And looking forward to the next Sunday when we have the carry-in meal. For those of you who like to eat, you'll look forward to that together with me. And that'll be a great time together as the normalcy is coming back more and more. Thank you, Lord. Our Lord Jesus Christ commands us to preach the whole counsel of God, not part of the counsel, not some of the counsel, not most of the counsel, but all the counsel of God. And how foolish it would be to let the world burn on its fire what goes on out there and not to address it when God's word is clear on these issues. So today we're going to look at 1 Corinthians 6. I trust you're there. If you're not, please take your Bibles and turn there. Again, in three days from now, you're going to forget 95% of what you heard, but if you jot down a couple things, even if you never look at it again, it'll stick a whole lot longer. Studies show. The Bible, the Bible gives us the only divinely revealed guide for life and ministry. There's no other source we can go to, no other helps out there but God's Word. It's God-breathed. He picked up 40 men and wrote through them, and we have the Word today before us. In fact, it's in the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher ever preached on planet Earth, his name, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said in Matthew chapter 7 and verse 24, therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. Only one place to build, isn't there? Especially when the floods of time come across, you need to be built on the rock. Otherwise, we'll all be swept away. You know what happens to those who do not build their house on the rock? Yeah, we don't want to go there, do they? We don't want to go with them. The imperative here, notice this, to know the Bible, to know His truth, and then to build our lives upon that Bible, to work that truth out in our lives. The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. Can you imagine that? More than 120 million items. You see that little period at the end of that sentence in your Bible right there? They have a book. That's big. King Cole, that Bible is that big. Can you imagine? In fact, if you had to line up all their books, you'd have 530, 530 miles of books all the way from Toledo to New York City. And if you went down those books and looked at each one, just one. One written by God. How you doing with that, brother? Is it a daily bread to you, as our Lord's called it, a daily bread? Do we read it? Do we take it in? Nothing like this bread before us. 120 million items, and that's the one written by God. Ecclesiastes 12 says, the making of books, there is no end. That's true. And a whole lot of people read a whole lot of books. But this is the key one. This is the one we have to, we must major on. Dads, remember the Shema? Remember what the Word of God says in the Shema? Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. There's only one God, and he's written us one book, and he asks us to know it. He consists of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. There's one triune God, Deuteronomy 6-6. These words I command you today, they shall be in your hearts. So it's not just to read it, it's to know it, to live it, to have it in our hearts, to memorize it, to recall it, to proclaim it, to repeat it to others. That word heart in the Hebrew, that's the word labe. It means your mind, your will. It's the core of your being. It's where all your decision making goes on. It's what you know. That's where it's at, and that's where God's word is to be at. Deuteronomy 6-7, you shall teach them diligently to your children. Dads, how you doing? You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house. How's those devotions going, dads? And when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. There's our Lord's command, this burning word that we should live it out. broadcast it. It's the only book ever written by God. He wants us to know this book. Do you open it? Do you? This is what we do every week, right? Every time we get together, we're going to open up God's Word. A lot of things go on in a lot of churches out there, but our Lord has instructed us, right? We explain the Bible. We take verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and go through it. Then we live it out for His glory. Remember Peter? Our Lord Jesus Christ asked Peter, do you love me? How many times did he ask him that? Three times? What if he asked you that? Would he ask you three times? Remember what he said then? What did he say? Feed my sheep. Here's a sign of a pastor, a good teacher. If they don't feed the sheep, if God's word's not going forth, the conclusion is what? They must not love the Lord Jesus Christ. If you love the Lord, you're going to feed the sheep, right? It's a good test for pastors, for preachers. Do they feed the sheep? And the answer is if the Bible's taught, taught contextually, taught in its context, then they do feed the sheep. So when we come together here, We always look at the Bible, we delve into it, we open up its pages, we read it, and it should have an effect on us, right? It should move us. Some people read a comic book, it has no effect. They smile about it and go on their ways and no godly effect at all in their lives. But here, in 1 Corinthians, the Corinthians are like, they're struggling with the world. They see the Lord and they see the world and they're like in this in-between land. They could not cut off the human philosophy of the world. Sounds like the church today. How many churches today in America have caved in to this very issue we're addressing? Amazing, isn't it? Corinth was a very immoral city. It had a population of 700,000 people, but two-thirds were slaves. Slavery was big business in those days. The city of Corinth was the most important city in Greece in Paul's day. This was the kingpin city right here. Paul planted a church in this city, right? According to Acts chapter 18. Paul wrote four epistles of this city, right? Four of them. Two of them are inscripturated, two we have before us today in our Bible. The problem at the Corinth church, this was their problem. Divisions, incest, litigation against one another. They didn't love one another. Immorality goes on. They had a misunderstanding of the gifts. You talk about a church with problems, you name it, it was in that church. Pretty much every problem we see in the Bible, they got it. Remember when the Lord What he said to the Laodicean church, that's pretty bad, wasn't it? Revelation 3.18, I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. He wants us one extreme or another. Forget this in between stuff. If you're just going to dabble around, just get over in the cold side is what he's saying in so many words. I could wish that you were cold or hot. So then in 3.16 of Revelation, because you are Lukewarm and neither cold nor hot. I will spew you out of my mouth so much for the lukewarmness, right? You ever take a drink Hot summer day you just perspire and you just can't wait to get that cold drinking. I take that drink and and it's lukewarm We know what we do with that, right See they were so sure They were so sure they're so right, the Corinthian church, they thought they had it together and they were so wrong. In fact, many a heart is deceived by self. Watch it. We think we can judge ourselves. That's why we need to be in the Word and let that Word be judging us. If you're not reading the Word, you can get off on this tangent and think you're pretty good when the Lord has a whole different idea about you. It's a test of all things, this Word of God. The psalmist says in 111 verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Do you fear the Lord? Do we understand we're going to stand before him? Are you individually going to stand before him someday? Oh, the strength of love, right? The strength of love, the fear of the awesome God. Some don't fear him and therefore some don't follow him like they should. Well, inside the bulletin is the outline. I encourage you to pull it out here. We're going to look at three truths this morning, three truths about this sin we must know and we must live out to the glory of God, the righteous part of it. First of all, we have the deception here, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9. Notice what he says here. Notice how he starts out. Do you not know? Four words, you see that? Do you not know? What's Corinthians' problem? They don't get it. They don't know. It's interesting, those four words. That's a common phrase of Paul. We see that throughout. In fact, just in the context here, we see it back in 3.16. In 5.6, we see, do you not know? In 9.13, we see, do you not know? In 9.24, do you not know? In 6.2, he says, do you not know? Chapter 6.3, do you not know? Chapter 6.15, do you not know? Chapter 6.16, do you not know? Chapter 6.19, do you not know? Paul seems to have a fixation, right? Don't you know? Don't you get it? Here's your Bible. Don't you know your Bible? I wonder how many of us preachers will stand before the Lord someday and he'll say that to how many preachers? Don't you know what my word says? Can you imagine? That's what he's telling these Corinthians. They have a problem. They don't know God's truth. And so much like a lot of churches today, we must know, we must live it out. Here's the key to Christian life, it's right here. It's to grow in the Word, to walk in the Word, to do the Word, to love the Word, to know the Word, to live out the Word, to proclaim the Word. John 8, 32. John 8, verse 32, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Want freedom, want true freedom? Even if you're in a jail in Timbuktu. There really is a place called Timbuktu, right? In fact, Christians are persecuted there, top of Africa. Even there, it sets you free. It gives you hope. It gives you assurance. You're only here for a few seconds. If you got a mansion or if you don't have any, we're only here for a few moments. Our job is to live out what he's revealed to us to his glory. Lots of people say they love Jesus, but the proof is in the pudding, right? They say it, but don't do it. They don't follow him. Lots go back to, their old way of life. But in order to get the context here, in order to frame this properly, let's go back to Genesis. Genesis chapter 1 and verse 26. We're going to go back to the beginning here in Genesis chapter 1 verse 36. Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. He said in 1514 to John, you are my friends if you do whatever I command you. So let's go back to Genesis. Genesis chapter 1. What's it say there in Genesis chapter 1? In the beginning. I like how it starts out. Barashit bara Elohim eit ha'shamayim v'eit ha'arutz. Simple Hebrew words, simple English words. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Who did it? There's only one there in the beginning. We accept what God has clearly said. He was there, nobody else, no scientist was there. So we accept what he says. By the way, the hard scientific facts, what do they show? Isn't it interesting? They keep telling us millions and billions of years. Don't you love that? Let's just go to the moon, right? Remember, we've done this before. Remember what Armstrong was so afraid of when he landed on the moon? All this, they got these big pods, they're going to land on all this dust. It's going to be 200 feet of dust because it's how many billions of years old. And when he lands on the moon, how much dust was there? Just an inch or so, indicating less than 10,000 years old. 90% of your time clocks and scientific evidence, 90% of the scientific time clocks show a young Earth, but they have to go with their billions to get evolution. But guess what? We didn't evolve. God made us. That's what he says right here. He clearly made us. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. So let's go back here to Genesis. Reminder of the beginning here. In fact, think about it. This is the crown of God's creation. Think of it. He saved the best for last, right? In Genesis 1.26, notice what it says there. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the earth. Let them have dominion over the earth. The fish, the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So the crown of God's creation is what? He saved the best for last. What was the very last thing he made? Male and female, right? Yeah. There's only one that's made an image, right? Only one that comes in likeness to God. Of all the things, think of all the life forms out there. And many have disappeared off the earth. When the deluge came, the universal deluge, no doubt many kinds were lost there. So, this is the one. Man is God's representative of all the life made before him. No other created life form bears his image, carries his authority. In Genesis chapter 1, Verse 27, Genesis 127, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Notice the stress there on the maleness and the femaleness there. There's something embedded in our very makeup. that fashions us into an image of God. The maleness, the femaleness embedded in each male is maleness embedded in each female is femaleness. There's a difference there. God is so ordered. There is image male and there's image female. It's a similarity but there's a great difference between the two. Genesis 2.18, all of a sudden, let's go over to Genesis 2.18. You ever tell someone a story, maybe you go on a vacation and You get through the whole trip and say, oh, let me tell you. And then you go back in the middle of that story and give them a little more detail about something that happened. That's what God does here. This is a flashback. Genesis 2, verse 18. Watch what he says here in 2.18. And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. Well, wait a minute. At the end of Genesis 1, everything was created, right? Adam, Eve, all the rest. So this is a flashback. We're going back now. God's recalling something here. And he says, I will make him a helper comparable to him. Notice that. This is the first time we see in all of the Bible the word not good. Remember at the end of each day? First day, second day, third day, sixth day? Remember each day? It's good, it's good, it's good. All of a sudden here's something that's not good. This is actually in the sixth day, in the middle of the sixth day it's not good. We're not at the end of it yet where God can say that. First time it's not good. All our six 24-hour created days, right? Anytime you see the numerical adverb in front of a unit of time in any language, Japanese, Chinese, whatever you want to go to, it always means, a specific unit of time. So first day, second day means the first 20, four hour day, second, and so forth here. So the Lord God makes him a helper. Notice what he said, comparable. Comparable to him, like him. Negate in the Hebrew. It means the part opposite him. It is Adam's counterpart. So this is a female of Adam's side. Female. A co-equal, but a co-equal with a difference. The woman was not made from the ground. Everything else is made from the ground, right? Everything else. All the other animals, right? Adam, Adam is called, he brought out the adamah, the Hebrew word for earth, the big earth, red earth. He was brought out of the earth, but not Eve. The only life form ever made from a male of all things, from his side of all things. We could ask all of us, where do we come from? We could all ask all eight billion people, 7.9 billion people on planet Earth, where'd you come from? Everyone would say, what? From my mom. We could gather all the people that ever lived before us. Let's say it's 15 billion, put them in one stadium. How many came from a man? How many hands would go up? Just one, just one, Eve's, why? God, it's profound. God's telling us something here from his side. From his side, please note God made one male and one female. God has just defined what marriage is between one man and one woman. In fact, in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24, Notice what he says there. See, marriage is between one male and one female, period. A woman and a man. In Hebrew thinking, this is Semitic thought structure going on here, the Lord is saying exclusively in marriage, it's between male and female, between a man and a woman. All that he made, all humans that are made, bear that criteria. The one key purpose of Mary is to what? Fill the earth, a progeny, right? Genesis 128, notice the command, be fruitful and multiply. And if Adam and Eve had no offspring, if they weren't faithful, where in you and I would be today? Yeah, can you imagine? No people on planet Earth. Instead, 7.9 billion people on Earth. Please note, God made one male, one female. God has defined marriage. Can you imagine someone coming along, some puny little man, a person that existed for a moment in space and time? I got a better idea. It's not just one man and one woman. Now, we can have a combination, too. Can you imagine the impunity? The rawness of that, the brazenness to challenge the Almighty that something different can exist. God has much to say about this subject. In fact, in Leviticus, he talks about this. In 1822, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman, it is an abomination. That's powerful. You know what an abomination means in the Hebrew and its understanding and thinking? Imagine you're out in the desert. And boy, you're just subsisting. You have no water. It's been a day or two since no water. How long can you exist without water? Is it three? So can you imagine? And finally, you come up over the hill. There's this little bed of water. Then you throw yourself down and start gulping. And then you're just praising God. But then you open your eyes, and you're looking at a horse's nose. You get back and you get up and, well, it's just the head of a horse. It's all eaten up by maggots and rickets and everything else crawling through it. And what do you do? How much more water do you drink? You get out of there. It's called an abomination. It means a horrid experience. Something so radical, something so different, you don't even want to think about it. Vicious. And so that's what God says. It's an abomination. Remember what you thought before the Lord opened your eyes? Remember what you thought about God, all of that? God was merciful to you. He gave you eyesight. He gave you his word. He brought you alive. He gave you the gift of faith, the gift of repentance. He gave you all that and expects us to do one thing now. What is that? Follow the Lord Jesus Christ, follow his footsteps no matter what the world's doing, no matter what others say. We are to be faithful to him, period. 2 Timothy said it like this, this is in chapter 2. Verse 24, and a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient in humility, correcting those who are opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth. What's the key to life? It's not your health. It's not what your doctor said. It's not how you're feeling about the general activities in your life. Truth. Without this, brethren, there's no hope for any of it. We have to be wed to the truth. I like what Luther once said, he said, if the Bible says 6 plus 1 equals 8, what do we do? We believe it. What God has said is truth. Now, for those of you who are wondering, 6 plus 1 actually equals 7. But just if God said that, we are to follow him. Man is a physical being, right? See, there's something else here, up close and personal. Look at this now. When all others were created, God saved what? The best for less. He saved Adam and then Eve out of his sight of all things. Can you imagine that? He puts it all together. If there's no breath, if there's no life, in 2-7, he breathed into them, it says. Breath indicates life. Without breath, it indicates what? Somebody not breathing, we know what's going on, right? It's death sooner or later or they are dead, right? It's life. Man is unique. This is the magnum opus of God's creation. This is one who represents God. No other animal, no other creature was that ever set. We bear his image and we are to walk accordingly in the light of the truth he's revealed to us. Unlike all other created beings, We are unique. When's the last time you've been to Toledo Zoo? It's amazing what Toledo's been getting, this small town, relatively on the smaller side of towns, and the gems we have here, that's one of our gems. And you walk in that zoo, and there's a tiger, and there's a lion, and there's the alligator, and there's a reason there's bars in there, right? And there's a reason you're on the one side of the bar, and they're on the other side of the bar, right? Because you're king. You represent God. There's a reason for that. It's all evidence, so evident before us, isn't it, if we just open our eyes. Man is a physical and spiritual being. Man has a body. But he also has a soul, a soul that goes on forever and ever. Man has a soul. He can know God. He can relate to God. He can walk with God. He can talk with God through prayer. We can love God. Radical difference. No being in that zoo is going to do any of those things. We are made for relationship with God. Man has authority over the animals. He names them. Can you imagine that? Man is king. Man is a copy being. Only copy being on planet Earth. You have a likeness somewhere. He's up in heaven, right? A copy being, we bear his image. Not like the horses, the birds, the bees. No, no, no. They don't bear any image. We bear his image. We bear the qualities of the one who made us. In fact, the human brain, they studied the human brain. It's the only organ you have encased in the bone. And inside this human, it's amazing. All the things in the universe is nothing so complex, so unbelievable as a human brain. Do you know your brain has 86 billion neurons, connectors going on? Nothing, nothing like this brain. And who made it? Our gracious Lord. We need to move on to the next point. We see the deception. There's great deception out there about where we began, where we come from, what we are. How about the damnation? Paul's not afraid to talk about this. For this, we've got to go back to our reading here at the beginning, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9. I encourage you to turn there. Notice what he says there, 1 Corinthians 6, 9. Ten, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? There's that word, do not know. Do you not know? See, the Corinthians have a problem. They don't know their Bible. They don't know the truth. Do you not know? And there it is again. Do not be deceived. What's he saying there? Stop. Somebody's pulling the wool over your eyes. Don't be deceived. Know the truth. Do not be deceived by the propaganda of the media, by Hollywood, by all that goes on out there. It's constantly drummed into us, and our young people pick it up, they see it everywhere, and they begin to go along with it. Don't be deceived. Think of all the television programs. Think of all the education that goes on in the classrooms. Everything you're exposed to, how much deception goes on out there. First public school law, 1647, the old Bostor-Satan-Deluder Act, remember what it was? The Bible must always remain at the center curriculum, always. God help us. There's only one source of truth. You abandon this, you abandon God's Word, where are you gonna go? I mean, what you gonna end up doing? Can you imagine your lifestyle? We see what happens out there when you abandon God's Word. Remember what Jesus asked his disciples in John 6, 67? He says some tough things. He talked about the doctrines of grace there. Read the context in John 6. Some people can't handle that, you know, God's sovereign over all things. And he asked him the question, do you also want to leave me? Do you want to leave me? Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. So when Jesus asked his disciples, do you want to go away? Remember Peter's response, John 6, verse 68, Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. Brethren, this is the source of truth. Where else are you going to go? You really want to follow what Hollywood says? What Washington's declaring right now? You really want to go down that route? What everything else is saying out there? Or do we follow God's word? This is the truth. Peter had it right. Where else are we going to go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life, he said. So this is the source of all truth. You depart from the Lord Jesus Christ. You depart from the word. All you have is what? Darkness. That's all you have. Just darkness of the abyss. There might be a few coattails, shreds of the ancestors that truth have been plugged into you to help guide you a little bit, but it's only darkness and doom and failure and death and hell forever and ever. 1 Corinthians 6.9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters," look what he says here in your Bible, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God. Brethren, if you don't love them, I can tell you Hollywood's not going to love them, Washington's not going to love them, education sure doesn't. You know the truth. If you're not going to love them, how are they ever going to be loved and get on that right road up? God's powerful. I've talked to homosexuals, Exodus International, it's amazing. the grip that comes upon them. But I'll never forget talking about one who came out who loves the Lord, following the Lord. But he said in a Time magazine, when he looked at an ad in a Time magazine and the man had no shirt on him, how that aroused him. You can't get into this world. It's a different world. But God has given us the truth, and we are to follow him regardless of the cost, regardless of what the government says. The Lord tells us that neither adulterers will go to heaven, those who are unfaithful in marriage, and also, what else? What's he say here? Homosexuals. It's interesting, this word here. I mean, the word in the Greek is an idea of feminine. It's malakos. It's the idea of perversion. It has the idea of exchanging one sexual role for another sexual role. It can include transvestites, one who wears clothes of the other sex. Interestingly, a while back, an article came out, and apparently a study was done, but in the article it said one out of 10 women in Southern California are not. Interesting. Daniel says it like this in 22.5, a woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garments. For all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God. God wants nothing to do with exchanges of roles. If you're a male, you follow the male role. If you're a female, you follow the female role. And a day is appointed for you to stand before the supreme judge, and you'll be judged accordingly. Choose wisely. Choose wisely the road you take. Yeah, you can listen to Hollywood, You can listen to God. I don't need to tell you who's right and who's wrong. A man is to be a man, a woman is to be a woman, but this is the bent of the ungodly, the unrighteous people. They don't want to follow God. In fact, it was true of you and me before he brought us to life. I want to do my own thing. Nobody's going to tell me what to do. That's the bent of the human heart. There it is. Once a society begins to do this, All of a sudden, all else is about no male leadership in the home. You know what that does? Government tried that back in the 60s. They're still doing it. If the man was out of the home, they pay the woman extra money. You know what that does? Money talks. And the black race, dads abandoned them. And look what the government welfare system has done to the black families. There used to be strong, vibrant families. What's happened since the 60s? It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. This is a pretty black list we're coming to. Welcome to the human heart. How many times a day do all break the Ten Commandments? There's ten of them. How many break them? The world does this continually. They say, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom, is what our Lord says. Romans 3 says, all have sinned. We're on the same boat. There's really no difference. We're all God-haters at some point in our life until God brought us alive. There's no difference. from where we were and where they are. In 1 Corinthians 6, verse 11, Paul says what? Such were what? Some of you. You know what that means? Such were some of you. They're talking about who there? Before they were saved, when they were unsaved, this is their activities. This is what they did. So what is the world like? What do they do? You can't help see this, right, in the world today, what goes on out there. In fact, you walk in the average store, you go by the magazine rack, there's the whole world paraded. You keep your little kids away from that. I mean, all the, it's on display what the human heart's about. Just look at the magazine rack, what goes on there. Proverbs. He calls us an idolater. In fact, look what he says in verse 9 here, 1 Corinthians 6, 9. He calls us an idolater. What do you think of? You think of all those false religions. You know who's behind all these false religions? In 1 Corinthians 10, verse 20, Paul tells us exactly who's behind them, right? The things which the Gentiles sacrifice to, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. Isn't that interesting? All these false religions, who's breathing behind them, who's orchestrating, who's bringing them along? He tells us, he tells us. How many cults out there are deceiving so many? They mention the name Jesus, he's just not the creator. They come so close, but they miss it by so far. Satan is alive and well. Proverbs 1434, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. We see it don't we? Proverbs 29.2, and when the righteous are in authority the people rejoice but when the wicked man rules the people groan. Psalm 33 verse 12, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord the people have chosen for his own inheritance. There was a time when this country was a living light, an example of Christ, in many respects. Not completely, granted, but far different than what we see today. In 1980, the Stone versus Graham, there's John Paul Stevens, a Supreme Court leader, and he ruled in that case back in 1980. He said, no, no, no, no, the Ten Commandments must not go in the classroom. We just revealed, 1647, the old Satan the Luterac, remember? Bible always has to be at this. That was the first public school law. But now, you can't leave them in there. You know what John Paul Stephen said? He passed away a few years ago. He knows better now. He said if you leave those statements in the classroom, the kids are going to do what? They're going to read them. Can you imagine that? And if they read them, they might obey them. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not kill. Should we go through the whole list? Can you imagine? It's always been there in America, but now, no, no, no. You know, since then, we cannot build prisons fast enough. It's interesting how this works. When you abandon God, you know what he says? Okay, we'll see how well you can do on your own. And we're seeing it, aren't we? Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Leviticus 18.22, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Romans 128, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do the things that are not fitting. How many times does God have to say something before we believe him? I mean, once is enough, right? But over and over, he talks about this sin of homosexuality. It's Pandora's box. Once a society approves homosexual marriage, you know what happens then? The door is swung wide open. That's only the beginning, right? There's polygamy. Well, why not? Polygamy, there's incest. Can I say it? In this body, in New York State, what's going on right now? Is it the father who wants to marry his daughter? Can you imagine? We come to this point now and we can actually debate that? We think there's some legitimacy to that? Polygamy, incest. Men with boys, bestiality, polyamory, the list goes on and on. Satan has a whole panoply of sins to delve us into to go us deeper and deeper and darker and darker if we refuse to follow Christ. Oh God, help us. How Satan loves to wipe out the role of the husband and the wife, doesn't he? Did you know what the church is? Church is a living example. Christ said we're the bride. He's the bridegroom. And they're wiping that image out. He's preparing his bride for something special, and your job is to what? Remain faithful, spotless, serving the Lord, regardless of what the world says. Ephesians 5 says, we're without spot or blemish in 527. Psalm 11 verse 3, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? That's a good question. What do we do? Well, I can tell you one thing. Prayer is a powerful thing. God help us. God help us. One writer said it like this. A study of the homosexual community in Vancouver, British Columbia revealed that an active participant in homosexual lifestyle will cost a man between eight and 21 years of his lifespan. Eight to 21. Cigarette smoking habit will cost a man about six years. You like to smoke? Cross off six years of your life, average. Yet we spend billions of dollars trying to get people, trying to get our youth to stop smoking, but we foolishly stick our heads in the sand, and what do we do? Help those who have a leaning this way. We all have propensities of sin, but we encourage them in this sexual addiction, and it only gets more lethal and lethal. The Methodist church a few years ago caved in. Can you imagine a church and now they have homosexual pastors, pastorettes leading the church. Can you imagine? Once a church does that, you can be sure the gospel is far removed than it is. I defy you to find a church that accepts homosexuality and the gospel still goes forth. And therefore, everybody in the church is damned because the gospel does not go forth. I have yet to find a church where those too present, it's not true. 1 Peter 1, verse 6, what's he say? Be holy for I am holy. It's a command, be holy. You know how many times that shows up in scripture? We see that a number of times, be holy. Six times in the New Testament, 34 times in the Old Testament, 40 times in the Word of God, be holy for I am holy. How many times does God have to say something before we believe it, before we Do it once, 40 times, be holy, for I am holy. One in five Americans have a sexually transmitted disease. There's 12 million new cases every year. 30% of 30 plus have a sexually transmitted disease which are incurable, sexually transmitted disease. Once you got it, you got it for life. Why do one in five American adults have a sexually transmitted disease? Why is that, one in five adults? Because they're what? They're not holy. Jude 1-7, as Sodom and the cities of Gomorrah around them in similar manner to these having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh are set forth as an example suffering vengeance of eternal fire. Sexual immorality, it's there, it's everywhere, isn't it today? It reminds you of Joseph, remember Joseph? 1 Corinthians 6-18 says, to flee sexual immorality. There you are on your cell phone, there you are on your computer, all of a sudden there it is. You just typed in you wanted to see Disneyland, you just missed it by one letter and all of a sudden this horrific sight comes up. You have a choice now. In a matter of a second or two, you're going to choose either the path of evil or the path of good. Young people, listen up. Don't go there. It's amazing, those who buy into it, pretty soon they get down so deep there's nothing they can do but have more and more of a voracious thirst for such filth. Don't go there. Get rid of it. Stop it. Throw out the computer if you have to, for your soul is worth far more than any little computer. Joseph, yes. Let's go back to him. Potiphar's wife, remember? She made advances to him. What'd he do? Fled, right? Genesis 39. What are you to do? Same thing. Follow Joseph. 2 Timothy 2.22, flee youthful lust. What are you to do? When those lusts come, flee them. Don't play with it. Don't deal with it. Throw it out. Get rid of it. James says it like this in 4.7, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Notice some flights going on here. Back in 2 Timothy 22, flee youthful lust. So when you flee the youthful lust, what happens there? James says what? Resist the devil, he'll flee from you. See how they go together? Of the flesh you're to the flee, and when you flee from the flesh, Satan flees from you. All you gotta do is be faithful. God help us. See, all sin is progressive. Once you have a little dabble of it, just, you know, it's like, you know, you got in the kitchen, you see that, oh, there's that chocolate cake, you know, man, your wife just made, and you just put a little fork in, I'm just gonna have a little, and all of a sudden, I've done this, and I notice another fork going, another fork, and pretty soon my wife said, what happened to that piece of cake that was in the kitchen? And sometimes I don't say anything, I don't need to say anything, she knows. Don't go there. Just that first bite. You don't know what it can do to you. Don't go there. Stay away from it. Flee. Flee from it. All sin is progressive. Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. Psalm 1-1. nor sits in the seat of the scornful. You begin down this road, it will be doom and gloom. Many so-called good persons have followed that road of Satan." Well, we need to come to our last point here. Let's move on from damnation to deliverance is hope for all of us. You see, if we don't love them, who's going to do this? What do we have here? 1 Corinthians 6, verse 11. By the way, your sinner and your sin before God looks just as dangerous and monstrous as their sin does. Sin is sin. When you turn your back on God, nothing gets more horrific than that. 611, such were some of you. Whoa, he's talking to the church now. This is the Corinthian church. What's he saying? Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God. They've come to Christ, right? They've accepted Christ. Yes, they had wicked lives. You did, too. So did I. We turned from Christ, repented, trusted Christ, and now we have a new power, a Holy Spirit in us. We have a new love, our Lord Jesus Christ. We have a new Savior, the one who died for our sin. of homosexuals have a sexually transmitted disease. Eighty percent of them. It's a diseased community. The average American dies at 75. The average person engaged in homosexuality dies at 39. Two percent of homosexuals live to 65. It's a sexual lust gone mad. It's a dead-end lifestyle. It's suicidal. And many of them do commit suicide. It's not normal. It's abnormal. You see, it's a true form of hate speech. A true form of hate speech when you say, it's okay. There's no more hatred than that to put a person on that kind of dead end road. No more hatred, not to mention eternity. See, if we don't love them, if we don't love them, if you don't come alongside them, make some kind of friendship, pray for an opportunity to plant the seed, if you don't do that, who's gonna love them? You can see what the world in Hollywood and Congress is doing with this. It's a dead end with them. That's really a true form of hatred is what they're doing. You gotta get from God's standpoint and look at it. People would say, oh, that pastor's crazy to say. No, no, just step up a little bit. Step up to the plate in God's kingdom and look where it's all going and what they end up with. If we don't love them, who will? How will they ever hear the good news? Paul listed the awful sins that once had ruled his life, right? That once had ruled their lives. They're reminded of them, what they did. Jesus, he reminds them what Jesus did for them. Verse 11, such were some of you, but you were, what did he say there? You were washed. Look at that. You were sanctified. You were what? Justified. The Christian is a new creation, altogether different. 2 Corinthians 5, 17, it proves it here by breaking with the old lifestyle. Once you break that old lifestyle, it shows you have a new force, a new dynamic. Once you go into that, oh, it's so hard to come out. That's what they say. Extremely hard. You're chained, really. But that's like so many sins. And the beauty of Christ is what does he do? He breaks the chains. We don't have to go there. We can stop going there. You know what the Corinthian church What they had in God, you know what they had there? You know what kind of people they were? Listen to this, they were thieves, they were hustlers, they were robbers, they were fornicators, they were idolaters, they were effeminate, they were drunks, they were slanders, they were gospers, they were swindlers, should I go on and on? Nice church, right? Wow. By the way, you know what kind of people we have at a place called Lemoyne Baptist Church? You know what's really in your past and my past? Things we don't even want to go to. And we don't want to say. We're no different. How dare you hold someone of that kind of lifestyle at arm's length and say I wouldn't get near them. If Jesus said that about you, where would you be today? And we are walking in Jesus' flesh, so we must put our arms around them. We must love them. And in spite of what they do, we must live the truth out before them and pray for an opportunity to plant that seed of the gospel. Not much different, not much different. Verse 17 he talks about a new creation here. Old things have passed away. All things have become new. Behold, all things become new, he says. So I ask you, he used that word justified. That's a big word, justified. It's used quite a bit in scripture. You know what it means? Verse 11 there. It means what? 1 Corinthians 6 talks about this. One of the most important words in all the New Testament, justified, declared, right? Declared. It's a favorite word of Paul's. He uses it 40 times in the New Testament. 40 times in the New Testament. 29 times in the Book of Romans. You wanna know what justify means? Read the Book of Romans. It's all right there. Justify means what? Not to make righteous. No, no, not that you are righteous. What's it mean? It's a forensic term, right? Used in Roman form in the court of law. It's a declaration. You are declared righteous. Not that we are. But right now, you as a believer in Jesus Christ, what's he see? He sees Christ's perfect record on your account. If Peter's really at the gates, remember what you're gonna say, right? What are you gonna say to Peter? Step aside, Peter, I'm coming through. I come in the righteous robes of Christ. It's got nothing to do with me. If it had any one little thing to do with Ron, I'm going down. But it's all to do with my perfect Lord who has his perfect righteousness, and by faith, Romans 4 or 5, by faith, it's accounted for righteousness. all right there, nothing like it. Have you been justified? Have you been made righteous? The Roman form did it all when they judged them. In the court of law, one was justified when they were declared righteous. When one is Repents of their sin, believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, then they are justified. They've trusted in Christ alone for their record, for their sin bearing. They are declared righteous. We are not righteous, right? Nobody's here. Nobody measures up to that. We all blow it every day, I dare say. Just some of the thoughts. Satan's right there. No, no, no, you kick those thoughts, just like a piece of toast, right? Puts it in a toast, you wanna throw it out. The faster you can, get rid of that thought. 1 John 1, if we say we have no sin, we what? We deceive ourselves. We're all sinners. The floor's level, the ground's level. Don't you dare hold that homosexual back, that whoever it is, that different form of lifestyle at arm's length. We can't do that. The Lord never did that with us. Brethren, if we don't help them, who's going to help them? In the world of psychology, psychiatry, they have a manual dealing with all kinds of disorders. It's called the DSM, Diagnostic Statistical Manual. dealing with all kinds of mental disorders for decades, decades. Homosexuals were in there and how to stop them from that kind of behavior. All of a sudden, about 10, 20 years ago, you know what they did? Now a homosexual comes to them and they accommodate them. They show them how to improve their life, how to get on, little ways to manipulate what they're doing to even have better times. No, we don't hate people like that. I ask you, if we love them, We must do something. If we don't love them, who's going to love them? Who's going to reach out to them? In the eyes of God, we've all failed. We're all sinners. The greatest commandment is what? Love God. Tell me one second when you've ever kept that commandment before you came to know Christ. And maybe someday we can have a talk after you've come to know Christ, how well you've kept that commandment. Love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. The greatest commandment. And the beauty is the son has done that with the father. So when you're in the son, you have that imputed to your record. You have that righteousness that Christ gave us by his death, burial, resurrection. Brethren, I say to you, the enemy lies to them. But we must not. We must step up to the plate. In the eyes of God, we've all failed. But in the eyes of God, we must be faithful with Christ. Of all the things he could have said, you know, love me, don't forget to attend church, all the things he could have said, and what's he say? Acts chapter one, be witnesses unto me. It's his command. How can I not? If the building's on fire and you're running out, you're going to say something, aren't you? Get out. The building's on fire. Brethren, hell's on fire. How can we not say anything? Justice says hell. Grace says heaven. Justice says condemnation. Grace says freedom. Justice says eternal separation. Grace says eternal union. Thomas Watson said, God does not justify us because we are worthy, but he justifies us making us worthy. What a difference. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you have an intimate relationship with him? Do you read his love letter? That's a good test. Do you read his love letter? How can you not? You're all on borrowed time. In order to get to heaven, you have to be perfect in thought and word and deed and motivation. You have to be perfect to get to heaven. The day you're born to the last day when you take that last breath, you have to have a perfect record. And I can assure you you're not going to do it, we're all sinners. We entered this world in rebellion against the living God, that's the natural heart. But the beauty is we note that in Christ by faith alone we have that perfect record. There's only one way, repent and believe. He lived the perfect life, he died the perfect death, you live the imperfect life, you live the sinful life, but by believing upon him, letting go of everything you've done and trusting in one alone, there's only one savior, you've got nothing to do with it, one savior, trust in Christ. It was Rabbi Simla in the third century noted that Moses gave 365 prohibitions and 248 positive commandments in the law. David in Psalm 15 reduced them all the way down to 11 laws. Isaiah in 33-14 made them down to six laws. Micah in 6-8 binds them into three. And Habakkuk, he brings them all the way down to one. The just shall live by faith. Help us, Lord. Let us go to him. Let us hold tightly to him, no matter what comes. Father, this is not an easy subject. We know what the world says. We know what goes on out there. But Father, you have clearly declared this, and who would we be if we neglected what you so clearly say? If we love others, Father, how can we turn a blind eye to these things? Father, as long as you, Terry, May this church never abandon your truth. May it always declare the whole counsel of God. And Lord, if there be a day ever come where this church would not declare the whole counsel, we ask you, Father, we ask you, you would shut the doors. How dare we deceive other people if we don't preach the entire Bible? We praise you, we love you, now help us Father to sing to the glory of the Lamb, the one who's coming back for us. You are amazing in our sight, your love is fantastic, may we love others as you have loved us, in Christ's name, amen.