Episode Transcript
All right, our message this morning, if you take your Bibles and turn to Hosea chapter 10, Hosea chapter 10,
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God willing, will be expounding verses 3 and 4. Hosea 10 verses 3 and 4.
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I saw some of you all have gone over and got to meet my daughter, Lauren's in-laws.
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The chaplers, it's so good to have them with us this morning from Arizona. Arizona.
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And God willing, because we've got some church members in Arizona and God willing, we'll be seeing you soon.
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I know we tried to a little while back and then you had a death in the family and that kind of messed things up.
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But they've got a little room at their house they've offered us if we come down there.
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And so I don't know which camera, but they've got a little room at our house they've offered us.
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So Lord willing, maybe we can go down there and see them and be able to meet with you all.
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Hosea chapter 10 verse 3 through 4. The title of the message this morning is "A Country Without a King."
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A country without a king and a subtitle is "Himlock and the Furrows."
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If a nation teeters on the edge of a dangerous hill morally speaking too long,
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then one day their morality will just go ahead and fall off the edge of that cliff.
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And there's no way it can be stopped once it goes.
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And sadly this is the place that Israel had come to as a nation.
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They had strayed too far from God. They refused to heed his loving warning.
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And they continued to push forward in their rebellion against him.
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And now their car was tumbling off the cliff and it was too late to stop it.
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But I want you to listen carefully this morning to how God describes their rebellion.
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How God describes the outcome of their rebellion because in God's description,
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as we always do in his word, we are able to mine some very wonderful truths.
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Hosea chapter 10 verse 3. God says, "For now they shall say, 'We have no king.'"
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Let's pray. Father we thank you for your precious word.
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We love you so much and I pray Father that all eyes will be upon you this morning.
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And as we hear from you and are taught by your spirit, Father, in your word,
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glorify your great name. In Jesus your Son's name we pray. Amen.
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"For now they shall say, 'We have no king.'"
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When Israel fell in defeat, they would say, "We have no king."
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Because their king would be defeated. Their king would be overthrown by an inimination.
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And to understand the significance of what this means, why would God even bring this up?
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Why would he say, "They will say we have no king."
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Why is that so important to be mentioned in the sacred text?
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Well to understand the significance of this statement,
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we need to go back and remember Israel's history regarding kings.
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You see when God brought Israel out of the land of Egypt and he brought them to the Promised Land,
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He took them across that Sinai desert. As long as they obeyed God's law, Israel was going to be fine.
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And it's important to understand that nowhere in the law of God,
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the law of God expands well beyond those Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.
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But nowhere in the law of God did God ever command them to get a king.
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Nowhere in the law of God did ever God suggest that they needed a king.
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But knowing their hearts, knowing their tendency to stray from God,
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God knew one day that Israel would look around at the nations around them
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and want to be just like those nations, those godless nations,
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and he knew that they would want a king just like everybody else.
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So God included the rules for a king in his law when they came to that low point as a nation.
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And sure enough, one day the children of Israel got to looking at the nations around them
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and they decided we want a king like everybody else
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instead of wanting to be like the other nations.
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Israel should have been thankful that they weren't like the other nations.
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They should have been thankful that God made them different than the other nations.
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You see, the other nations needed a king because they didn't have God.
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Israel had God so they didn't need a king. God was their king.
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Nevertheless, they asked the prophet Samuel, "Give us a king.
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Appoint a king over us like the other nations." And Samuel was very disappointed.
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He knew they were wrong. So he went and asked God what to do.
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In 1 Samuel chapter 8 verse 7, the Bible says,
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"And the Lord said unto Samuel, 'Harken, or listen into the voice of the people,
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and all that they say unto thee. For they have not rejected thee,
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but they have rejected me, that I should be king over them.'"
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Samuel warned them to not get a king. Samuel told them Samuel protested.
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God told Samuel to protest. But in 1 Samuel 8 verse 19 through 20,
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the Bible says, "The people refused to hearken unto the voice of Samuel,
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and they said, 'Nay, but we will have a king over us,
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that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king--"
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Pay attention to this now. "--may judge us, and go out before us,
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and fight our battles." Those three things.
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Our king will judge us, go out before us, and fight our battles.
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So they wanted a king for those three reasons. Number one, to be their judge.
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Number two, to be their leader. Number three, to be their protector.
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As fallen creatures, we need those three things, don't we?
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We need someone to judge us. We need someone to tell us what's right and wrong.
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We also need a leader. We need strong leadership, because all we like sheep
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are prone to go astray. And we need someone to protect us
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and give us victory over enemies. The problem is, when it comes to judging,
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whose standard of right or wrong do we go by? When it comes to leading,
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who will lead us? Who do we follow? Where are they going to take us to?
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When it comes to fighting our battles for us, that will the king you choose
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be able to overcome the enemies you face? Those are some things you need to think of.
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Israel had it made in all three of those departments.
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They had the right morality, they had the right leadership, they had the right king,
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who could defeat all of their enemies, because God could do all that for them
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and had done all of that for them. It was God that brought them out of the
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stronghold of the most powerful nation in the world, which was Egypt,
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who overcame Pharaoh through the power of the Passover.
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Our earthly judges don't always have heavenly standards, do they?
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We know that because it's the supreme judges of our land that told us that a woman
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had a right to abort her children. It's the supreme judges of our land
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that tell us that two men have the right to marry each other.
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Our earthly leaders are often the blind leading the blind.
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Brother Shepard sent me a news article the other day of a mega church
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that had a Super Bowl themed church service, and they had a female pastor
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kick off the church service by kicking the Bible like a football across the stadium.
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Our earthly protectors, blind leading the blind,
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she'd sit a kick in that Bible, she'd read it, she'd understand she couldn't be a pastor.
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Our earthly protectors are defeated by the same enemies that defeat us.
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Kings and presidents, they may be able to win wars against some nations,
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but ultimately they'll overcome our true mortal enemies,
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sin, Satan, and death. That's the true enemies of man.
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This is why we need a king who will judge us according to the right standard
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of right or wrong, that will lead us so that we don't fall into the ditch,
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and that can defeat our true enemies, the ultimate enemies of mankind.
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And Israel had the only king on earth who could do that for them.
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That was God. And they rejected him as their king
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and traded him in for a man.
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Adam traded his king in for a woman.
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The woman traded her king in for a serpent.
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And Israel traded their king in for a man.
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It's just what people do.
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The human race has a history of making bad decisions when it comes to choosing leadership,
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but if we will have him, God has promised to give the human race a king,
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to lead us in the way of righteousness, to judge us in the way of truth and morality,
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and to give us victories over our enemies of sin and the grave that we may have everlasting life.
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That's what the gospel message is all about.
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Israel would say, "We have no king."
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With the gospel message, we can say, "We have a king."
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I want you to listen to how John the Baptist's father described God's promise to Abraham.
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When we think of God's promise to Abraham, oftentimes we think of God saying,
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"Well, here, you can have this land over here."
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There was so much more to that.
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God promised that he would make Abraham a blessing,
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and then through Abraham, all the nations of the earth would be blessed,
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which meant the curse that they had inherited from Adam would have to be removed
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so they could be blessed with the promise that God was giving Abraham,
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which would come through Abraham's seed, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And then we could inherit the land forever,
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and the only way you can inherit land forever is if you live forever.
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The promise to Abraham was everlasting life through his seed.
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Now, listen carefully to how John the Baptist's father described by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
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God's promise to Abraham.
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He says in Luke chapter 1, verse 73 through 77,
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Luke 1, 73, he described God's promise to bless the world through Abraham as,
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"The oath which he swear to our father Abraham,
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that he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies,
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might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life."
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Now, if you just stop there, you would think,
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"All right, well, God promised to deliver us out of the hands of our enemies,
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and we'd be able to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life."
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Well, there's your leadership, there's your judgment,
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there's your king fighting your battles for you right there.
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But listen to what he goes on to say.
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In the next verse, verse 76, he says,
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"And thou, child," talk about John the Baptist,
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"shall be called the prophet of the highest,
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for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways
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to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins."
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Not putting away the Romans so they can serve him without fear.
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Not putting away the Greeks or the Assyrians or the Babylonians.
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Not putting away these people, but putting away your sins to remit your sins.
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We'll be able to serve him without fear.
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He's going to deliver us from our enemies.
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The salvation that John the Baptist was going to be preaching
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was not that the Christ would deliver us,
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not that the king would deliver us,
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just simply from the imperial armies,
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the national carnal enemies of man,
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but from the main enemies of man, sin, Satan, and death.
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You see the remission of our sins.
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Sin is the chief enemy of man.
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And if we have to understand sin, Satan and death.
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Now remember, the Bible calls the devil the God of this world.
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And so we have to understand that there are two kingdoms that exist right now.
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And these kingdoms are running parallel to one another at the same time.
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That is the kingdom of this world,
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and that is the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.
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They run parallel together.
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One will come to an end, the other will go on forever.
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So when we're born into this world,
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we are born into a kingdom that's ruled by the devil
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through the power of sin and death.
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And so sin, if you will, and death,
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it reigns in this fallen kingdom of man.
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It reigns just like a nation against us.
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And so when Jesus comes back,
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the book of the Revelation explains,
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he will come back as king of kings and lord of lords.
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Why?
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This is why Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come,
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because the kingdom that we were born into must be overcome."
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And if that kingdom is not overcome,
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it will continue to reign over us in the power of sin and death.
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And it's going to keep us holding to that death.
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And the grave will forever be our cage of bondage.
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And so John the Baptist's father here,
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he says he's going to deliver us from the hand of our enemies.
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He's going to show us the way of salvation
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that is from our enemies by the remission of our sins.
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You see, the remission of our sins is the only way
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to overcome death's reign over us.
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God did not design man to live under the power of sin and death.
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He designed us to live under the power of eternal life
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and righteousness by his Holy Spirit.
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Sin and death are foreign powers.
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God did not put sin and death in the Garden of Eden.
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Man did.
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There was the potential for man to sin
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because man had to be able to choose.
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You can't love God unless you can choose God without choice.
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There is no love.
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The ability for us to love is hinges upon the power for us to choose.
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So God put those two trees in the knowledge of good and evil
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and the tree of life in that Garden of Eden.
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But he said, "Don't eat from this tree."
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And it was man that brought sin and death into the world.
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The Bible says by man came sin.
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So by man, by man came death, by man came the resurrection from the dead.
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And so Adam brought sin and death into the Garden of Eden,
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but God did not originally put that there.
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Sin and death are foreign powers that invaded earth's domain
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through Adam's disobedience.
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And Jesus came to deliver us from our enemies of sin and death
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by defeating those enemies on the cross in the empty tomb
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and triumphantly reigning over them as our king.
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1 Corinthians chapter 15.
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1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 24 through 26.
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Listen to how the Bible describes the Second Coming of Christ
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and Him ruling on earth and bringing His kingdom to fruition.
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"Then come at the end when He that is Jesus
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shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father,
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when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power."
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Jesus has to put down all rule, all authority and power.
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In other words, He has to completely bruise the head
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of that foreign invader of sin, Satan, and death that now reigns.
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He has to completely crush it and put down all that authority and power
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of the present world system that is now our enemies.
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This all goes back to Him saying, "I will put enmity between you
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and the woman, between her seed and your seed.
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It shall bruise your head, you will bruise His heel."
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This is playing out here in 1 Corinthians 15.
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"Then come at the end when He shall have delivered up the kingdom
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to God, even the Father, when He shall have put down all rule
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and all authority and power."
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Verse 25, "For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet."
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What enemies?
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The enemies that John the Baptist's father was talking about.
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Verse 26, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is what? Death."
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Not Russia, not China, not Iran, not the Democrats.
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The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
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These are the enemies that Christ came to rule over to bring into subjection
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to ultimately conquer forever and forever.
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Romans 5, verse 17, says, "For if by one man's offense death," what? "reigned."
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Right now, what's reigning in this world? Death is reigning.
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Death reigns over everyone and brings all of us into subjection.
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It conquers every one of us. "By one man's offense death reigned."
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So it says here, "Much more they which receive abundance of grace
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and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ."
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Oh man, thy kingdom come. Right? I'm glad to be part of the kingdom.
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You can put a crown on a man's head and you can call him a king.
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You can elect a president and put him in the White House.
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:54,000
You can ordain a supreme leader if you're in North Korea.
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:57,000
But no matter how high you promote someone, they're still just a man or a woman.
00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:04,000
There is no descendant of Adam that can overcome the true enemies of man.
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:11,000
"For sin and death reign over them too."
00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:16,000
The only man who can defeat the greatest enemies of man is Jesus Christ,
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:20,000
the virgin-born Son of God.
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,000
All who rejected Christ and put their trust in earthly leaders
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:26,000
will one day say, like Israel, "We have no king.
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:32,000
We have no one who can overcome the greatest enemies we face."
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:38,000
Look back in your text now in Hosea chapter 10.
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:42,000
We have no king. Why?
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:44,000
Because we feared not the Lord.
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:49,000
And that word fear means reverence Him as the one true God and creator of all things.
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:57,000
Israel lost their earthly king because they did not fear or reverence the Lord
00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:02,000
as their true sovereign leader, protector, judge, and king.
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:08,000
They had forsaken the only one who could protect them from their enemies
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:12,000
and now they would die by their enemies under their enemies' reign.
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:18,000
Here's a kingdom truth.
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,000
"Those who live without God's authority shall die without God's grace."
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:27,000
Those who live without God's authority shall die without God's grace.
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:33,000
When the Jews crucified Jesus, do you know what they said?
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:36,000
And this was so important. This ties right in with Hosea chapter 10.
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:42,000
Jesus came to deliver them from their enemies of sin, Satan, and death.
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:46,000
Jesus came to do what no other king could do.
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:51,000
And the earthly judge says, "Shall I crucify your king?"
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:57,000
And you know what they said? "We have no king but Caesar."
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:06,000
And the Scripture's fulfilled.
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:10,000
How sad.
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,000
He said, "They'll say, 'We have no king.' And it came to pass."
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:20,000
And one day they're going to understand that they have no king because they feared not the Lord.
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:25,000
Because Jesus told them, "If you believed God, you'd believe me.
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:31,000
If you were like Abraham, if you believed Moses, you'd believe me.
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,000
If you believed at all, you would believe me. But they've rejected him as their king."
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:42,000
And now the Jews will say, look back in your text, "What then should a king do to us?
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:47,000
Or perhaps better, what then should a king do for us?"
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:52,000
Caesar can't help them now, can he?
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:56,000
They and Caesar are probably in the exact same place right now.
00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:00,000
What good can a king do them now? That's how some translations put it.
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:06,000
Caesar needed Jesus like they did.
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:10,000
Do you know why Israel didn't recognize their Savior?
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:14,000
They didn't recognize their enemies. That's why.
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,000
Had they recognized their enemies, they would have recognized their Savior.
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:24,000
The Savior came telling them about their sin, and they said, "We're not sinners.
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:29,000
We're not sinners like these publicans. We're not sinners like your followers that eat with unwashing hands."
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:35,000
They didn't recognize their king because they didn't recognize their enemies.
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:39,000
That's why repentance is necessary for salvation.
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,000
You have to come to a place where you understand you are guilty of sin.
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:51,000
You can't need a Savior for something you don't believe you need saving from.
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:57,000
You can't accept a pardon unless you plead guilty to the charge. That makes sense.
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:04,000
That's what repentance is.
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:07,000
Hostile foreign governments weren't their enemies.
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:10,000
Sickness, hunger weren't their enemies.
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,000
They were symptoms of their enemies.
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:16,000
The true enemy that causes all these things is sin and death, and only Jesus can deliver us from them.
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:22,000
Whatever you put your trust in, whether it's your money or your education or politics or even your religion,
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:31,000
when it comes your time to die, if you didn't put your trust in Jesus,
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:37,000
you're going to say, "What can that king do for me now?"
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:42,000
Because nothing but Jesus can deliver you from death. Nothing.
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:48,000
When it comes their time to die, those who put their trust in Christ can say the opposite because we have a king.
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:56,000
We've come to the cross and accepted Christ as our Savior,
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:01,000
accepted God as the authority above us, and accepted His Son as the one who came to deliver us from the sins we've committed.
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:12,000
An unbeliever, when it comes their time to die, they can say, "We have no king."
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:18,000
When it comes to our time to die, we can point to an empty tomb and say,
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:23,000
"Oh, death, where is that sting? Oh, grave, where is that victory?"
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:32,000
Now, you can't reject the truth without embracing lies.
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:37,000
Here's a kingdom of truth for you this morning.
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,000
Those who aren't saved by the truth that they believe will fall by the lies that they believe and tell.
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:49,000
Those who are not saved by the truth they believe, which is the gospel,
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:54,000
they ultimately shall fall by the lies that they believe and the lies they tell.
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:59,000
God said, verse 4, as we sum this up, "They have spoken words swearing falsely and making a covenant."
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:09,000
If they made a treaty, it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
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Their words and their promises meant nothing.
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:17,000
You see, Christianity is founded upon truth.
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:22,000
Christianity is founded upon the fact that God never lies.
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:28,000
It has to be because we're saved by faith.
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,000
In faith, believe something. It believes the good news of Christ.
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:35,000
And if that news isn't true, then our faith is worthless.
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,000
There's not a single Christian here today who could lay their head on their pillow at night
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:43,000
with assurance that they're going to heaven, that they're accepted by God
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:49,000
if there was the slightest chance that God could lie,
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:53,000
the slightest chance that what God told us is not true,
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:56,000
the slightest chance that He'll not fulfill His promise,
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,000
but as the children of God we rejoice in the fact that it's impossible for God to lie.
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:07,000
And people should be able to rejoice in that fact, and those who do should not lie as well.
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:16,000
People who believe the truth should always speak the truth, right?
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:20,000
The Bible says now that we know Christ, we shouldn't lie one to another anymore.
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:24,000
So we put off the old man and put on the new man.
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:28,000
The devil is the father of lies, and so that means you're no more like the devil
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:34,000
than when you're lying. Lies have no place in a believer's mouth.
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:39,000
Now I'm not saying a believer can't lie. They can, and they do sometimes.
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:44,000
But they have no place there.
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:47,000
There are some people in our government today who when they get on television to dress the nation,
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:51,000
"I don't know what you do. I just turn it off."
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:54,000
Because they've already proven themselves to be liars.
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,000
I don't believe a word they say. There's no use in listening to them.
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:01,000
And I remember growing up being so proud of my government when I was a young man.
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:07,000
I was proud of Ronald Reagan, our president. I know he's just a man.
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:11,000
I understand he had faults and everything to all men do.
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,000
But I remember thinking as a young man, at least I believe this anyway,
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:19,000
even though it was probably in many ways naive.
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,000
But I think it was more true than it is now.
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,000
And I remember thinking, "Well, other governments lie, but the United States,
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:30,000
they'll never lie. They'll always tell the truth to their citizens."
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,000
I remember thinking that growing up.
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,000
Sadly though, we have leadership now that blatantly practices lies.
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:42,000
There was a lot about President Trump I disagreed with and I still disagree with,
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:47,000
but I quickly learned when he got in the office and the media said one thing and he said another,
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:52,000
I quickly learned he was telling the truth and the media was lying.
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,000
If he made a promise, he tried to keep it.
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:00,000
Why is it important to have a leader that speaks truth?
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:05,000
Why is it important for a nation to speak truth?
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:09,000
Because truth is the foundation of all morality.
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:15,000
Righteousness cannot exist apart from truth.
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:20,000
At this time in Israel's history, the king's word meant nothing.
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,000
The people's word meant nothing.
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,000
God is truth, so when a nation no longer regards God, it no longer regards truth.
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:31,000
The two go hand in hand.
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,000
All truth comes from God. God is truth.
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,000
When you disregard God, you disregard truth.
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,000
If there's a recklessness to the God above you, there'll be lies on the earth around you.
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:46,000
Without truth, there can be no righteous judgment in a nation.
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,000
You see, our nation was founded upon the fact that God created all men equal.
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:55,000
Not equal in the sense of talents, not equal in the sense of strength,
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:59,000
but equal in the sense that God loves us and gave his Son for us
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:04,000
and loves us the same in the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:10,000
And when a nation believes that all men are created equal,
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:13,000
then what it's going to do is going to judge all men equally.
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:18,000
But once that truth is lost, then equal judgment will be lost.
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:22,000
You'll begin to prosecute the people you don't like.
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,000
You'll begin to justify the people you do.
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:29,000
If a judge believes that he is a steward of God,
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,000
and one day he's going to have to answer to a higher judge over him, that is God,
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:38,000
he's going to, in the fear of God, judge righteously according to truth.
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:44,000
But if that judge dismisses the truth of God, he's no longer going to try to please his Creator.
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:49,000
He's going to try to please his own corrupt agenda.
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:53,000
And that's what we're experiencing today.
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,000
When a nation sets aside the truth of God, lies will become truth,
00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:01,000
and justice will become injustice.
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,000
I'm going to say that again.
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,000
When a nation sets aside the truth of God, lies will become truth,
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:10,000
and justice will become injustice.
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,000
Here's the kingdom of truth for you this morning.
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,000
When truth becomes erroneous, justice becomes poisonous.
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:21,000
When truth becomes erroneous, justice, quote unquote, becomes poisonous.
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:28,000
They disregard the truth.
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:29,000
God said, look back in your text,
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,000
"Thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field."
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:37,000
Now, when you think of judgment, think of justice.
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,000
It's the same thing.
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,000
Their justice was like hemlock.
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,000
Any of y'all ever tasted hemlock?
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,000
Ha, just kidding. Just kidding.
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:51,000
Hemlock is a highly poisonous plant.
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:55,000
Justice should be healing to a nation, not poisonous to a nation.
00:32:55,000 --> 00:33:00,000
But their so-called justice was poisoning their land.
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:06,000
Do we have any of that going on in America today?
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:10,000
We sure do.
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,000
You know, when a friend does this wrong, sometimes we'll say,
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,000
well, with friends like that, who needs enemies?
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,000
But with some of the justice that we're seeing today,
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:22,000
who needs crime and corruption?
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:26,000
When you have judges prosecute people for defending themselves,
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:32,000
grant women the right to kill their unborn children,
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:35,000
order county clerks to issue marriage certificates to two men,
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:39,000
what you have judgment that's springing up like hemlock in the furrows of the field.
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:45,000
Yesterday, Tammy and I had the pleasure of seeing many furrows in the field
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:49,000
as we traveled back through our nation's farmland in the Midwest.
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:55,000
Furrows are those folds in the field.
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:58,000
And then you have the little hills that you plant your crops in,
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:02,000
and you have the furrows.
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,000
And the furrows are not where you plant your crops.
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,000
But the poison justice was so prolific,
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:12,000
it was growing in the furrows of the field.
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:16,000
We have a Department of Justice here in the United States,
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:20,000
and oftentimes, and speaking of it, I call it the Department of Injustice,
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:25,000
because they flagrantly, in many cases, not in every case,
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:29,000
but in many cases, they flagrantly prosecute conservative people
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:34,000
and overlook the liberal people that they like.
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:39,000
That's pushing their agenda, who are doing greater crimes.
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,000
So instead of being a balm to heal our land of the injustice that it experiences
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:49,000
and helping the people who are victimized by their neighbor,
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:54,000
the justice in this country is becoming more like hemlock,
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:58,000
growing in the furrows of the field.
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,000
You'd be better off without it, because it's poisonous.
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:04,000
And for this reason, when Jesus comes back as our saving king,
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:11,000
he will come back as our righteous judge.
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,000
You see how the two go hand in hand?
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,000
They will say we have no king.
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,000
We need a king.
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,000
We need a king to put down the sin and the death of our reigns,
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:25,000
but we also need a righteous judge,
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:27,000
because how did the sin and death start reigning to begin with?
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:33,000
Unrighteousness entered our land.
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:37,000
Where there is unrighteousness, there is sin.
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:39,000
Where there is sin, there is death.
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:43,000
And so when Jesus comes, he cannot only come back as a king
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:48,000
to destroy the enemy.
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,000
He has to come back as a judge to establish righteousness forevermore,
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:56,000
through which we'll live forever, his righteousness.
00:35:56,000 --> 00:36:02,000
Acts 17, verse 31, as we close, says,
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:06,000
"Because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness,
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:15,000
by that man whom he hath ordained,
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:18,000
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead."
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:27,000
There's your victory over your enemy,
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:29,000
and there's your judge to ensure that the enemy will never creep back into the garden again.
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:36,000
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:41,000
Oh, Lord, what glorious truths, Father God, you give us.
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:47,000
What great assurance you give us in the gospel.
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,000
We thank you, Father, for giving us a Savior who came as a king and a judge.
00:36:51,000 --> 00:37:02,000
The earth has not crowned him yet, but it will.
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:07,000
The earth has not bowed the knee yet, but it will.
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:12,000
And when it does, there will be him locked no more, but righteousness, peace,
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:18,000
and joy in the Holy Ghost, springing up in the furrows of the field.
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:23,000
We thank you, and we look forward to that time.
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:26,000
Thy kingdom come. Amen.
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,000
