(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

This song requires passion, so make sure to sing it with your all on the first. O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder Consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. When through the woods and forest glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the tree. When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. And when I think that God his Son, not sparing him to die, I scarce can take it in, That on the cross my burdens gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sins. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. When Christ shall come, witch out of acclamation And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart. Then I shall bow in humble adoration And there proclaim, my God, how great thou art. Finish out strong now. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. Amen. Good start this evening. Brother Gabriel, could you open up the service, a word of prayer? Amen. If you could please turn your hymnals, song number 515. We'll be singing song number 515, What a Day That Will Be. Again, that is song number 515. Song number 515. Lift it up to the Lord now on the verse. There is coming a day when no heartache shall come. No more clouds in the sky, no more tears to dim the eye. All is feast forevermore on that happy golden shore. What a day, glorious day, that will be lifted up now. What a day that will be when my Jesus eyes shall see. And I look upon his face, the one who saved me by his grace. When he takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day, that will be on the last hour. There'll be no sorrow there, no more burdens to bear. No more sickness, no pain, no more parting over there. And forever I will be with the one who died for me. What a day, glorious day, that finished out strong now on the chorus. What a day that will be when my Jesus eyes shall see. And I look upon his face, the one who saved me by his grace. When he takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day, that will be. Amen. Good singing this evening. At this time we'll go through our announcements. All right, good afternoon. Welcome back to service for Foundation Baptist Church. Let's take our bulletin, look through the announcements real quick. Anybody need a bulletin that didn't get one earlier? Anybody? All right, look down at your verse of the week. It says, how shall they preach except they be sent. As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. We went out and did that this afternoon. Do we have anybody that got a salvation out there today? Anybody? I think my wife's probably working on one right now. I don't know. She's got one of those heart cases, I think. Bill and Jesse are still out, you know. They needed the everlasting gospel apparently, so. All right, well hopefully they better come back with some salvation so they're in deep trouble. No, I'm just kidding. All right, our service time is 10 30 a.m. for the morning service. Sunday evening for the evening service is 3 30 p.m. We're in Joshua chapter 7 tonight, and then Thursday evening Bible study will be in 1 Chronicles chapter 18. And so many times for the rest of the week are below there. Our praise report, you can see the salvations and all that good stuff, the stats on that page below there. An praise report, and hopefully you're doing well in the New Testament challenge. You're ahead of the game. Sundays are rough. Sundays are hard to get it done. I try to get myself ahead so that I could just go home and knock it out. So anyway, we'll see how I do today, but I can always catch up. You got those couple grace days, but I'm a couple days ahead, so I'm all right. But anyway, hopefully you're staying on that and trying to get that done. And the Super Saturday we have this month is January 18th, Super Soul Winning Saturday 12 to 3 in Brush Prairie. And the Indy one-year anniversary is coming up February 1st and 2nd, and there'll be Soul Winning, lunch, and bowling on Saturday, and I'll be ordaining brother Justin as the evangelist on Sunday morning, and then I'll be preaching hopefully with Pastor Jim Weeb on Sunday afternoon. And the Sweetheart Banquet this year is going to be on February 15th, and Pastor Weeb will be here to preach for that. It's going to be a Western theme, and he'll be preaching also Sunday the 16th for one of the services and the KJV conferences. It's going to come faster than you realize. It's only five months away, but we're already getting some good ideas. And if you want to, you know, help decorate or do anything like that, I think Miss Bobby's got some decoration ideas going on. She likes people to help in the way that she wants them to help, so if you want to help, you must go through her gauntlet. So, but she definitely probably wants help in some areas, right? Okay, all right, so I think we're going to get, are you wanting to get a new banner? Is that what you're, new banner, okay. And some other stuff, so we're going to change up the theme a little bit, but we got a lot of stuff that we already need, so that's great. And I think that's pretty much it. We sang Happy Birthday. Yeah, let's move on with the service and get rolling to our next song. Oh yeah, and the giving statements, I'm just going to do giving statements for everybody, so if you gave online, you'll get an email. They'll get that emailed to you. If you gave both, you'll get probably two different statements, so that's how that works. If you're at one of our church plants, then you're still going to get statements, but it just might, you know, it'll be towards the end of the month. So anyway, I just want to let you know about that. That's all I have for announcements. Go ahead and sing another song, and we'll receive the offering after that. Song number 52, Come Thou Fount, song number 52. Give another song number 52. Song number 52, lift it up to the Lord now on the first. Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount I'm fixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love. Here I raise mine Ebeneezer, hither by thy help I'm come, and I hope by thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home. Lift it up now. Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, he to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious, well I'm gonna last now, oh to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering, hearts finish out strong now, prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. Amen. Good singing. Heavenly Father, thank you so much Lord for this church and this day gathering in your house. Let the evening service go past in your spirit and give us your selection. We bless the offering of the Lord. All right go ahead and open your Bibles to Joshua chapter number seven. Joshua chapter number seven, if you don't have a Bible there should be one underneath the seat in front of you. Be in Joshua chapter seven. Joshua seven, the Bible reads, but the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing for Achan the son of Karmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah took of the accursed thing and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel and Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai which is beside Beth Avon on the east side of Bethel and spake unto them saying go up and view the country and the men went up and viewed Ai and they returned to Joshua and said unto him let not all the people go up but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai and make not all the people to labor thither for they are but few so they went up thither of the people about three thousand men and they fled before the men of Ai and the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim and smote them in the going down wherefore the hearts of the people melted and became his water and Joshua rent his clothes and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the even tide he and the elders of Israel and put dust upon their heads and Joshua said alas oh Lord wherefore has thou at all brought this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us would to God we had been content and dwelt on the other side of Jordan oh Lord what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies for the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it and shall environ us round and cut off our name from the earth and what will thou do unto thy great name and the Lord said unto Joshua get thee up wherefore lies thou thus upon thy face Israel hath sinned and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them for they have even taken of the accursed thing and all have also stolen and assembled also and they have put it even among their own stuff therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies but turned their backs before their enemies because they were cursed neither will I be with you anymore except you destroy the accursed from among you up sanctify the people and say sanctify yourselves against tomorrow for thus saith the Lord God of Israel there is an accursed thing in the midst of thee oh Israel thou canst not stand before thine enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you in the morning therefore you shall be brought according to your tribes and it shall be that the tribe which the Lord taketh shall come according to the families thereof and the family which the Lord shall take shall come by households and the household which the Lord shall take shall come by man shall come man by man and it shall be that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire he and all that he hath because he had transgressed the covenant of the Lord and because he has wrought folly in Israel so Joshua rose up early in the morning and brought Israel by their tribes and the tribe of Judah was taken and he brought the family of Judah and he took the family of the Tsar Heights and he brought the family of the Tsar Heights man by man and Zabdi was taken and he brought his household man by man and Achan the son of Carmi the son of Zabdi the son of Zirah of the tribe of Judah was taken and Joshua said unto Achan my son give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him and tell me now what thou has done hide it not from me and Achan answered Joshua and said indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel and thus and thus have I done when I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels wait then I coveted them and took them and behold they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent and the silver under it so Joshua sent messengers and they ran unto the tent and behold it was hid in his tent in the silver under it and they took them out of the midst of the tent and brought them unto Joshua and unto and unto all the children of Israel and laid them out before the Lord and Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zirah and the silver and the garment and the wedge of gold and his sons and his daughters and his oxen and his asses and his sheep and his tent and all that he had and they brought them unto the valley of Acre and Joshua said why has thou troubled us the Lord shall trouble thee this day and all Israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones and they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day so the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger wherefore the name of that place was called the valley of Acre unto this day brother Eli we pray first amen amen all right we're in joshua 7 it's been a while since he's been here over the holidays and stuff like that so just a quick recap and the title of sermon is sin in the camp this is uh probably inspired many sermons by the same title and it's definitely a great picture of how sin can affect everybody in church or everybody in the congregation by one person doing something a lot of people will say well you know my sin doesn't affect anybody else but of course by reading this story you can tell it's just not true if you're paying attention but just a quick recap though that Israel defeats that stronghold city of Jericho that's where we were at last after the walls fall down flat by the power of God just like the bible says children of Israel run up the rubble into the city kill everyone and everything and destroy it with fire just like God says to do and the the last sermon I preached about I talked about how the archaeological record shows that what is described in the bible is exactly what happened in the book of Joshua even the modern the modern the last person that excavated tries to throw shade on the archaeological record but insane it's 150 years before Joshua would have gotten there that that happened and tries to say that the city was not burned but they you know that person just obviously doesn't believe in God and they wanted to just throw shade on the story but Joshua is not only a religious book and perfect inspired inerrant word of the living God but also a historical document that is accurate and matches what is found in the in the historical record because a lot you know a lot of people say well the bible just stands alone and I agree with that a hundred percent if they never found the tell of Jericho and never were able to find some of these things that they find in the bible I would still believe the bible is true but the fact that when they find these places in history you know from the historical record that were in the bible all these places are were real places you know that should add validity to the fact that the bible is true and in archaeology when it comes to biblical archaeology has a wealth of proof that backs the bible up so but people of course will you know they'll say like that Kathleen Kenyon when she excavated it that she was the third person that did it even though she shows that the wall fell down and she draws the bricks that she found I mean you can go and find her notes you know she just still says well I was looking for this one piece of pottery that I didn't find it's like all the other potteries there that should have been there but she was looking for this one piece and because she didn't find this one specific piece because where she excavated was in a poorer part of the of the city and they probably wouldn't have been able to afford that specific kind of pottery she was looking for so she was like yeah well it's that puts the date at 150 years before the time of Joshua and so you know people people want to gravitate toward her findings quote-unquote so that they can say the bible's not true but I mean I've I've been watching this this one biblical archaeologist and he even takes one of the guys from her team that's still alive and he admits that everything was exactly how the bible says even though he doesn't believe in God himself and that's the funny thing is that these archaeologists will they won't they don't believe the bible but they still find it and say exactly you know it matches completely with what the bible says so anyway Ai is the city that is next on the destruction list but the problem is that someone has taken the accursed things and they were specifically told not to touch those things and only certain things were going to go into the treasury right let's just flip back to chapter 6 and look at verse 17 real quickly before we move into the main part of the the the preaching here joshua 6 17 says and the city shall be accursed even it so the city itself and all that are therein so all the people all the animals all the stuff the clothing any knickknacks anything that they could plunder from the city now and just so you know this is the only city that they're not allowed to take stuff from this is this is like the tithe this is the one city out of all the cities that they conquer in the promised land they're not allowed to take stuff from this one belongs to God they're just it's kind of like the the tree of the garden in the garden they're not allowed to touch it and take stuff from it only the stuff that God says and they are not allowed to keep anything it's only stuff that's going into the treasury it says only Rahab the harlot shall live she and all that are with her in the house because she hid the messengers that we sent and ye in any wise that means in any way or manner keep yourselves from the accursed thing whatever you do do not touch these things keep yourself from them lest you make yourselves accursed when you take of the accursed thing so what happens if they take from the accursed thing they're cursed aren't they and make the camp of israel a curse and trouble it so the camp of israel is called what the congregation in the wilderness that's what it's called in the new testament and so a congregation another word for congregation is what church the church in the wilderness so to say that there was no congregation in the or church in the wilderness is not true because the word church and congregation are used synonymously in the bible and so what's he saying well if you bring the accursed thing into into you you know if you touch the accursed thing you bring it into the camp you're going to make that camp that of israel a curse and what trouble it so god's real clear here don't touch these things don't bring it don't don't mess around with it it's going to cause the whole camp to be cursed and trouble the camp so it says but all the silver and golden vessels of brass and iron are consecrated unto the lord that means they're set aside those things can come into the into the unto the lord they shall come into the treasury of the lord so that word consecrated me they're declared sacred there's something that's set aside for god's purpose and they're not to go into your house they're to go into his house so number one tonight israel is defeated at ai look at joshua seven one it says but the children of israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing so the very thing he tells them and warns them not to do before they go into the city they do but the children of israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing for aching the son of karmai the son of zabdi the son of zera of the tribe of judah took of the accursed thing and the anger of the lord was kindled against aiken is that what it says no against the children of israel now this kind of flies in the face of what i was saying this morning doesn't it that everybody's responsible for those sins that they commit but here's the thing now this is true but when it comes to the congregation or to the church we're all one in christ right as you know new testament christians we are one in christ but there's also that congregation in the wilderness so here's the thing the sins that we commit that are really wicked sins there are certain sins that would get us kicked out of church now right but not all sin gets us kicked out of church but there are certain sins that would be punishable by death and god was saying that hey if you commit this trespass in in and you touch or take anything that's accursed you're going to be accursed and so it's it's basically you're you're going to trouble everybody that lives here you're it's it's not just you affecting yourself it's you're affecting everybody it's it's kind of like well let's move on here and i'll explain it a little bit more but people say that their sin does not affect other people in the church they're dead wrong about that and literally in this chapter he is dead wrong about it because he's dead at the end of the chapter and his whole family and that's the other thing is like what i explained earlier in my first sermon was that a son doesn't get put to death for the sins of his father nor the the father for the sins of his son but then you see his whole family is killed at the end of this chapter how do how do you explain that well i'll work on explaining that as this chapter goes on here it's kind of a i'm putting like a conundrum here this tonight so but i'm going to try to explain it so it makes sense and hopefully you understand it at the end here so but one man though commits the sin that god is angry with with the whole congregation but it's obvious though how it does translate with the new testament look at romans chapter 12 just keep your finger in joshua 7 turn to romans chapter 12 and of course i don't have time to develop the whole doctrine of us being many members with one body but i'm just going to show you in in a couple scriptures here but this is what the new testament teaches but there is that sense of unity in the old testament too and look they were they had a covenant that they made with god the old testament the old covenant and they had this agreement with god and they all unanimously said that they were going to keep that covenant right so when one person breaks it they're all kind of breaking it when adam and eve broke the commandments in the god the only commandment that god gave them what happened to the whole human race we all suffer we're all born sinners because of one of two people messing it up for everybody else so your sin does affect other people romans 12 4 says for as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office so we being many are one body in christ and everyone members one of another so we're not just one when we all come together as the church we are one member in christ is what it's saying we're many but we're one body in christ jesus and so you know the fingers the toes the the feet you know all different body parts make up one body right and so you might be the nose or the ears or the the hair or whatever it is that makes up that body so if your arm just gets lopped off tomorrow it's going to affect you isn't it so when when something happens to the to the body of christ it affects the whole church and if one member is committing you know sins that would get you thrown out of church then it affects the whole body how well i mean think about what his sin is what's his sin his sin is stealing he stole something that belonged to god he coveted he stole and then he tried to hide what he did right and so what is coveting is one is that one of the things that would get you thrown out of church it is so the the old testament's teaching us something that's still in effect in the new testament so hopefully that makes sense why everybody else is going to get punished you know corporately for something that one person does so and this is why god is so serious about tossing you know those people that would commit those sins because it affects the rest of the church because if one person has a covetous attitude and spirit it rubs off on other people if someone you know commits fornication because they have their covetous after that specific thing or it commits adultery then and it doesn't get dealt with then the rest of the church is infested and infected by that and it's called what leaven right that's why the you got to get rid of the leaven out of your church and this is why karmi i mean not karmi but uh aiken the son of karmi had to be excommunicated and he got excommunicated in a way that we are not allowed to do anymore so you know i don't really know that i want to do that but uh you know we live in the time of grace you know grace and truth came through jesus christ and i'm pretty i'm glad about that you know i don't know that i'd want to make this you know the rock throwing contest or whatever but anyway look at verse two back in our text joshua seven two it says and joshua sent men from jericho to ai which is beside beth haven so right now nobody knows that that aiken has done this thing but ai which is beside beth haven on the east side of bethel and spake unto them saying go up and view the country and the men went up and viewed ai and they returned to joshua and said unto him let not all the people go up but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite ai and make not all the people to labor there for there but few so this is classic overconfidence and this you know if anybody has played sports knows this that you start overlooking the weaker teams and that's a recipe for upset that's a recipe for disaster with your team that you're already looking past the team that seems weak they don't they don't have you know as good of players as your team does and you go and then they they beat the pants off you because you were just looking past them so obviously in this situation you know they could have had they could have sent their whole army and god probably would have sent them packing because the curse of god is upon this congregation right now but this is overconfidence and god's kind of probably letting this happen like oh yeah we could just send a couple thousand people these guys are weak right so there went up thither of the people about three thousand men and they fled before the men of ai and the men of ai smote of them about thirty and six men for they chased them from before the gate and even unto shep sheparbim and smote them in the going down wherefore the hearts of the people melted and became as water so i'm not sure how many people there were in ai but they sent the two or three of the three thousand people packing they were running scared from them and they they killed 36 men now that doesn't seem like a catastrophic loss you know if you're talking big military numbers i mean israel has you know hundreds of thousands of soldiers and they you know could overwhelm them with the numbers or whatever but they just thought let's just send these guys in here it's gonna be an easy victory but that's not the case so verse six and joshua rent his clothes and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the lord until eventide he and the elders of israel and put dust upon their heads and joshua said alas oh lord wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over jordan to deliver us into the hand of the amorites to destroy us would to god that we had been content and dwelt on the other side of jordan oh lord what shall i say when israel turneth their backs before their enemies for the cananites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it and shall environ around us around and cut off our name from the earth and what wilt thou do unto thy great name and so joshua's kind of discouraged here and he's like already saying hey maybe we should turn around go back where we came from you know god what are you going to do about this what's going to happen to your great name but i just say this that god's name is great no matter what we screw up you know it i mean god's name might be made distinct because of the things that we do but does it really affect him in reality no it really doesn't affect him it affects our reputation and it does kind of affect god's reputation in a way but no matter what we do god's still god god is still all powerful so and it doesn't matter how powerful or or smart or great we are god can still make sure that the smallest thing defeats us when we're in sin when we have a curse upon our church or a curse upon our life god can make the the the weakest enemies destroy us he can make sure that everything that we do is cursed and you know they were warned to not touch the accursed thing this is this is what happens when god takes his blessing off of you and puts a curse upon you so you know when we sin and bring sin into the camp we can affect the way god allows us to fight our enemies because ours is a spiritual battle right so if we have really wicked sin in our church and people aren't being dealt with for it like obviously i don't know everything that's going on but god does know so god in this situation nobody else knew what he did so what does god do he says okay well i'm gonna let you know what the situation is he tells the leadership and the leadership has to take care of it that's the way that it is in in a new testament church too whoever if you know about something that's a really bad sin you're supposed to come tell the leadership so the leadership can deal with it not tell everybody else in the church not gossip about it on the internet but come to the person that can actually do something about it because what did god do he went to the leadership now god doesn't speak to me audibly like he does to joshua in this in this instance so he speaks to me through his word but he's not going to like make me figure out some puzzle and say by the way so-and-so's fornicating in the church that's not how the new testament is so you know the only way i'm going to find out is if somebody tells me or you know that's that's that's the way it kind of works and so you know but if but if all the of if pastors don't deal with sin that they know is happening then you have this kind of aching type of situation happening where their church is being destroyed it's like well why is the church being destroyed well duh you can't just have a bunch of fornicators hanging out and just spreading that leaven all over the church and expect that god's going to bless your church you can't have a bunch of covetous people that are thieves and stealing and and stealing other people's wives i mean think about this covet coveting is like a unique sin because it's something that goes on in the mind it's something that goes on in the heart and nobody knows that you're doing it but when that covetousness you know brings forth it brings forth a sin it's usually theft or adultery or fornication or something it's it manifests itself in a physical way once that covetousness brings forth like in this situation what happens well he takes something that doesn't belong to him he steals so it began with covetousness though that's why covetousness is one of those sins it's hard to measure but when someone commits a sin that's tied to covetousness then it's like well you can kind of you can tell that it's like hey i need to kick this person out for covetousness so anyway we don't want the enemy to easily defeat us and you know pastors need to start doing their job and not just be like oh we just got to forgive everything no we don't just have to forgive everything we have to obviously we do forgive and we do restore but there's a time that you have to deal with with sin in church and if someone's not repentant about the things that they do they got to go and then hopefully they can get things right and come back that's the end game that's the end goal but some things are not forgivable some things are not things that they can come back from cora was never going to come back from hell was he cora was was taken out of the congregation in front of everybody and it was very obvious where he went he went straight to hell and people were like you killed the people of the lord it's like what are you talking about they weren't the people of the lord because they went to hell nobody in hell is the people of the lord they're reprobates then they're gone they're done hos they are absolutely going to roast there forever and ever cora is not restorable the false prophet is not restorable there are certain people that are not restorable and and some pastors are just more loving than god today and are just willing to restore some of the most vile people or give some you know three-peat child offender you know another chance at church it's like what are you doing you love that child offender that child molester that freak of nature more than you love the people in your church what's wrong with you it's bizarre so things will start to go wrong that should be going right when your church is being you know cursed like this and you know we can not be blessed just for not obeying hey there's in our lives we can we can just not be blessed for not obeying god you know you're like well i just don't understand why all these things are happening to me well maybe you should just start obeying what god says to do and maybe your life won't be cursed and people just i just don't understand this i don't understand why all these things are happening well you know sometimes they're trials of our faith and sometimes they're not but i think that most people can understand what the difference is you know if you're lacking in a major area of your life in spirituality you should understand look look at luke chapter 12 turn to luke chapter 12 luke chapter number 12 verse 47 the bible says and that servant which knew his lord's will so this you know this is talking about someone that's a believer that knows what god wants from him and prepared not himself neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes it's talking about beating people this morning and god does god beat people he beats his children doesn't he like god would never beat his children what are you talking about pastor that's what it says god beats his children with many stripes which ones which ones get many stripes the ones that know what god wants from them and don't prepare themselves to do those things and don't do according to his will they they know better they they just know but they don't care they become apathetic or they just they just don't do it he's going to beat those people with many stripes and like you you kind of go to a church which you go to a church a type of church teaches the bible so you learn a lot of things about the bible and so therefore you're kind of knowing what god wants from you there's a lot of churches you can go to today you're going to get a salvation message every 11 o'clock service and you're going to get some doctrine but unless you go to like a sunday night service or maybe a wednesday night service you're not going to get a lot of doctrine but even then it's very few and far in between the past some of the pastors are like very soft-spoken and then they they just their bible studies are super dry and then it becomes question answer time where the the women in the church pop up and start saying stuff it's like sit down and shut up you're not allowed to speak in the service but when you have the pastors telling just allowing it to happen it's like what are you doing how is this edifying the church when you're doing something that god has already said not to allow to happen it doesn't make sense look at verse 48 says but he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes does it say they won't be beaten no it says they'll just be beaten with few stripes so they're not going to get it as bad for unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required and to whom men have committed much of him will he ask the more so the more you know the more god expects from you and so if you know a lot of bible you know what god's will for your life is you're going to a church that teaches you those things and then you're just not doing it then you know you're held to a higher accountability than other people you're like well that's not fair is life fair who said life is fair you know some people are born with leukemia is that fair some people are born with deformities is that fair some people are born with mental handicaps is that fair for them you know life is not fair but you've been given a blessed life for the most part and you know if you go to a great church or if you go to a church that teaches the bible then you're you're blessed that's a blessing don't treat it like a curse or go you know what i guess i'm getting taught too much i better go to a church that doesn't teach as much so i'm not going to get beaten as badly that's a that's a just a bad way to look at things okay don't look at it like that number two tonight the sin of aching the sin of aching so look at verse 10 it says and the lord said unto joshua get thee up wherefore lie a style upon my face he's just like what are you doing joshua he's like laying there until it gets dark just on his face and you know a lot of times that's a good thing to do but in this situation god's like what are you doing just get up this is i just this verse always strikes me funny that he's like get up man anyway israel has sinned they have also transgressed my covenant see why is he saying they this one guy did this but see how he says they have transgressed my covenant so he's holding the whole group accountable for what one person has done because it's the covenant which i commanded them for they have even taken of the accursed thing and have also stolen and dissembled also and they have put it even among their own stuff which this kind of leads me to think that maybe the family is in on it a little bit and this might explain why the family is thrown in with the rest with aching also because i mean they're all living in the same tent like they don't see the holy dog in the middle of the tent like he's just you know what i mean like the family kind of becomes an accomplice at some i mean the bible doesn't say that but why is he saying and they have put it even among their own stuff he's saying they them you know i mean obviously he's still making the whole group accountable but at the same time he's also kind of saying they have hit it among them stuff their stuff so like i mean it's it's not beyond reason that some of his family members what he didn't tell his wife that he had all that stuff i mean men do keep secrets sometimes but usually you know check out this babylonian garment yeah you know when we move yeah yeah well the wedge of gold the silver on top of it he didn't tell his wife i don't know i don't know if i believe that but um so but here's the thing god is going to reveal sin and we as christians unfortunately sometimes for us you know it's we don't get to get away with things that we got away with when we were not saved you know the unsaved seem to get away with things a lot but their punishment is in hell but we as christians like this is something i had to learn early on as a christian that i just don't get to get away with the things that i used to get away with that's like everybody at work can be late for work but when the christians late for work for whatever reason they just nail you to the wall that's because god is making sure you're nailed to the wall you know you just or you say something to the boss you know you talk back to your boss but everybody else you you get in trouble but everybody else doesn't get in trouble or you make a mistake at work everybody ridicules you your boss ridicules you but if somebody else does it it's not a big deal so you know you don't just get if you say a cuss word at work but everybody else can swear like a sailor but if you do it then you're like oh i thought you were a christian you know ah you know you get nailed for it so like i'm just saying that as christians we don't just don't get to get away with stuff anymore and that's good but it feels bad when you have to suffer you know for doing something wrong but you just don't get people are like i just want to go back to my old life and the way things used to be this is why the children of israel always complaining oh wood to god that we can go back and have the leeks and the garlic and all the great things that we used to we used to have fish to the full and you know they're just whining about all the stuff instead of just saying hey god can you you know throw some leeks into this you know instead of just asking god for the things he's already given them all this free manna and you know quails till it comes out their nostrils but you know they're just constantly complaining about stuff constantly complaining about how hard everything is when all they have to do is just ask god for the things that they want instead of whining about it but they're always wanting to go back to their old life and they think that it's going to be easy but when you go back to your old life it's not easy you're just you can't that saying you can never go home is true for christians because you you think it's going to be the same but it's never going to be the same let's see verse 12 therefore the children of israel could not stand before their enemies but turn their backs before their enemies because they were accursed neither will i be with you anymore except you destroy the accursed from among you so and then translate this to the new testament what does god say about throwing people out he says take you know get that wicked person throw that wicked person out right um he's you know we're not supposed to suffer people to stay in church that commit really wicked sins verse 13 up sanctify the people and say sanctify yourselves against tomorrow for thus saith the lord god of israel there is an accursed thing in the midst of thee oh israel thou canst not stand before thine enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you in the morning therefore you shall be brought according to your tribes and it shall be that the tribe which the lord taketh shall come according to the families thereof and the family which the lord shall take shall come by households and the household which the lord shall take shall come man by man and it shall be that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire he and all that he hath because he has transgressed the covenant of the lord and because he hath wrought folly in israel so the guy's gonna die it's like already said the death penalty is gonna happen and so joshua rose up early in the morning and brought israel by their tribes and the tribe of juda was taken and he brought the family of juda and he took the family of the czar heights and he brought the family of the czar heights man by man and zabdi was taken and he brought the household man by man and achan the son of karmai the son of zabdi the son of zera of the tribe of juda was taken now if you remember who zera was zera is the young child who was born of fornication through whoredom basically of juda when he impregnated his daughter-in-law she pretended to be a harlot and zera is the one whose hand came out and they tied the the scarlet thread on his hand and then his hand came back in the womb and then his brother uh brought broke forth and breached through so i preached a sermon about this where you know obviously god through his foreknowledge knows that this line is going to be ended because of the fact that he's killed in this chapter but he chooses the other twin instead of you know the one with the scarlet thread they thought oh he's the firstborn but he's not the firstborn god's like nope i got other plans and then he just you know squeaks out the other one so um what was his name perez yeah so anyway i preached a whole sermon about that in the earlier chapters and i think first chronicles so anyway and it says in verse 19 and juda or excuse me and joshua said unto achan my son give i pray thee glory to the god of israel and make confession onto him and tell me now what thou hast done hide it not from me so you know you also have to understand in the old testament things were a lot more brutal things were a lot more harsh intentionally you know god is trying to show that you know it's not grace necessarily it's the letter of the law people are punished more harshly and you know he says hey confess say what you've done but even though he confesses he still is killed isn't he but in the new testament you know grace is a big part of the new testament people still die in the new testament for committing these same acts but you know i'll show you you know later on i'll show you something where they have a chance to do the same thing and then they lie about it and then they still die anyway so but anyway verse 20 and achan answered joshua and said indeed i have sinned against the lord god of israel and thus and thus have i done so he admits it he comes clean you know but there's no mercy coming here the mercy is not going to happen it says when i saw among the spoils a goodly babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels weight then i coveted them so i mean you see that you know normally you can take the spoils he sees this he's like oh i coveted him i looked at him i wanted them i desired them and took them so coveting leads to what him stealing them he took them and behold they are hid so he does the crime and then he hides the fact that he does it that's what most people do when they commit some sort of sin they want to hide the sin that they've done in he said he hid him in the earth in the midst of my tent and the silver under it so he covets the bible says thou shall not covet you know the we're not so you know it's one of the ten commandments he broke so has he broken the covenant yes he has that's what the bible says and that's why he said he's broken my covenant thou you know he took he took them the bible says thou shalt not steal he broke another commandment there and then he hid what he did he covered up the crime and then he's only confessing because he gets caught it's not like he voluntarily you know he probably he had earlier that night he could have just came forward and said you know i did it here here it is i give it back i don't know if that would have changed the circumstances any but he didn't do that he waited till god just rooted him out and said it's this tribe it's this guy it's this guy and then it's like oh it's him it's this dude so verse 22 says so joshua sent messengers and they ran unto the tent and behold it was hid in his tent and the silver under it and they took them out of the midst of the tent and brought them unto joshua and unto all the children of israel and laid them out before the lord now turn to numbers chapter 32 verse 23 numbers chapter 32 verse 23 the bible says in numbers 32 23 it says but if you will not do so behold you have sinned against the lord and be sure your sin will find you out it's a very scary verse in the bible because you can commit all the sin and do all this stuff but at some point your sin will find you out it's going to rat you out it's going to tell on you it's kind of an interesting way to put it but god's going to make sure that it's found out and you know sometimes that can be very embarrassing when your sin finds you out i'm sure this was pretty embarrassing the whole congregation is just like who is it who is it who is it it's that guy you know and he's embarrassed you know but he comes clean he does say it's him but you know at that point it's like god's already pointed him out like what can he really say he could have denied it but i mean he didn't so but you know when it says your sins be sure your sins will find you out it's just another way of saying you can't get away with your sins forever you can't just keep hanging on to them and expecting them to not come full circle and you know when it's talking about these major sins that will get you kicked out of church or in the old testament would get you taken out of the congregation and sometimes by the death penalty you know these are things that have to be dealt with it's better to deal with them before they come to the surface it's better to deal with them before god just removes you out of a church than to wait until god's punishing you for it and taking you out first peter chapter 4 verse 17 says for the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of god and if it first began at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of god so you know the judgment that god's talking about is the judgment of of you know things that must have you know be judged in the church and if it begins first and us what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel so people that obey not the gospel are going to hell so the bible talks about putting them to judge that are least esteemed in the church it'd be better for that than to take somebody to the unbelievers so our judgment god finds very important and so it's not a light thing when god asks us to judge something so when he in first corinthians 5 when he tells them to to kicks that guy out of the church he's like hey don't you know don't be puffed up kick this guy out and let satan have the destruction of the flesh upon him look at verse 24 back in our text it says in joshua and all israel with him took aching the son of zera and the silver and the garment and the wedge of gold and his sons and his daughters and his oxen and his asses and his sheep and his tent and all that he had and they brought them onto the valley of acor so and this is what i was kind of talking about it's like earlier in the ser in the sermon i preached earlier it talks about not putting the death the people that you know obviously the son doesn't go be put to death for the sins of uh of the father and the father for the sins of the son turn over to proverbs chapter 15 proverbs chapter 15 proverbs chapter 15 verse 27 the bible says he that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house but he that hateth gives shall live that's a very interesting verse though he that is greedy of gain is is is he greedy of gain he is and it says troubleth his own house what is aiken called the troubler of israel he's troubled israel and that's what joshua says to him in the next verse it says and joshua said why hast thou troubled us the lord shall trouble thee this day in all israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones so why did he kill everybody and all of his stuff well he is accursed the bible said remember earlier i said that if he touched if they touched anything and brought it they were accursed and everything that he had so once he made himself accursed everything that he had was accursed and i think that it's probable that he had accomplices other people that at least knew about it and didn't say anything and look you're an accomplice after the fact even if you didn't know right at first i'm sure that they probably knew afterward but it said in that proverb said if you are greedy of gain you trouble your own house so what happened well god troubled his whole house didn't he so i mean the scripture fits at least there you might think well that's you know pretty mean for him to do that well i mean what happens when we throw a whole family out because of one person i mean it's not like if if someone's like does something that's worthy of being thrown out and they do something really wicked and we throw them out it's not like i'm mad at their kids but don't their kids suffer because of what happened with that that one adult or both those adults and they're however many kids they have all suffer being thrown out of the church in the new testament we don't line them all up take their cars and all their stuff and put it in a big circle and just throw rocks at it until it gets all destroyed and they'd all die that's not what god's called us to do in the new testament we don't even have authority to do that in the new testament if it's something that's a minor thing we should judge it and what we do is we kick them out and if it's something that the police can deal with and we can't deal with then we call the police on them but that's the most we can do we turn them over to the people that can actually swing the sword we can't swing the sword we can't throw the rock we can't shoot the gun all right so you know all these people get mad when we say oh these homos need to be executed well we think the government should do it that's what we say every time because that's what we believe and then they're like they're calling for the extinction of you know they're saying that they're you know trying to bring violence i'm not trying to bring violence what the government's actually going to do it they're not going to do it but that's what the bible says should be done so yes of course we're going to preach those things but do you see how it translates over like god just has them all killed that's a way harsher isn't it than us just throwing them out but you know they're destroyed by the devil on the outside their family you know and unfortunately the kids have to suffer because of what these idiot parents sometimes do and getting themselves thrown out of churches look they don't have to do the stupid things that they do and sometimes people get marked even at a year or two later because i find out that they're saying all this crazy stuff or lying and i finally get like the actual evidence of it and then like i postmark kick them out and it's just like and then they're mad because i dared to say something about them later it's like well what it's okay for you to just lie about me and lie about our church all over social media and or all over to friends and try to get them to not want to come to our church people families in our church just let you have carte blanche access to people in our church and just lie about me and lie about our church members nah no you're gonna get marked and then they're like oh i can't believe you called me a wolf i can't believe you did that why can't you believe that that's what you're acting like and you know what if you do something that's worthy of being thrown out then you're gonna get postscript thrown out it's a mark it's a blot on your record you know what any church that takes those people in they're harboring fugitives they're harboring vagabonds they're harboring people that should be thrown out like cane got got you know he got his walking papers god said hey you're gonna be a vagabond walking about for the rest of your life and he was like okay bye then i'll just kill my brother and then you know we have people that have left our church that are constantly killing their brothers well at least they say they're brothers but sometimes it's hard to tell but you know this principle is in the old testament as as much as it's in the new testament it's just they're not getting rocked asleep i mean stone to death right so look at first corinthians actually look at hebrews chapter 10 verse 30 hebrews chapter 10 verse 30 and what and again able or aiken is known as the trouble troubler of israel throughout the rest of scripture 36 people dead 36 innocent people that didn't deserve to die died because he couldn't control himself and he had to take something that belonged to somebody else and it's like i said this morning it's not like it's a mass casualty event like it wasn't like hundreds of thousands look david counted people out of pride the devil tempted him to do these this thing and 70,000 people died that's a mass casualty but the difference is that david said let them fall into the hands of the lord and the lord did you know he's always going to do that which is right but aiken sin directly and you know god said he already told him if you do this you're going to be accursed so look at hebrews 10 30 it says for we know him that has said vengeance belongeth unto me i will recompense saith the lord and again the lord shall judge other people no what to say the lord shall judge his people this is also a scary verse if you're saved because he's talking about vengeance and recompensing and then he says the lord shall judge his people it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god well who's he judging is aiken one of his people yeah and he kills him and his whole family and it's like well we should fear the lord especially we're messing around in things that we ought not to be and committing sins that we shouldn't be committing now look at first corinthians chapter five first corinthians chapter five the bible says in first corinthians 5 4 it says in the name of our lord jesus christ when you're gathered together and my spirit with the power of the lord jesus christ to deliver such and one unto satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the lord jesus your glory is not good know you not that a little leaven leaven at the whole lump what is the purpose of getting the person out of the congregation because you don't want that sin to run rampant into the church and what was aching sin covetousness theft if that would have been able to just you just let that ride and just let him stay and just let it continue to happen and don't throw him out of the congregation then that covetousness would have spread to other people the leaven would have would have been moving on to other people it says purge out therefore the old leaven you may be a new lump as you're leavened for even christ our passover is sacrificed for us go back go down to verse 11 it says 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 and one know not to eat and what will i do to judge them that are without do not judge them that are within but then that are without god judgeth therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person so what does that mean don't hang out with them don't don't try to restore that person that person is under the curse of god and so we need to stay away from them once they're marked let them be marked let them be accursed let them deal with satan he's the one that's dealing with them god is using satan to destroy their lives at that point and look if you want to touch that curse thing then you might fall into that curse too and that's why we should stay away from people that are marked and not just hang out with them anyway because you don't agree with what the pastor said that's that's garbage homie don't do that you might disagree you can disagree all you want but what god has uh loosed in heaven he's loosed in heaven but he's bound on earth he's bound on earth and whatever the judgment of the church is that's what you should be going with and you're like oh i don't agree with that well then go someplace else that agrees with what you agree with because that's that's what the bible teaches friends it really is so in the new testament our version of kicking someone out is throwing them out of church that's our version of killing them okay killing them for a capital crime now and not all not all these sins that are on that list are even capital crimes in the bible but there's things that god doesn't want in his church he doesn't want in the congregation so but the the new testament grace is the theme so aching could be forgiven and restored for what he did in the new testament couldn't he have but again if some child molesters found out then they are to go forever with the curse of god upon them if some false prophet is found out in this church then the curse of god is to go out with them forever they're not coming back so that is what god's proclaimed now ax chapter 5 turn to ax chapter 5 here's a new testament story of something similar happening it's a little bit different but it is a new testament story you're like well god doesn't still do that yeah he does but here's the difference look at ax chapter 5 verse 3 ax 5 3 says but peter said to ananias so this is the story of ananias and sapphire why has satan filled thine heart to lie to the holy ghost and keep back part of the price of the land see everybody's selling their land and giving it to the apostles and and they decided to keep back part of the price and lie about what they sold it for whilst it remained was it not thine own and after it was sold was it not thine own power why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart thou hast not lied unto men but unto god so what's the sin that they've committed they lied to god they lied to the apostles and said they sold it for a certain amount that they actually sold it for more and they're keeping back the money the fact that they kept back money isn't the problem the fact that they lied about it why would they do that to look more spiritual isn't that why i mean to look holier than thou or whatever and then actually deceive and connive and it says ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up the ghost and a great fear came on all them that heard these things and the young men arose wound him up and carried him out and buried him now in today's society if this happened at our church and someone just did this well first of all you know we don't have the power that the apostles had but we couldn't just get guys to go bury somebody in the backyard of the church you know it'd be difficult in the concrete and everything like that anyway but like we just it would just not be lawful to do that but you know they didn't even invite anybody to the funeral maybe they didn't have any family i don't know but things were a little different back then i guess but it says and it was about the same the space of three hours when his wife not knowing what was done came in and peter answered unto her tell me whether you sold the land for so much and she said yay for so much then peter said unto her how is it that you have agreed to gather to tempt the spirit of the lord behold the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door and shall carry thee out then she then fell she down straight away at his feet and yielded up the ghost and the young men came in and found her dead and carrying her forth buried her by her husband and great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things so this is kind of like one of those things that the doctrine of firsts you know in the new testament but what is it what's their problem they're covetous they're covetous and they're self-righteous and there's they're hyper spiritual but what do they do they so their covetousness caused them to lie to god and lie to the apostles i mean even though he said you haven't lied to us you lied to the holy ghost you lied to god but what happens so they have a chance to actually tell the truth here don't they he says did you sell the sell for this price yeah yeah uh-huh uh-huh then they lied now the difference between them and aiken is aiken actually told the truth he said yep this is what i did admit it then he's killed but then these people come and they say they lie about it and then they lie when they have a chance to confess the truth and get right and then they die they just drop dead so i mean i guess in the new so but what do you think would have happened if they would have said yes we did we're sorry we repent do you think god would have allowed them to die probably not i don't think he would have but you know i don't really know for sure but it's just an interesting story it's like it's not like god has changed but our ability to do like we're we are not new testament the nation of israel as in we have military power or might to do these things that they didn't in the old testament israel was its own nation like that had power and god's power backing them and god told them to go conquer the promised land so we he hasn't told us to go conquer vancouver washington and use like military might to do these things so again we're just the new testament's completely different that way so what did aiken do turn what exactly did he do well let's look at malachi chapter 3 verse 8 i'm almost done here just hang on for a couple more turnings of the page malachi chapter 3 verse number 8 now god says when you don't tithe you're robbing him right malachi chapter 3 verse 8 the bible says will a man rob god yet ye have robbed me but you say wherein have we robbed thee in tithes and offerings you're cursed with a curse for ye have robbed me even this whole nation so what aiken did that what where was all that stuff supposed to go in the treasury of the lord in the lord's house so that first that first conquest all that instead of them being able to take that for themselves which they can do on the neck all the next places they conquer they can take the spoil this is what soldiers were allowed to do you taught you if you read the bible there's a lot of times when you see about them taking spoil taking spoil while they were this is the one they were not allowed to take the spoil and he's taking the spoil but that spoil belongs to god that spoil belongs to the house of lord that spoil belongs in the treasury of the house of the lord look at verse 10 says bring ye all the tithes in the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith saith the lord of hosts if i will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it so god even promises hey if you bring the tithe you pay you know you give your tithe he's going to bless you this is like one of those promise you know testing passages where god says hey if you do what i say here i'm going to bless you and you won't have room enough to receive it and then he says i and i will rebuke the devourer for your sakes who is the devourer i mean i would say i would say it's satan or one of his angels right i will rebuke the devourer for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field sayeth the lord of hosts and all nations shall call you blessed for you shall be a delightsome land sayeth the lord of hosts so he's reproving them and rebuking them for what stealing from him robbing him and by robbing him he's just saying you're not giving what you're supposed to but isn't that what aiken's doing too he robbed god he took money he took wealth that belonged to god and took it for himself and so that that's part of his crime he coveted he stole he didn't just steal though from people because that that belonged to god he stole from god that is a very serious crime to steal from god to rob god let's look back in our text here joshua chapter 7 verse 26 it says and they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day so the lord turned from the fierceness of his anger so what appeased god in this that they killed aiken that they did what he said and god was a you know he turned away from his fierceness wherefore the name of the place was called the valley of acor unto this day and this doesn't you know might not seem like a big deal but this this actual this chapter is a big deal it's talked about through the rest of the bible it's brought up over and over again and it's like well 36 only 36 people died but yeah 36 people that didn't deserve to die and it's a it's a big lesson for us it's a big lesson in that the sins that we commit can have an effect on the rest of our congregation and that yes your sin does affect other people your sin in your own house affects your household and your sins at work affect other people at work you know your sins in church affect other people at church the bible says god is angry with the wicked every day and i'm not saying you're wicked or you know we're righteous if we're saved right but we are capable of doing wicked things we are capable of sin our flesh is not reformable the only way we're reformable is through the spirit of god and if we walk in the spirit daily so punishment number three will always come for sin but the degree of punishment that we get is based upon our attitude about that sin so if you just think that you can just sin as much as you want i got my grace card i got my fire you know protection card or whatever your fire insurance policy or whatever i've gone to allstate got the fire insurance policy jesus gave it to me i don't have to go to hell and you have that attitude well it's just a dumb attitude to have because that's the kind of attitude that's going to get god fuming against you two yeah let's look at galatian chapter six got a few more places to go and we'll be done just real real quick stuff they're like point three it's only one verse okay or two verses here and there's one more point two more verses after that two more spots will be done all right punishment will always come for sin the bible says be not deceived god is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap for he that soweth to the flesh shall reap of the flesh or reap of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth of the spirit shall of this of the spirit reap life everlasting so we don't want to reap corruption we don't want to sow to the flesh that's sin that's corruption and you know there's that saying that says sin takes you farther than you want to go keeps you longer than you want to stay and costs you more than you're willing to pay or want to pay it's true you know you start going down those roads into sin and it does do those things but then at the end of it you know god be sure your sin will find you out you know you're headed down a road to destruction and embarrassment and you don't want to end up on that road and if you do sin the good thing about god is that he is merciful and you don't have to take the full blow of that punishment necessarily because you can beg god for mercy and you can be merciful to other people and you can be forgiving to other people because the way you deal with other people and how forgiving you are with other people that's how forgiving god's going to be with you like i talked about my sermon earlier about giving your children grace because if you never give them grace then god's going to look at that and be like oh well he doesn't want to give his children graceful maybe i won't give him grace either how about that turn to proverbs chapter 28 verse 13 number four is god's mercy is plenteous for those that seek it proverbs 28 verse 13 says he that covereth his sins shall not prosper so when we cover our sins we're not going to prosper because number one you're not going to get away with it you're just not going to get away with it but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy when you confess your sins and forsake your sins you're going to have mercy and like does that mean you have to get saved all these different times no that's not what i was talking about once you're saved you're always saved but you know you get your parents mad you should apologize you know and how many times have you apologized your parents well hopefully you do it often because you probably make them mad all the time in reality if you're a kid especially the younger you are and some are more disobedient than others you know some kids are a little more of a pain in the neck to their mom and dad than others but if you know that you're that way just tell your parents you're sorry make it up to them first john 1 8 through 10 let's go ahead and go there and we'll be done first john 1 8 and people will like criticize this and say oh you're just going to tell people all they have to do is just rub the genie god's this genie that you rub and then every time you sin you can just go and and ask him to forgive your sins well yeah it's not he's not a genie you don't i don't i don't rub anything and god comes out of any lamp but i do have these promises in the bible that say that he'll forgive me when i when i sin why would you not do that you you want to have wrath in your life you want to get the full punishment it's like well you're just like some spiritual catholic you just want to get beaten the worst you possibly can you just want to walk around with a whip just that's what catholics do they have the little beads on the end or whatever with the barbs or i don't know they just want to whip themselves in the back it's bizarre but don't don't beat yourself up like that god will lessen the blow you know they could they could be like pieces of paper instead first john 1 8 god will punish us for sin but it doesn't have to be the full extent look at first john 1 8 says if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us hey don't don't just think that you're okay with what you're doing and make excuses in your mind and say that's not a sin yeah i don't really i don't know if i believe that anymore yeah because you're doing it it says if we confess our sin sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness this is a this is a promise this is a fact if we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us don't say you haven't sinned the the true the true forgiveness and the true mercy you're going to get are from actually going to god and confessing your sins and he's going to be the faithful one we're not faithful we're a bunch of spiritual harlots sometimes we're a bunch of spiritual whoremongers sometimes we easily forget our path we walk out we look in the mirror and we forget what manner of man we are sometimes but you know what god still is faithful to us and that's the important thing we might be unfaithful to him all the time but you know what he still loves us and he understands that we're but you know but dirt or whatever we're just worms in his sight basically we're but he still loves us why i don't understand why i don't understand why the first two people sinned and blew it for everything and he still had this plan to save us you know and the few people that are in this room tonight you know we're the redeemed we're the ones that he you know we're here on a sunday night most people don't even have sunday night church anymore but here we are wanting to hear the word of god wanting to hear the truth and you know this is an important message for our church look what we do affects other people and hey if you are affecting other people well then you know i talked about this at the beginning of the year like maybe there's a sin that you're struggling with that you've been struggling with for a long time hey you know don't give up let god help you ask him to help you if you just keep knocking at his door like the inopportune neighbor sugar please give a cup of sugar a cup of sugar got some flour and god's gonna answer your prayers like he knows what you want he knows what you need and he's he's gonna he's gonna help you he's gonna do what you ask but we do have to put some effort into things and hey if you're sinning go to god and just ask him to forgive you so the bible says he will he's faithful at least he's faithful he's more faithful than we are so let's pray lord we thank you so much for your faithfulness to us and lord that you will cut cut down some of the punishment that you that you lay upon us that we deserve and lord that we can come to you and ask for forgiveness and you cleanse us from all unrighteousness lord i pray that you'd help our church to be strong and that lord we would be a church that has few problems and that that lord we would be beaten with few stripes if we are beaten and you'd help us to be a strong church this year and lord that we think about the things that we do how it affects our families how it affects the other members in our church lord that we'd be a forgiving people we'd forgive those around us and not hold grudges against each other and that we'd be forgiving we'd be forgiving to our children we'd be forgiving to our fellow church members and lord that we would have in our heart to be forgiving so that you can forgive us and be more merciful to us lord we thank you so much for a great day in church and we pray that you bless the rest of our week and keep us safe and and bring those people back that are sick back to church in jesus name we pray amen we'll be singing song number 323 be thou my vision again that is song number 323 so song number 323 sing praise to the lord now on the first be thou my vision oh lord of my heart not be lost to me save that thou art thou my best art by day and by night walking or sleeping thy presence my light be thou my wisdom and thou my true word i ever with you and thou with me lord thou my great father i thy true son thou in me dwelling and i with thee one rich as i the man's empty praise thou my ignorance is thou and always thou and thou only first in my heart i king of heaven my treasure fish out strong high king of heaven my victory won may i reach heaven's just oh bright heaven's sun heart of my own heart whatever befall still be my vision oh ruler of all amen you