeemer. For our sins he suffered and bled and died. He our rock our hope of eternal salvation. Hail him. Hail him. Jesus the crucified. his praises. Jesus who bore our sorrows. Wonderful deep and strong. Praise him. Praise him. Tell of his excellent greatness. Praise him. Praise him. Every joyful song on the last. Praise him. Praise him. Jesus our blessed redeemer. me. with those hands free. your brain and forever and him around him. over the world victorious. unto the lord belong. Praise him. Praise him. Tell of his excellent greatness. joyful song. Amen. At this time, we're going to collect our Sunday evening offering and ask the ushers if you could please do that. In church, while the author and plates are being passed around, you can open up your Bibles to the book of 1st Corinthians chapter five. We're going to read the entire chapter. I'm going to ask brother Devin if he can please do that for us. That was 1st Corinthians chapter five. It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you and such fornication among you is important. It is important to know that there is fornication among you. It is important to know that there is fornication in such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles that one should have his father's wife and you're puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you for I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have judged already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. When you are gathered together in my spirit with the power of our lord Jesus Christ to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth a whole lump. Purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with idolaters for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such in one know not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without. Do not ye judge them that are within but then that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. Brother Vince can you pray for us please. We pray that you continue to help us grow as a church and reach out to the rocks. We ask you to continue to help our pastor persons to put the Holy Spirit in him and give us the word and to help us to understand the world as Christians and that we will be made Christians forever. Please keep me praying man. Amen. All right so in 1st Corinthians chapter five you know I've covered this passage a few times here and over the years and what we see here is this this list of sins. Well it's a primary source in the scripture that's going to give us a list of sins that people could commit to be dis fellowshipped kicked out of church people who this is designed for targeted towards brothers and sisters in Christ believers right not unbelievers but this is a standard that the Bible is setting of look if people are guilty of these specific sins then you need to put away that wicked person from among you which is what the last verse says put that person away from you you know if they invite you out to eat don't even go and have a meal with them okay so this is this is a big deal and we're gonna be looking at one specifically this evening but before I even get into which one we're looking at I want to just just let's just get the spirit of what this is saying in the context I know we just read the entire passage but it's important to get this understanding before I even get into this one particular sin because we could do this with any one of the things on this list just understand what first Corinthians five is trying to do trying to explain here look at verse number five the Bible says to deliver such and one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved and actually I'm going to go back up just a little bit more well let's just get this whole thing in context I don't want to do an entire Bible study tonight just on verse Corinthians five but they bring up this fornication going on with this man in the first few verses okay there's someone in the church says report calmly that there's fornication among you and such fornication as is not so much as named among the gentiles that one should have his father's wife okay this is the sin that's going on so this guy has his father's wife I assume it's not his own mother it's a it's it's a woman that was married to his father his father's wife is what it's referred to which is extreme wickedness to get to have your father's wife after your father your father is married to her like that's weird that's gross that's wrong it's disgusting and this is what was going on in the church there was a person who was guilty of that and it was commonly known this isn't something that was like well no one knew about it right because there's a lot of these things that you're gonna see some things on this list you may have no ideas going on right I mean you may not ever know for his fornication going on just don't know okay and there's nothing you can do about that you know we don't have these big inquisitions to that every person in church when you walk through the door okay hey look where have you been for the past you know 24 hours give me a count for everything you've done that's weird that's all that's cultish okay that's but but when things come to light because sometimes things become known right just about people's personal life whatever people will say things or do things or it's like oh wow I didn't even know you know sometimes I've had I've seen people where I've just assumed they were married like like a whole family comes in they act married everything just I just assume that people are right with God they're married and sometimes you find out later it's like oh yeah well we're actually not married whoa that's a big deal right but I'm not going to preach on fornication that's it sometimes these things happen here's what happened there is a commonly known sin in the church this fornication and he says this he says and you are puffed up and if not rather mourned so they're just like they don't care at all in fact they have a root they have the exact opposite attitude than what they should have about this person in the church and this is happening a lot today in churches people get puffed up about how great and welcoming and tolerant they are people right except the issue today is the sodomites which this is almost on the same level them it's pretty disgusting it really is this is disgusting and they're puffed up about having this person in church with them instead of mourning and there's a total lack of judgment so to Paul's calling him out and he's trying to straighten things up because you puffed up not rather more than you have done this deed might be taken away from among you it's like look that person shouldn't even be allowed in church with you like get rid of them for I barely as absent in body but present in spirit have judged already yes he judged on this matter we all your church is so judgey and judgmental yes yes the apostle Paul judged the church not even being there he's like I just heard was that this is commonly known and I don't have to be there and I don't have to know the details and I don't have to know the exact specifics of what happened in this relationship it's wicked it's wrong and no we should not be allowed in church bottom line I don't care if it's a deacon I don't care if it's some person has a lot of clout I don't care if it's the biggest either I don't care who it is whoever is doing this I've judged already they're wicked they need to go that's how he's dealing with this situation so this is how we're starting this off he's dealing with one specific problem one specific sin verse four in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ when you're gathered together in my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such in one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus there is a good outcome ultimately intended for this even for that person but he's saying look someone like that they just need to be delivered unto Satan all right and let Satan humble them and deal with them for a while that the spirit could be saved and that's actually a loving thing to do but here's the thing it's not even just for the for the purpose of that person to get right which is if that's one of the reasons for having these type of rules in place look at verse six it says you're glorying is not good no ye not that a little leaven leaven at the whole lump so the other purpose for having these standards in church is he's saying you allow that type of sin and wickedness in church it's going to spread there's going to be corruption because this sin that he's really talking about here this is toxic when you just say that's allowed yep we're going to tolerate this we're tolerate that then what what I mean you start comparing things you say well why would I get kicked out of church I mean this guy's got his father's wife what in the world would you kick me out for nothing you have no leg to stand on to kick anyone out if you're gonna let that type of wickedness go on in the church right so basically just means everybody welcome no matter what let the pedophile in let the perverts in let the creeps in you know whatever and no we don't want church to be a target ground for anybody and besides that this is what the scripture is saying this is the this is the laws of like the New Testament how you run a church so we have this one example of this of this person and he's explaining look a little leaven is gonna leaven the whole lump it's not good for the church as a whole to have that type of wickedness in the church let's keep reading verse seven purge out therefore the old leaven that may be a new lump as you are unleavened for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us therefore let us keep the feast not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth he's going to further explain now on this whole point I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators because then I know I wrote to you before I wrote a letter to you and in that letter I said look don't company with fornicators he's going to expound on that statement in this epistle in this letter verse 10 yet not all together with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with idolaters for then must he needs go out of the world so he's saying when I wrote unto you not to keep company with fornicators I wasn't talking about just people who are out in the world because if you're going to include people out in the world and with these standards he's like you just have to completely remove yourself from the world altogether basically that's the compound that's the okay we're all going to go live somewhere else and isolate ourselves from the whole world because this is what you find in the world so he's saying that's not that's not what he's trying to to establish here is saying well your fornicator I can't ever talk to you I can't eat with you out in the world you conduct business out in the world right if you know someone's a fornicator at work it's not a sin to go out at lunch and have a lunch with that person because they're not a brother in Christ or not held to the same standard there in the world they need to get saved you don't start shunning people who are unsaved how in the world are you ever going to hear the gospel right I mean we're trying to reach those people but within church it's a different matter within church we have standards within church we're talking about children of God here we're talking about the saved okay we have a standard to live by and everybody is trying to hold the standards of God children are seeing this new believers are seeing this everybody is getting an idea of what does it mean to even live as a Christian what does it mean if you just allow everything in church apparently there's no rules no limits no standards whatever but that's not the way it is so he explains this he's like look if you had to follow this you'd have to just go out of the world verse eleven but now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man is called a brother he's specifying that you know they got to be called a brother someone who's a brother or sister in Christ be now he lists off these very sins I'm not going to go into all of them a fornicator covetous idolater railer drunkard extortioner with such in one no not to eat a lot of things on that list study them all on your own we're going to but tonight we're going to look at is the extortion or the last one on that list I've never done a tire sermon dedicated to an extortion or it actually came up this week I was trying to I was doing a Bible study with my children and I was because I've got a new way of doing in my house so now I kind of preach unto them a whole a whole passage and I was explaining to them what an extortion or was and I was just thinking like you know what I don't think they didn't know what it was but they don't know what it is I bet there's other kids here don't know what it is and maybe even there's some adults that don't know exactly what it is so figured hey what a great what a great sermon to preach and it's very serious to me it's one of these things that you know this is something that's going to get someone kicked out of church this is a really wicked thing and we need to make sure that our minds are right in the severity of specific sins and this is a way to gauge that severity I mean one way is look at look at God's punishment on sins right because some sins don't even have a crime connected to them right there's no human government response to certain sins for example drunkenness didn't have a specific crime associated with it where it's like okay you're gonna get a beating or you're gonna have to pay a fine or something however it is still a very serious sin for believers because if you're a drunkard you're not even allowed in church so this helps us to have a good proper understanding obviously with the drunkards there's so many other verses about how wicked how bad drinking is but you can take the two combined you can look at the law and say wow well if this is a capital crime that's really wicked and if you didn't think it was that big of a deal then you better think again and get your mind right and everything on this list is bad enough to be like you know what you're not even welcome here so for those of you that love coming to this church imagine coming face to face with me and I'm saying get out of here you're not welcome here anymore that's what these sins are that's how bad these sins are so we need to let that sink in everybody right because you could look at some people say wow wow covetous why is that so bad the love of money is the root of all evil again we could go into all these in depth I'm not going to I just want to choose the one extortioner and preach on that this evening let's keep let's just finish off this chapter verse verse number 12 for what have I to do to judge them also that without do not you judge them that are within so yes we are supposed to judge those that are within the church that is the job of the church is to be able to judge and make righteous judgment say yep this person's a drunkard this person's a railer this person extortioner not welcome here until they repent and get right with God okay and that that's later right that's we get that elsewhere in scripture not in this immediate context but that is the truth brother sister Christ the whole goal is to get them right with God you're never beyond the means of being able to come back when you're born again so if you're guilty of one of these things you just got to get it right come on back we won't even bring it up to you that's the good news about how God's system works right you could be guilty of something well hey if it's that bad sorry we can't even I can't even eat with you however you get that right good to see your brother sister glad you're here and we'll move on like nothing ever happened so that's that's the good news but the whole point of it and look at what it says there in verse number 13 but them that are without God judges so you know the world God's gonna judge the world we don't even worry about that therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person so it's called a person who's guilty of these things a wicked person I don't want to be a wicked person and we're not allowing wicked people in church the bottom line these sins all the sins mentioned here they're really bad they're toxic it's why they're not allowed you start allowing this stuff it's going to spread maybe not in the same exact way but in other areas some of them sure in the same way I mean you start allowing you know wow did you know so and so just gets drunk every weekend yeah pastor knows about I told him okay week after week after week not a surprise you start seeing other people hanging out with brother so and so this Friday night card game getting drunk I mean no one said anything about it right no one's doing anything about it must be okay it's wicked it's wicked what the Bible says it's wicked so let's get it let's dig into extortion that's what I want to make sure we get this a very clear understanding of first Corinthians chapter five and this isn't the only things that someone could be kicked out for but this is the primary list okay there could be other things that are that are just as bad that don't happen to be listed here and I could prove that but I'm not going to deal with that this time just so you understand that too I mean like like you don't see a sodomite on here but they're not welcome either but that would be kind of an oxymoron anyways having a say someone that's called a brother being a sodomite because then that just proves they're not really a brother either way they're not welcome here so so extortion what is extortion what does it mean I'll give you the dictionary definition at least the dictionary definition that I like there's a lot of different dictionary definitions out there and none of them are really contradictory anything I mentioned this before I like the one that go to like the British English dictionary because it seems to fit the best with the King James Bible and the dictionary that this definition says the act of securing money favors etc by intimidation or violence and a synonym would be blackmail blackmail it's a good way of knowing what's extortion means blackmail so what you're doing is you're trying to get something for yourself right if you want you want something to happen out of somebody else and you're holding something over their head some type of a threat right a common way of understanding to be like a threat of violence you think of the bullies give me your lunch money or I'm going to beat you up bully on the playground that's extortion that's saying if you don't do this I'm gonna beat you up giving you basically no choice like okay well I mean obviously everyone has a choice but it's one of those things where you're saying okay here's what here's what I'm gonna do to you and they might never actually do the violence but that's extortion and there's lots of other ways that you can and we're going to dig into that a little bit more too but first I want to just go through the references in scripture because there's not very many references to extortion in scripture but just to help further exemplify how wicked of a sin this is we're going to look at the examples in scripture flip over chapter six your first Corinthians five look at verse number six chapter chapter number six just so that we don't minimize this at all because once we start getting more in depth into some examples we need to remember this is a big deal this is not a light matter it's not a small issue it's a big sin because once you start really thinking about it you start going like oh man it could be easy to commit extortion with some people not even realizing what it is it's possible and that ought not to be the case first Corinthians six look at verse number nine the Bible says no you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God and now it's going to give this whole list of wicked things that people do saying you know be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor feminine nor abusers themselves of mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God and such were some of you be your wash you're sanctified you're justified in the name of Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God this is a list very similar to what we see in first Corinthians chapter five right and this is saying look don't you know that you know these people are going to inherit the kingdom of God it's a big deal it's listed here amongst other sins that are also big deals you don't have to turn there you can if you want some 109 is a song that is a basically there's a bunch of the reference we're look at here is a lot of curses on Judas Iscariot it's a it's a foreshadowing it's a it's a prophecy of the traitor who's going to betray Christ and it lists off these various curses on this person and an extortioner is mentioned in the curses that are coming down upon Judas Psalm 109 verse 8 the Bible says let his days be few and let another take his office and if you remember that that's quoted let another take his bishopric another take his office in the book of Acts when they replace Judas with with Matthias and so that I mean that's one of the ways that you know who this is talking about here it says let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow let his children be continually vagabonds and beg let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places so very bad curses right then the next the next verse says let the extortioner catch all that he had and let the stranger spoils labor so they're they're listing off in his curses hey just let that let the extortioner just take everything he's got as a curse that's another really bad thing to happen to someone is have an extortioner be dealing with you it's a wicked sin Isaiah 16 verse 3 the Bible reads take counsel execute judgment make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday hide the outcasts be re not him that wandereth let mine outcasts dwell with thee Moab be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler for the extortioner is at an end the spoiler ceaseth the oppressors are consumed out of the land so the only thing without going in depth on this whole passage notice the company kept with the extortion or the other people who are mentioned here extortioner the spoiler someone who comes in and steals the spoils your goods and the oppressor if they're all they're all listed the same in the Bible extortioner is it's a form of oppression right your pressing somebody as you're stealing from them as you're coercing them Ezekiel 22 12 the Bible says in thee have they taken gifts to shed blood thou has taken usury and increase and thou has greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion and has forgotten me set the Lord God so again referring to people here that are involved in extortion they're greedy they just want money and they don't care about God they forgotten about God Matthew 23 Jesus is railing on the on the Pharisees he's just tearing into him verse 25 says woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter but within there full of extortion and excess and then Luke 18 verse 11 it's the last place where you've got the the man who prayed with himself it says the Pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself God I thank thee that I am not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as his publican so again but he's listing up extortioners unjust adulterers obviously it's a big deal even though it's not mentioned a lot in scripture it's very negative every time it's used it's used in context everywhere it's used with some really wicked sins it is a very big deal now the biggest problem that I have with extortioners is the well I guess there's a lot I want to say the biggest problem I have because it's the biggest problem I have is that people do it at all it's a wicked sin you should never do it okay but one of the things that's notable about about extortioners is it's a tactic used by bullies it's it's another another thing that here turn if you would to to Matthew chapter five they have a different examples of of extortion anything that a person wants to get from somebody else by means of force by by wicked means is extortion one of the thing that came to my mind when I was thinking about this term about extortion another good way explain it and one thing that's wicked that even our government does is the torture torturing people to get information right and threat of torture people what you tell me this or else right that's another form of extortion and look it's wicked and I know we're kind of past culturally past the the the talking point on this but if you remember years back when the whole issue of waterboarding came up and they will remember that right yeah okay good I see some hands going up on that and you know the neo cons and the Republican Party are trying to tell you oh no we need waterboarding it's not torture there's nothing wrong with it look it's extortion besides the fact that you could you could show that you know those tactics aren't reliable because when someone's like thinking they're going to die they'll tell you whatever you want to hear you can't go off of that information as valid information anyways it's wicked as hell and really wrong to be torturing people to try to extract something from them on multiple levels one of those being you're extorting something from them you're trying to get whatever information you want from them in fact the Bible teaches us to do the exact opposite with people who become prisoners of war because that's I mean that's what the government would do is take people who are prisoners of war and then waterboard them torture them try to get them to speak right fess up tell us what you know and keep on inflicting pain on them unless you tell us what you know that is the definition of extortion but we have an example in the Bible and keep your if you want to turn here to I had to go to keep your place in Matthew 5 because we're going there next second Kings chapter 6 I'm just going to put the nail in this coffin real quick on the on the whole torturing debate which I don't think is much of a debate now but it's important to know because it's going to come up again come up time and time again people don't understand that it's wrong and you know there's a there's an aspect that you might think it's a good technique and here's where you might think that if something hits you close to home personally you might feel in your flesh like you want to like you're going to talk I'm going to make you talk right if someone did something really bad to someone in your family you know you might have a lot of malice towards that person and you know want to bash their head in if they don't tell you whatever but but here's the thing that is not the appropriate action to take it's not right there's a proper way to do everything in order to get information from people in order you know even dealing with people who could be enemies you need to do it the right way no matter what your emotions say especially no matter what your emotions say we don't we don't rely on emotion we rely on the Spirit of God rely on the Word of God and our understanding and being sober about it and being able to make good decisions that way but in second Kings chapter six we see this this this story with Elisha and his servant where Elisha is surrounded by the enemy right they're all they're all coming after Elisha they want to kill Elisha because they think that he's has it against the king and everything else when he's just a prophet of God and you know these kings you know these wicked kings they get what's coming to them out of God's judgment it's not like Elisha specifically has it out for him anyways look at verse number 15 the Bible says and when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth behold and host compass the city both with horses and chariots so he sees all these people as huge army horses chariots and his servants had done him alas my master how shall we do like what are we going to do I mean we're surrounded and he answered fear not for they that be with us are more than they that be with them great I love this story Elisha is not worried at all I mean all these people surrounded him all these armies his servants like we're trapped we're doomed no he says don't worry about that there's more with us than with them verse 17 Elisha prayed and said Lord I pray thee open his eyes that he may see and Lord open the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha my personal opinion I don't think Elisha was able to physically see those things I think he by faith knew they were there I think he knew that the chariots of fire were round about that God was protecting him that's my opinion okay I have and the reason why I think that is because I believe that these angels exist today and that they in camp about men of God and that they're there to protect and defend and make sure that the will of Lord is done in the spiritual battle on this earth and I don't have to see them and I know that they're there and if I had someone who's weak of faith you know finding you know and I would hope I would have the same level of faith when push came to shove and I'm actually surrounded by people I would like to think that I do I think I do right now I won't know until I'm actually tested on it but I would hope I'd be able to say the same thing to someone else who's scared and be like Lord open up their eyes let them see that you haven't left us that you're here to defend us but this actually happened in this story Elisha had that faith like I said I personally don't think that he literally saw him but I do know his servant saw him because God opened up his eyes and then he sees this and when they came down to him Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said smite this people I pray thee with blindness and he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha this is a total rabbit trail I love this story so much I think about the power of God with his prayer and a righteous man doing righteous work for God it doesn't matter who's against you he prays to God and God listens he prays to God God smite these people's blindness and God does it God says yeah I will do that amen one more reason to get on the Lord's side right you have God fighting your battles for you so anyways that's not the reason why we turn this passage let's keep reading here verse number 19 Elisha said unto them this is not the way so they're blind and then Elisha is able to approach them and he says oh hey guys you know that you know these are not the droids you're looking for you know like we're not the we're not the people here you're like this isn't the way let me let me show you the right way I'll help you because they're all blind they can't see you know where they're going right this is not the way neither is this the city follow me and I will bring you to the man whom you seek but he led them to Samaria right so he's bringing them right into like the capital city of their enemies and it came to pass when they were come into Samaria that Elisha said Lord open the eyes of these men that they may see and the Lord opened their eyes and they saw him behold they were in the midst of Samaria so he leads them oh yeah yeah no hey I'll take you where you need to go I'll bring it to the guy that you want to see I'll take you there just follow me and they follow them and then they open up they get their sight and they're like whoa we've been duped we're in the middle of Samaria and the king of Israel said unto Elisha when he saw them my father shall I smite them shall I smite them so king of Israel saying like look I mean should I kill I mean you brought him right here should we kill him and he answered thou shalt not smite them what is thou smite those whom thou has taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow he's saying is this any different than if you would have taken someone as a prisoner war in battle and this is important that he even at he even says that because that demonstrates that the way that they treated prisoners of war is the same way he's telling them to treat them here this isn't just a special case he's saying this is no different than if you've been out there and your whole army captured these people and brought him in he says set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master he didn't say set water before them and a board so you could water board them he says that water and bread bread board I know they sound real similar but you're not water breading them you know water boarding them give them food and drink you know you treat them still well with respect and then he says and release them and he prepared great provision for them and when they had eaten and drunk he sent them away and they went to their master so the brands of Syria came no more and well isn't it amazing how that worked too then they stopped coming you know what happens we start torturing people it really gets the other people mad now they're going to want vengeance now you get yourself everyone hating you America you go into these lands and you capture people and start torturing them and keeping them in prison for decades in these secret prisons and stuff and then having all kinds of all manner of wicked things done unto them and then their people find out then it's like yeah now we hate you forever the extortioners obviously this is how God's plan would be on dealing with things you saw it doesn't make any sense they're the enemy but may not make sense to you but the wisdom of God is much greater than the wisdom of this world extortion is not a very difficult concept to grasp right ransom bully blackmail telling people hey if you if you do this you know here's here's another example someone maybe someone has a dirty secret I know this about you now you're going to do what I say or else I'm going to tell everybody your secret there's emails that go out about this all the time there's scams right people saying oh I got this picture of you doing something for you I'm just like no you don't like I know for a fact you don't 100 percent but they try to send you know people try to send this out and when people with a guilty conscience are going like oh maybe he does you know and they'll fall for the extortion scam don't fall for the extortion scam first of all because they don't but that's also extortion people say hey I'm going to reveal this about you I'm going to do this thing to you I'm going to you know if you cross this line and I'm going to do this you're committing extortion if someone has some dirt on them that's really bad let's just put it this way then maybe you shouldn't be hiding it if it's something that just should be known and dealt with if it's a bad sin if it's a big deal then maybe it just needs to be dealt with instead of you hiding it or if it's not as big of a deal but maybe it's kind of embarrassing then you should just let it go and show grace and mercy and let that be covered but you don't you never hold something that over someone's head and you know the truth it doesn't matter to you oh but it's true when you're talking bad about people talking evil about people are trying to hold something over someone said it doesn't matter if you're trying to use the truth to hold over their head don't justify yourself in doing a wicked action we as believers need to have a very high standard in regards to extortion one because it's such a wicked sin we ought not to have the death the only definition is well I mean I'm not threatening with physical violence so I'm not really committing extortion one that's not the only definition that's not the only thing that can be used for extortion but to let's look at how the standards in the scripture are anyways if you're going to call yourself a brother sister in Christ you call yourself a Christian a believer in the word of God we need to make sure we have exemplary standards especially regarding these things that are extremely wicked how about the standard for adultery let's let's compare it with that I'll liken it to that because adultery is extremely wicked sin is worthy of the death penalty it's a capital crime very very very wicked okay someone guilty of adultery in his church is not gonna be welcome here you'd have to get that right and you know have that dealt with before you'd be allowed back in the church it's just as wicked as extortion it's not more I don't know but let's look at how Jesus deals with adultery Matthew chapter five verse 27 the Bible says you have heard that it was said by them of all time thou shalt not commit adultery but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after hath committed adultery with her already in his heart so the standard that Jesus is putting forth he's saying look don't even don't even lust after a woman in your heart I know you know like the law says not to commit adultery and that is the law by the way but Jesus saying here's the standard that you should be following is don't even look at a woman to lust after heart because you're committing adultery in your in your heart now for sake of clarity we have to I mean people get kind of ridiculous with stuff lusting in your heart is not the same exactly as committing adultery doing something in your mind in your heart is not identical to doing the actual act what Jesus said though is you're committing adultery in your heart committing adultery in your heart is not worthy of death committing adultery is worthy of death right but what what he's teaching us here is you want to be so far removed from adultery like you need you need to have reverence and respect and the love of God's word and God's law you say okay not only am I not going to commit the act but I'm not even going to look on women to lust after them already because I don't even want to commit the act in my heart that's the standard that's where we should be because that's still a sin and it's still a wicked sin and we need to be far removed from that sin this is what I'm talking about when it comes to extortion we don't want to try to tow the line and how you deal with people and say like well it's not really extortion and get on this slippery slope of going like well if I were to say this then that might be extortion but I'm you know look avoid the you know the appearance of evil don't have anything to do with understand extortion the big deal I mean if it's a sin to get you kicked out of church you don't want anyone to be able to say you're committing extortion extortion is coercion now not all coercion is wicked or sinful right do you think if you coerce somebody to do something it depends on how you do it the difference between persuading someone of something because we're always trying to persuade people to acknowledge the truth hey look at that look at the word of God persuading someone is nothing wrong with that but the big difference is when you start to force a course of action on somebody and and this is where you know I don't want people to get confused over the matter because some people might say oh well aren't you aren't you extorting people when you tell them if they don't believe then they're going to hell no no first of all I'm not sending anybody to hell personally I'm not doing that right I'm not saying if you don't do this and I'm going to throw you into hell I'm not doing that second of all it's a law there's laws and when you break the law there is a judgment or a penalty for breaking laws it's it's it's in righteousness so nobody is doing any there's no extortion going on if you say hey here's the law if you break the law this is the consequence it's going to happen but the tricky person the deceiver is going to be like well it's no different I mean hey here's the deal this is my law and if you don't do this then bad things are going to happen to you right I mean that's how the mafia works hey here's here's the new law right I'm the sheriff and you've got a certain percentage you're going to pay for our protection and if you don't pay we're going to remove our protection bad things are going to happen okay you could try to dance around the issue all you want and try to make it not sound like extortion but that's exactly what it is but the difference is in a couple of different things one is in the authority and the righteousness of the authority and the situation right so it is still possible for people in authority to commit extortion right you could have people in say government officials that could that could have authority in certain regards to carry out sentencing or whatever but they do it unrighteously when it's outside of the law outside of what's right what's already been established as being right right true and it's the same way and what we look to those God's laws and another example so like there's a difference between disciplining children right where you might use a threat in the sense of and it's not really a threat but we think about it if you're saying hey if you don't do this you're going to get a punishment if you do that I'm going to spank your butt you're reminding them of the consequences of breaking the laws in your house that's not the same as extortion but the reason why is because one you have the authority to carry out the judgment and to make the rules and to make the laws right if you're doing them in accordance to God's laws then it's righteous right it's like you're not telling your child to go and commit some sin or else you're going to do something bad to them then then you're getting into another territory there right if you're trying to tell them to do something wicked and wrong well then that could become extortion I mean so you go into that store and you steal that or else I'm going to beat you now you even know it's your child so you see how the circumstance can can make things change a little bit you need the righteousness of the law that you're following in in God's law as well as the authority in place because if people are acting outside of their own authority then that's already wrong but if they if they could be a parent has authority over the children but if you're directing them and tell them to do something or else that could end up being an extortion right you tell them to do something wicked as opposed to just keeping in line with God's laws that makes sense I hope so and it's for reasons like that that it could be easy to become confused and it's for reasons like that that people will try to squirm their way out of being called an extortion or committing extortion because they want to lighten or lessen how bad it seems and they might use something like well I mean you can call me spanking my children as committing extortion no you can't because it's in line with God's law and it's a judgment that would come upon them just as much as you can tell someone hey if you're if you're if you don't have Christ as your savior you've already commit sins you're going to go to hell because that's the judgment of the punishment for your sins that's not extortion turn to Ephesians chapter 6 the last place we'll look Ephesians chapter 6 we want to have a high standard for ourselves another thing that you could another word or synonym that you might be able to use obviously blackmail I think is probably one of the best ones because you're saying hey you don't do this this is going to happen but threatening could be another word that's very closely related to extortion now you could threaten someone without it necessarily being extortion but in line with with the standards we shouldn't be threatening people either and Ephesians 6 teaches us is look at verse number nine the Bible says and ye masters do the same things unto them forbearing threatening knowing that your master also is in heaven neither is there respect of persons with him so this is talking about a child of God being a master or boss and a servant and how they're supposed to deal with one another so the the servant who saved if he's working for someone who saved you know what you need you just need to be a good servant you need to obey yes sir I'm gonna do my work and you be the best server you could be but then on the master he's saying look even though you may have the authority to threaten oh man if you don't do this you know whatever he's saying forbear the threatening you don't need to do that and that's holding yourself to how you should and you shouldn't have to anyway that's a whole nother discussion or you know study on leadership and how you deal with people if you have to always resort to threatening you're doing something wrong honestly now there's there's a time and place for threatening especially if it comes with children and again threatening of hey reminding you of the consequences this is what happens it's not the same it's not it's not exactly the same word we might call it and kind of use it synonymously it's not exactly the same as a threat you need to avoid the threatenings and if you keep yourself away from the threatenings you probably do pretty good with the extortion just remember I mean if you if you if you're gonna tell anyone oh man I'm gonna reveal this or I'm gonna do this unless you do this or that you try to gain something from someone that is extortion and for some people it might they might not be getting anything like money or anything for it it might just be their own pride or their own their own power trip or whatever their own satisfaction if you will of saying well because they like being in control of people well you you don't do this and I won't do that you know and but if you do that then hey here's what's gonna happen and that's a fine line you don't want to get involved in conversations like that there's something wicked going on if that's if that's even coming up if people are having to say to you oh well if you do this not you know like someone's doing something wicked and wrong I thank God I know there's nobody I don't have anything going on like that where you start getting into some shady dealings going like hey because I mean what what could it possibly be oh man I know this about you that about look live uprightly you don't have to worry about dealing with that but to you got brothers and sisters of Christ you dead sure better not it's like going to law against your brother you just don't do it you don't commit extortion against a brother or sister in Christ even if you know something oh man but I know this and this is true this is a fact well look you don't you don't use extortion period you either bring it up because it needs to be brought up if there's some wickedness or you let it go and that's the end of it you never keep bringing stuff up it's wicked and wrong and you don't use it to control people either and if people are guilty of this you know what you're not supposed to go out and even eat with that person if they're in our church they'll be kicked out of church until they get right with that and I believe if even if they're not in our church and you know someone is guilty of that then you shouldn't go and eat with that person either just a believer born again child of God you don't you don't have fellowship in company with people like that as far as I've ordered prayer dear Lord we love you we thank you so much for your word God I pray that you please bless our church I pray you please help us to have discernment and in these areas of being able to understand how wicked these sins are for one and two when it's appropriate to apply and when people are guilty of some of these things dear Lord that we wouldn't misapply your judgment but that we would we would get it right dear Lord I pray to please help us have the right understanding about these issues Lord we love you and we thank you for all that you've done for us in Jesus name we pray Amen all right we're gonna sing one last song before dismissed brother Peter please lead us on the first god will take care of you god will take care of you every day or all the way he will take care of you god will take care of you god will take care of you when danger spears your path a sail god will take care of you god will take care of you every day or all the way he will take care of you god will take care of you god will take care of you all you may need he will provide god will take care of you nothing you ask will be denied god will take care of you god will take care of you through every day or all the way he will take care of you god will take care of you on the last no matter what may be the test god will take care of you the weary one upon his breast god will take care of you say church god will take care of you through every day or all the way he will take care of you god will take care of you amen church great singing thank you so much for coming you guys are dismissed