The scripture reading for this morning is that chapter I mentioned earlier in the first hour, 1 Corinthians 10, beginning in verse 1. 1 Corinthians 10, which, as you will see, will relate to our text back in chapter 6, the subject being, being holy in an unholy world, that's the message that the Apostle Paul addresses in the last part of chapter six. But here we are, 1 Corinthians 10, beginning in verse one. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were, as it's written that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that's not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there's one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No. I imply that what the pagan sacrifice They offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? Well, there's a very sobering and beneficial passage in the Word of God, and we are to receive it in that spirit and as such. Well, we come then to this sixth chapter of 1 Corinthians, and let me turn back to it here. I have to use this great big heavy Bible that's kind of cumbersome, but it has big print. And for some reason, the words seem foggier to me these days. I don't know. There it is. So we'll be looking at 1 Corinthians 6 and the last part of it, beginning then at verse 12. Let's ask the Lord's blessing upon the ministry of His Word. We do thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth that you've given to us, for our good, and for your glory. And we pray, Father, that you would work very powerfully in us now, in all of us, by your spirit, as we consider this typical trap of the enemy, this lure and seduction by the world that would lead us away from you. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. That chapter would go on in chapter 10 to end with, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Well, this church at Corinth, as you probably know by now, wasn't really always doing everything to the glory of God. They lived in a wicked city. This was largely a Gentile church. They'd heard the gospel as Paul went there and preached to them. And they'd been called by the Lord out of it, called into his church. But they still lived in that wicked city. And a lot of that wicked city was still in them, in their thinking. And we've seen that, how they were Chapter 5, they were boasting about how accepting they were while they let this wicked man stay in among them. And we've seen how they exalted themselves. They're arrogant. This is a key word in Corinthians here. You're arrogant. You should be grieving the fact that there is evil then among you, and so on. So they lived this wicked city, and there was still a fair amount of Corinth in them. Listen to Gordon Fee. That's one of the main commentaries that I use in this study, Gordon Fee. It's really a good one. He explains the thinking that had infected the church there. He puts it like this. Apparently, some men within the Christian community were going to prostitutes and were arguing for the right to do so. You know, back in those days, too, it was typical that pagan temples had prostitutes there, and somehow participating in immorality with the prostitute brought you into union with the idol and all that nonsense. But anyway, so they were arguing for the right to do so. Being people of the spirit, they implied, these delusional Corinthians, right? being people of the spirit, has moved them to a higher plane, the realm of the spirit, where they are unaffected by behavior that merely has to do with the body. No big deal, right? The Corinthian pneumatics, all right, that's the word that he uses for them. Because they claimed to be a higher pneuma. That's the Greek word for spirit, right? These pneumatics, we are the ultra spiritual. The Corinthian pneumatics were proponents of a dualistic, this is just a typical Greek Hellenistic philosophy, this dualistic idea. You've got your body and you've got your spirit. What you do in the body doesn't really matter that much. It's the spirit. One day we will be free of the body. This is why later on we'll find in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that Paul has to deal with them in regard to some of them were denying the reality of the bodily resurrection. So here they are, the Corinthian pneumatics. as proponents of this dualistic body-spirit philosophy, you're called, understood spirituality, which allowed them both a false view of freedom. Everything is permissible. You'll see that here when we read these verses. And of the body, God will destroy it, from which basis they have argued that going to prostitutes is permissible because the body doesn't matter. The net result of Paul's teaching here is one of the more important theological passages in the New Testament about the body, the human body. It should forever lay to rest the implicit dualism of so much that's been passed off as Christian doctrine, where the body is rejected, subdued, or indulge because it is of no significance for or is even a hindrance to real salvation, which is said to do only with the soul. And that kind of thinking has infected the church over the centuries and today then as well. Well, here's the context then. Paul had just, we saw this last time, Paul had warned them in verses 9 and 10, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And he had just reminded them in verse 11 of who they now are in Christ. He said, and such were some of you. That's who you used to be, and you need to get it through your head. That's not who you are anymore. That's what he's telling them. But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. So you had people in the church at Corinth who were arrogant. They were pursuing this gross immorality, even boasting about it. They established a kind of Christian liberty. We are free in Christ. All things are permissible. And Paul opens this section here in verse 12 by quoting what's probably one of their slogans. Right? All things are lawful for me. All things are permissible for me in Christ. I'm free. Now that, no doubt, was a perversion of Paul's teaching to them that, yes, for the Christian, all things are lawful for me in regard to the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. right? It doesn't matter. The dietary instructions and division between clean and unclean foods and so forth that were defined in the law in the Old Covenant, that doesn't apply anymore. All things are lawful for me. That's what that phrase really means. But they had perverted it, and they twisted it into something like this. Just as it's right to eat all kinds of food which are adapted to the stomach, so it is right to gratify any other natural desire of the body. All things are permissible, you see. By now, you're probably thinking of people maybe professing Christians that you've run into before that essentially, oh, all things are permissible. Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I'm free, and I'm accepted, and everything's okay. And then they go off and live an unholy life. Well, let's read the whole section then, verses 12 to 20, and then we'll make some general observations about it, and then move in for a closer look at some of it. Verse 12, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never. Or do you not know? You know that phrase? He uses that a lot. Because these guys were arrogant. Oh, we know. Don't you even know? It's kind of like he's calling them. You don't know. and you're being arrogant. Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it's written, the two will become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Here are some general applications, once again, from Gordon Fee. He puts it, I can't put it any better than him. Two points from this passage. need to be emphasized in the contemporary church. First, in most Western cultures where sexual mores have blatantly moved toward pagan standards, the doctrine of the sanctity, the holiness of the body, needs to be heard anew within the church. Sexual immorality is still sin. even though it's been justified under every conceivable rationalization. Those who take scripture seriously are not prudes or legalists at this point. Rather, they recognize that God has purchased us for higher things. Our bodies belong to God through the redemption of the cross, and they are destined for resurrection. Part of the reason why Christians flee sexual immorality is that their bodies are for the Lord, who is to be honored in the deeds of the body as well as in all other behavior and attitudes. Second, this passage needs to be heard again and again over against every encroachment of Hellenistic dualism. Remember that the body and the soul are separate and so on. That would negate the body in favor of the soul. So listen as he explains this. God made us whole people. And in Christ, he has redeemed us wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y. In the Christian view and Christian doctrine, there is no dichotomy between body and spirit that either indulges the body because it's supposedly irrelevant or punishes it so as to purify the spirit. This pagan view of existence finds its way into Christian theology in a number of subtle ways, including the insistence on the part of some to save souls while caring little for people's material needs. The Christian doctrine based on the New Testament revelation is not the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the body. That doctrine does not lead to crass materialism. Rather, it affirms a holistic view of redemption that is predicated in part on the doctrine of creation. Both the physical and the spiritual orders are good because God created them and the whole fallen creation, including the body, has been redeemed in Christ and awaits the final redemption. Now, I think one of the most typical ways that this heretical idea, this Hellenistic dualism infects the church is in regard to our most professing Christians thinking about the nature of heaven. When we did some reading on the subject of heaven quite some time ago, We saw this. Many, if not most, professing Christians think of heaven as what? Ghost town. It's like a creepy place. It's foggy. There's no physical reality to it. It's a place of disembodied spirit, vaporous objects, generally a place that you don't want to go. Why would you want to go there, right? But that's absolutely unbiblical. The new heavens and the new earth are real. And they're real just like Eden was real because man will be resurrected body and soul just like God created him in the first place. We are not destined to an eternity in ghost land. That's not what we're looking for. And when you get there as a result, when we're there and we see the new heavens and the new earth, you're not going to be like, man, this is weird. This is strange. It's like alien stuff. It's going to be, I'm home, right? That's what it's going to be like. I'm home. Listen then now in verses 12 to 14 Paul is going to continue to correct the Corinthians' thinking here. All things are lawful for me. There's their slogan, right? All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food. And that was probably kind of their rationale again. Well, hey, God gave us stomachs, and that's because there's food. So you're supposed to indulge your body in the food, then you see. Food's meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food. And then he says to them, God will destroy both one and the other, right? The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, the Lord for the body. God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his body. So he shoots down their reasoning. You can't start over here and say, well, God created our bodies with a stomach and he gave us food to eat, all right? So what you do with the body, he also made us sexual beings. So just like the stomach and so on, it's fine to indulge in that then as well. And Paul says, Stop that kind of reasoning. Stop it. Yes, all things are lawful in regard to the foods that you eat now in the New Covenant. But don't then come over here and say, well, so the body is for sex. It's for participation with the prostitutes and so forth. And that's OK. He just comes out and tells them, The body is not meant for sexual immorality. That is, our bodies are not meant for sin, you see. So he's coming down on them. So freedom in Christ doesn't mean anarchy. It doesn't mean what we call antinomianism, anti-law. That's a perversion. of Christian liberty. And I think probably more professing Christians in our day abuse Christian liberty in that way. So our liberty simply means that in Christ we're not under the law anymore. Rather, we are under grace. Coveting, adultery, stealing, lying, murdering are all still sinful, you see. I mean, if you wanted to carry the Corinthian pneumatics theory that what you do with the body doesn't make any difference, right? You could carry that to a, what do they call it, something absurdum. carry, or where does that lead you? Well, anything that you do with the body is OK, right? Well, all of these things, adultery, stealing, lying, murdering, you do with your body, right? But they're not helpful. In fact, sin is destructive. And what we're going to see here is, and in some ways, this is like the most important point to get a hold of, Sexual immorality, sexual sin in particular is destructive. All sin is destructive. But Paul is saying here, you need to understand this thing. Sexual sin is especially destructive. That's why later on he's going to run from it, flee from idolatry and all the junk then. that goes along with it then. And then Paul also tells them, you know, anyone who is walking in sin, who's indulging the body in sin, they're just demonstrating that you're still under bondage to the enemy. You're still dominated then by the flesh. He elaborates on this a lot more in the sixth chapter of Romans. Follow along as I read that. What shall we say then in regard to this grace that we have in Christ? What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Don't you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we've been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin, for the one who's died has been set free from sin. Now, if we've died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Now just to make a note here, you notice here and also in 1 Corinthians 6 that Paul consistently is pointing them to what? The resurrection. The resurrection. The resurrection of Christ and how we in him have died to sin and been raised up as new creations. This means that if we don't consistently remind ourselves of this, I've been raised with Christ. The old me is dead. I've been raised up with Christ. Christ is raised. I'm in him. I'm raised up with him. We're going to have problems living like the holy and righteous new people that we are, you see. Water baptism is a picture of that, right? It's a reminder that God has given to us of this, that it's a picture of washing and cleansing. It's a picture of being buried with Christ. raised up with him. And so it's vital that we remember this. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. By the Spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. See, resurrection. And your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace. Well, these Corinthian pneumatics, these Corinthian Libertines were demonstrating that sin had dominion over them, you see. So they were just showing that they were not free at all. Now look at verse 13. Some of these passages are admittedly kind of difficult to really get an absolute understanding. One of these passages, I don't remember which one, Gordon Fee mentioned that to his calculation, there have been 20 to 30 different commentators giving different explanations in the nuances of them. But here we go, verse 13. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food. And God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality. but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. So as we said, Paul is apparently quoting another one of these Libertines' slogans, then, you see. Food's meant for the stomach, and the stomach's for food. Since God created the body for sex as well, it's right to indulge in the body with no restraints. Well, God will destroy both one and the other. And it appears here that Paul is reminding them that this is a fallen world. This is a fallen world. Human beings are fallen in sin. What does he mean, God's going to destroy our stomach and food? He's going to destroy our body. Well, this body is corruptible, isn't it? I mean, this body is headed for dust. But the Lord is going to raise us up again. The world's going to be destroyed by the Lord, and so will our bodies. And it seems that Paul is reminding them, look it, look it. Your body is not eternal. It's corruptible. God's going to destroy it. That should be telling you guys something has gone wrong with this creation, including your bodies. Your bodies are fallen. Your entire being is fallen. He's telling him, you can paraphrase Paul's thought like this. Man is born in sin. And even the Christian still has this fallen body, this flesh, with all of its evil desires. Therefore, to argue that we're free to indulge our flesh in its lusts is to deny the sinfulness of our flesh, which is actually to deny the reality of sin. Isn't that what they were really saying? Hey, sin's no big deal. We can go do this. Well, man murders with his body. Is murder a big deal, you guys? You see? He steals with his body. He curses and lies. with his mouth. Here's another good quote from Gordon Fee. Paul will not let these libertines take the slogan, food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, and transfer it to immoral sexual relations. Their reasoning had gone something like this. Since everything is permitted, all things are lawful. And since food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, after all, God will destroy them both in the end. That's what they're saying. And since all bodily appetites are pretty much alike, that means that the body is for sex and sex for the body. Because after all, God will destroy them both as well. It's only the spirit that matters. But their conclusions are dead wrong. And Paul is telling them that. There is more to man's body than merely a return to dust. Our body is the Lord's. There is this matter of the resurrection, then, you see. So that in God's sight, the body is significant. He made man soul and body, the wholeness then of man. And so he says in verse 14, God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. And as I said in chapter 15, we'll find out that there were people in that church that were denying the resurrection. Because once again, if you buy into this Hellenistic philosophy, where the spirit is what matters, and when a person is free of their physical body, and they just become spirit, Well then, they've really arrived. That's really the thing that we should look for. And so those kind of people said, what is this teaching about the resurrection of the body? No, no, no, we can't have that. So they were rejecting that doctrine. And it all went along then with this antinomian idea. Well, it doesn't matter what I do in my body. It doesn't make any difference then, you see. Here's Gordon Fee again. a spiritual salvation that would finally be rid of the body. That's what they were after. The spirit, this teaching maintained, is somehow immortal, but the body, along with the rest of the physical world, is destined for destruction. But this is a totally pagan view. Our creed, he's talking about the Apostles' Creed here, in Christ confesses, I believe in the resurrection of the body. The Old Testament declares that at creation, God looked upon the universe that he had made and pronounced it good. The final consummation, when Christ comes again, looks for a new heaven and a new earth. And in that new order, the body is raised so that God's people will experience the final wholeness that God intended in the first place, that he created Adam and Eve And so our lives are to reflect this. We have to be who we are in Christ. We are new creations. And we need to live like it then, you see. Here's good old John Calvin here. It is a base thing to prostitute our body to earthly pollutions. Well, it is destined to be a partaker along with Christ of a blessed immortality and of the heavenly glory. Christ is joined with us, and we with him, in such a way that we become one body with him. Accordingly, if I have connection with a harlot, I tear Christ in pieces, for it's impossible for me to draw him into fellowship with such pollution. The spiritual connection which we have with Christ belongs not merely to the soul, but also to the body, so that we are flesh of his flesh. Now we also see, as I said earlier in this passage, that sexual sin is a uniquely destructive sin. Listen to verses 15 and following. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it's written, now here talking about man and wife, the two shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Now look at this, every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Now, this is a truth that it's a little bit difficult to grasp, but we need to recognize it's true because God says that it is true. He's telling, even if we don't understand all the nuances of how this happens, he says here, every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but sexual immorality, that sin, is particularly destructive. It's particularly destructive in that it is a sin against the sinner's own body. There's a devastating character which is unique to all other sin. Why is this? Well, it seems to be wrapped up in the fact, as Paul quotes from Genesis 2, shall become one flesh. And Paul says here, therefore, a person that's joined in sexual immorality to a prostitute, and we say in this case, we look at it man or woman, right? There is something about that act, that sinful act then, which is particularly devastating to the sinner, all right? In what way? Now, that's enough to be forewarned from. God says that this is true, all right? Think of when he says, flee from sexual immorality, you know, what do you think of? You think of Joseph, Joseph, Potiphar's wife. He's out of there. He fled from sexual immorality. You don't take that which is holy to the Lord and join it to that which is unholy. And not only because that's blasphemous, but also because a bond is formed that is destructive. Here's John Calvin again. My hand, it is true, is defiled, when I use my hand, for theft or murder. or my tongue by evil speaking or perjury, and the whole body is defiled by drunkenness. But fornication leaves a stain impressed upon the body, such as is not impressed upon it from other sins." Now, the person that indulges in sexual immorality then is literally playing with fire, playing with fire. This is something that we need to be afraid of. This is a favorite tactic of the enemy. And we live, I don't need to tell you, that we live in a world that is constantly attacking us, tempting us, wanting to draw us into this particular sin. It's one of Satan's favorite weapons, because he knows that it's particularly destructive. So we've seen it over the years in this church. Young people, and I don't just point to young people, but as an example, young people we've seen grow up in the church. And they've heard these warnings. They've been taught then God's truth. Maybe they've been made a profession of Christ and been baptized. But there came a time in their life when they did not stand against this sin of sexual immorality, and a bond was formed. a bond was formed. And if you've ever tried to talk to a person in whom that bond has been formed, I think, for example, that can be a young man. It can be a young woman. It can be an older person, too. But let's take a young woman, for example. I know lots and lots of women who got drawn into an abusive marriage because they yielded to the abusers as he came to deceive them and so forth and seduce them. They yielded to him and went to bed with him, and then they were hooked. Something happens. The two shall become one flesh type thing. Something happens in that sin. And in Christ, all things are possible. He can enable a repentant person to be delivered from that. But it's hard. It's hard. And there's more people that go down that road that never come back than those that do. Listen to Paul again in 2 Corinthians 6. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? That's Satan. Or what portion does a believer? share with an unbeliever. What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean things. Then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord." Now, increasingly, I mean, it's increasing all the time, but this rampant sexual immoral culture world that we live in has advanced so far that Those who do not participate in it are viewed as weird, odd. I mean, it is the norm. Language has changed. We don't see people if you're being interviewed for a job or maybe you're just reading something in the media or whatever. They don't use language as, so what does your husband do for a living? What do they say? What does your partner do? You see. The whole, it's just assumed that everybody is participating in fornication, in sexual immorality, and so forth. And that's the world, that's the culture we live in. And that's the culture that was in Corinth. as well. You see, these things were thought to be the norm. Paul says, look, if you're going to travel on the narrow way which leads to life, then we have to go out from among them and be separate from them. No matter how much we're ridiculed, it doesn't make any difference. We have to pay the price, then, of following Christ, which really, in the end, is no price, then, at all. If I'm a Christian, the Holy Spirit dwells in me. I am God's Holy of Holies. I am the temple of the Spirit of God. I am His. I am not my own. I am His. Therefore, I must glorify God in my body, then, you see. Now, this is the trap. This is the trap. You know, not that many years ago, there was a young woman in this church that seemed to be, she'd grown up in this church, basically, seemed to be walking with Christ, said the right things and so forth, and then suddenly, gone. Gone. What happened? Well, she got tied up with an ungodly man and got hooked. That was it, you see. Listen to Proverbs 2 here. Now here, Solomon is talking to his son. So he's going to warn his son against the forbidden woman, the adulteress. But if he'd had a daughter, he would have changed this and warned him against the seducing man, right? So he can make the application as appropriate here. So he says, you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed. And catch this, verse 19. None who go to her will come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. It will be a miracle if that young lady I mentioned repents and comes back. I hope that that's the case. But this says, none. You go that way, just assume it's a one-way thing. That sin is so destructive that it will hook you. It will hook you, you see. And there's no then real coming back from it. You don't have to literally to be guilty of this sin. This is more subtle, the stuff that Satan throws at us. You don't have to be literally physically joined to a prostitute or immorality. All you got to do is go to the porn stuff, right? There you go. That's the same destructive sin and it hooks you. It is so alluring then, you see. And again, in the culture that we live in, that's become the norm. Nothing shocking anymore. Well, of course, you know, this is what goes on. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. It's not hard to go to hell. Those who enter by it are many. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Be sure you are one of the few. Follow Christ. If you have any doubts about your salvation, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and keep seeking him until you are found. And make the hard choices that the Lord demands of us, no matter the cost, because in the end, Those that go the way of the world, what? Well, they pay a price, all right, and that is eternity in hell. Father, we thank you for these sober warnings. We pray that you would forgive us our sins and that everyone here would be powerfully affected by your word and your spirit today. that we might be able to stand against the pressures of the world and the flesh and the devil. Father, we pray that you would just stop this pattern that we've seen so often in this church of people choosing the world instead of Christ. It grieves us as we know it grieves you and we pray, Father, for everyone here today, that each one of us would end our lives safely in your presence. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen.