This sermon emphasizes the distinction between what is legal and what is lawful according to God's word. It delves into the consequences of embracing legal but not lawful behaviors, such as adultery, pornography, abortion, divorce, and same-sex marriage. The speaker highlights the importance of eliminating excuses, recognizing temptation, and heeding warning calls to avoid the path that leads to death.

The title of the message tonight is legal is not always lawful. What is legal is not always lawful. And you're going to see that changing more and more. And some of us who are over 30, even me being over 40, you can remember when the days when legal and lawful were pretty close. What was legal and what was lawful, according to God's word, they were pretty close. Now, it's shifting in many different areas. And I wouldn't have time tonight to talk about all the different areas. So I just want to talk about the main topic of just because something is legal does not mean it's lawful. And what a good illustration we find in Matthew. Matthew chapter 14, if you have your Bibles. Matthew 14. At that time, Herod, the Tetrarch, heard the report about Jesus. And said to his servants, this is John the Baptist. He is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him. For Herod had laid hold of John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. Here's why. John the Baptist was beheaded. This powerful, mighty man of God preaching that the kingdom is near. Here's what got him in trouble. Verse four, because John had said to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have her. And although he wanted to put him to death, he feared the multitude because they counted him as a prophet. And he was. So Herod wanted to put him to death for challenging him in this area. But he said, I can't do that because the people know that he's a prophet. Verse six, but when Herod's birthday was celebrated, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod. Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. So she, having been prompted by her mother, said, give me John the Baptist's head here on a platter. And the king was sorry. Nevertheless, because of the oath and because of who sat with him, he commanded it to be given to her. And so he sent and had John beheaded in prison. And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl. And she brought it to her mother. Then the disciples came and took away the body and buried it and went and told Jesus. And I don't know about you, but I remember even as a young child hearing this story. And you have this imagery of a head on a platter. You know, even in the little kids' books, I don't know why they did that. Still scarred, you know, 40 years later. But you remember that. And you remember what got him in so much trouble. Because he was speaking the truth. And that's one thing I wanna encourage the church, not just this church, the church nationally, is when you speak the truth, you will be marginalized. People will wanna cut your head off, not physically, even though they will with ISIS and different things. But people will not like us speaking the truth. And God reminds us that we're to speak the truth in love, regardless of what the ramification is. And that's why he was killed, because he was speaking and he was confronting this man, Herod. Now, Herod, the Tetrarch, was a governor of Galilee. Now, this is different than Herod the Great, who was king over the large area. This was a different Herod. He had a smaller area. And it's actually, I'm reading a book this week. The Hobbes gave it to me. It's entitled Defying Gravity, How to Survive the Storms of Pastoral Ministry. And I would actually encourage this, any read for anybody who's a Christian. Because what he does, he does a great job at showing the parallels between a pilot and guiding a ministry. And many times we get caught up on looking at our feelings. And pilots can crash just by looking at their feelings. Or I don't know, the ocean seems a lot farther down there than it is, I'm in a cloud and I'm sure the ground is way down there. They get out of the cloud and nope, the ground's right there. So the whole premise is trust the instruments. Trust the truth. Not your perception. Not your feelings. Because you can be upside down in an airplane, I didn't realize this, or going nose down and not really know it without any bearing. So you have to look at the instruments. And that's what I was reminded working on the sermons. We have to look at what does the truth say and remove our feelings from this topic as hard as it is. Now here's where I wanted to really get to, legal. When I say legal is not always lawful. Legal is which is permitted by law. So if you go to Europe, what is legal? If you go here, if you live here in America, what is legal? If you go to Saudi Arabia, what's legal? If you go to Iran, what's legal? And they talk a lot now lately about Sharia law and different things. And if these things are illegal. What legal means is a certain body of government has said these are our laws and here are the consequences, regardless of what God's law says. So something can be legal and not lawful. And that comes down to this word, the next word lawful. This is interesting. Lawful means rules given by a law giver, the only law giver. And we find this in Isaiah 33, 22, for the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our law giver and the Lord is our king. It's interesting. If you look at the founding of America, and I used to like to read a lot of those early writings, they would reference this scripture in regard to the three branches of government. Legal, legislation, judiciary, and executive. Judge, law giver, king. Three different distinct areas of government and they reference this verse often. But what is lawful comes from the law giver. It is God himself. So you can have something be totally legal and very unlawful. And sometimes in the church we get confused because, well, it's legal, but it's not lawful. And we begin to gravitate towards this side instead of what does God's word say. Here's the interesting thing. We have a responsibility to both God's kingdom and the nation's legal system. As Christians, we have dual citizenship. Were you aware of that? You have dual citizenship. You are a citizen of the nation, America, but you're a citizen of God's kingdom. So God's kingdom is a higher area of concern for us, right? But we also, James is clear, Romans is clear, that we have to respect the law, we have to pray for those who are in authority, we have to be good citizens, and we have to balance our citizenship here and our citizenship in God's kingdom. Now, ideally, this whole debate about church and state and the church and state should be separate, different things. The church and the state in God's economy, if you look throughout the Old Testament, the church and state should be separate in their duties and their functions, obviously, but they should be interwoven in their core beliefs and in their principles. That's how God designed it. When he designed the government to be a terror to those who do evil and a government to bring justice according to his word, that's a concept. So we have to remember the government, the concept of government is ordained by God. Can you imagine a nation, can you imagine without any form of government whatsoever? Trust me, it would not be pretty. It would be anarchy, it would be chaos. So we have this, the form of government, the whole idea of government is to administer justice, to defend the weak and the fatherless and to be a terror to those who do evil, basically to protect those who do good. That was the whole idea of government. So we have this government, God's kingdom, that we're children of God, we're responsible for our choices, we put him above everything else, but we also have citizenship with this political system and trying to work them both can be difficult. Of course, the Bible makes it clear, therefore, to denounce our faith or to reject God and all these things that God's word supersedes this realm of government. But when it comes to other things, taxes and different things, the word obey the government. Now, where it's getting tricky is which many of you are observing that this is getting harder to do. 30, 40, 50 years ago, it wasn't as hard to do. But now, okay, I've got a mandate to God's kingdom, but they're passing laws that say I can't speak the truth or they're going to. Okay, I've got a mandate to be in God's kingdom and honor him and we can't really, knowing that we can't embrace, say, same-sex marriage, we can't embrace these certain things, but this says, well, you better, you're going to have to or it's discrimination. And you'll see the lines now are getting harder or getting farther and farther away. So it's harder now, it's getting harder for Christians to have dual citizenship without offending one or the other. Because if you follow, and I'm all about banging the laws, don't get me wrong, but if you follow, if we still hold tight to God's law and what he says about certain things, it's going to be harder to please this side. And then if we want to just please this side and cave in on all these areas, it's going to be very difficult to please God. So you see a divide there already happening. So the question often comes up, then can we legislate morality, Shane? Every time I talk on this point, when it comes to the political type thing, they say, well, we can't legislate morality. Can you legislate morality? No and yes. You've heard me talk about this probably a year or two ago, but you can't change a person's heart by enforcing laws, but you can restrain evil and deter wrongdoing. That's the whole point of the legal system in God's eyes. That's why he had an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If you're going to do this, this is going to happen to you. And if we were more, I know there's debates on death penalty and different things. I don't want to open up a big can of worms and I've read both sides and I don't want to even really go there because it takes away from what I'm trying to accomplish. But if our laws had some more severe consequences, you would see crime being minimized. One of the reasons that crime is magnified in certain areas, oh, I can go in and get three meals, free meals, watch TV, it's no big deal. I've got a workout area. It's like we create this environment where there's no deterrent really to crime. I mean, when rape, people who commit rape or pedophiles and they can just be out in a few years and everything's back to normal, yeah, I've got a problem with that. And you're going to see crime increase as the penalty decreases. That's just biblical. I mean, somebody knows, hey, if I'm going to go in and rob and do something, look what's going to happen to me. That would deter a lot of crime. That's the whole point. Now, the Old Testament, there was a lot of things, you know, commit adultery. Guess what happens? Yeah, you're dead, stoned to death. Well, you think somebody might think twice though? Oh, you better believe it. If I'm convicted on this, I'm dying next year, per a person would say. They're going to think twice about that. So before we, oh, look, and that's what people always say. Oh, look, you stone people. Even a rebellious son was stoned and oh, you Christians. I said, yeah, we don't care. It doesn't carry the same consequence, but I want to show you how serious God sees sin. Let's not minimize that. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. When God says, if this happens, this will happen. It shows me how serious that sin is. Witchcraft, sorcery, seance, pulling children away from Christ or away from God in the Old Testament. They had some high, there was a high price to pay for that. God just didn't wink and say, well, okay, why don't you go sit in a cave for two days? You know, nothing, there would be no change in people's lives. So that's why you'll see a punishment is because of the punishment if it's a crime and all that, because legislation does and can deter wrongdoing. I mean, would you rather live, would you rather live under Sharia law or what we have now? And if you don't know, meet me after the service because all of you would be dead at some point. That's how serious this is. This, the legal system. So on one hand, we wanna be thankful for what we have, but on the other hand, we need to pray for our legislation. A sure sign of a culture departing from God is that legal is not often lawful. So you can see when a culture just starts to depart from God, what they begin to make legal is no longer lawful. They're calling good evil and evil good. It's what we see in all the high, look at all the high profile debating that's going on now. You know, most of it. A lot of the debates are that we wanna call legal, what God says is not lawful. And you could, that's a sure sign of a culture departing. Here's what happened in creation when God created the male and female. From creation, they had conviction of what God's law was. Conviction, conviction, conviction, and then also their own conscience bearing witness on them. What your conscience is. I don't know if we even have time, but if we had time, we would read Romans 1. I'll find out where I end up and then I'll know for the next service. But if we had time, we could read Romans 1 and God talks about that he gave his invisible attributes are clearly seen and that man suppresses the truth and rejects the truth because it's in their own conscience. They know it. There's like an inner alarm clock going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So we know what is lawful because we have conscience. We know what is lawful because of conviction. And then once the Ten Commandments came into place, we have conviction, we have conscience, and now we have confirmation with the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. And the funny thing is that resonates with what we already know in our heart. If I shared before, you can talk to missionaries on the mission field, different countries, and if they go back into the jungles, back into other places, people know don't steal your neighbor's pig. Don't take your neighbor's wife. They just know this stuff. How do they know it? Because God's law is written on their hearts. So we've had conviction, we have conscience, and then we have confirmation through the Ten Commandments. And that's when Israel began to depart and embrace things that were not lawful. The nation of Israel began to depart from God's law and begin to do things that were not lawful. And the Bible talks about everyone doing what is right in his own mind. And so, and I talk about this often too, with America and the founding of our nation, a lot of the pilgrims and the Puritans coming over, they brought over something called William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, written, as it began, written in 1765. And what he did, he would take Scripture along and make the law with it. And actually, this was a reference guide that our attorneys in our nation used up until, I don't know if they still do, but 20, 30 years ago, they would use William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of New England, or on England. And they would give Scripture reference with every law. Here's the biblical Scripture, here's what's lawful, and here's what's legal. Here's what's lawful, here's what's legal. Here's what's law, and that's very good to do. God honors that. And that's why many of us believe that God has blessed this nation from the get-go in many different areas. Yes, there's travesty. Yes, there's many different directions we could have went and that we should have went, and vice versa. But overall, God has blessed this nation, I believe, because of this, because you honor what is legal and what is lawful. Because, let's just be honest, the laws of a nation determine its course. The laws, eventually, the laws are the foundation, because the laws show me what I believe. How you legislate your home. What are the rules of your home? They show where our heart's at. So that's why it's hard to get away from the foundation of the legal system. That reveals the heart. But today's argument, as many of you know, is why follow an ancient text or letters from 2,000 years ago? Why? Well, why do they say that? They don't like God's Word. That's the bottom line. They are conforming the Word rather than being conformed by the Word. So you hear all, that's the latest thing. We can't follow an ancient text or letters from 2,000 years ago. We're gonna conform this to fit our ideology, but this says, no, you better conform your ideology to fit this. And now you understand when the Bible talks about calling good evil and evil good. Woe be to that nation when they begin to call what is evil good and what is good evil. And I could go over a list of a half dozen things right now where we are doing this and it's very scary. We're actually saying this is good. This is God honoring. This is great. If you don't like it, you're a bigot. We're honoring this. This is good. And the Bible says, no, it's evil. Evil. And at what point, and the scary thing for me is the church is just jumping on board. Come on, Shane, everybody's doing it. Well, if everybody's doing it, you better take a very, very close look because the Bible says broad is the road to destruction. Narrow is that path. If everybody's doing it, remember again, what did I say? Everybody was doing, every man doing what was right in his own eyes and in his own opinion. So about this ancient text or letters from 2,000 years ago, I like what the Bible says, Jeremiah 6, 16. Thus says the Lord, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk in it. Jeremiah 15, your words were found and I ate them and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart for I am called by your name, oh, Lord God of hosts. Psalm 119, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation day and night. See, these are eternal truths for all man for all time. What about the famous one? All of you know, Isaiah 40, most of you know, the grass withers and the flower fades but the word of the Lord will remain forever. It's unchanging, you can't change it, it changes you. And so it doesn't matter what's legal, what's legal. Let me tell you right now, as God is my witness, no matter how many laws are passed in favor of same-sex marriage, it will not change God's mind. No matter how many laws, no matter how many debates, no matter how many denominations, no matter how many churches change, no matter how many people cave, it won't change his mind, his mind can't be changed. He said, I am the same today, yesterday and forevermore. My word is eternal truth, it can't change. So if one person hangs on, it's still truth. If nobody hangs on, it's still truth. And if we could just get back to that again. See, you've got too many wimpy churches that don't wanna say anything. Well, if you tell my audience that, well, you might lose them, good, I wanna go home and say, Lord, do we please you? Are we honoring you? Because without him, you have dead worship, you have dead words, you have just a social gathering where God's spirit is not active and living and vibrant because you've departed from truth. Listen, some of the biggest cults in our nation have wonderful big buildings and millions and billions of dollars and they are so far from God, they don't even know it. But we get caught up on thinking, if we have this and we have this and look how successful we are. And I've read many blogs from, I mean, enormous churches and pastors that some of them are embracing these things and turning from truth and not wanting to offend. They say, but look, look at how God is blessing our ministry. We have a $200 million budget and God's just, yeah, so does the Mormon church. Oh, they don't wanna, what? Did you just say what you thought? Yeah, I did. That does not prove anything. You have to go back to the plumb line, the foundation. You have to go, what does this say? Are you lining up with this? Because I don't care what your budget is, the devil can bring in lots of money too. He can say, I'm gonna stay away from that church. Let them grow, let them flourish, they're actually on my side Every pastor should be aware of that, that the enemy, the enemy loves when you stray from church or from truth. I don't know if you remember this. I didn't write it down, so I hope I get it right. But a few years ago, when we were talking about the power of the Holy Spirit here at Revival, I read a lot of books on Revival. I just love that topic. And man, because that's what we need. That's the answer. Unless God awakens his church and awakens his people, you are seeing a nation on a collision course to disaster. There's no other way to put it. I mean, I wish I could. I've got little kids, I'm praying for them. Come on, God, come on, come on. But unless there's a spiritual awakening, the Titanic has been struck, that's just the bottom line. But I'm praying for it, I'm contending for it. But it's interesting, Duncan Campbell, there are some islands off the coast of Scotland, I believe it was. Again, we have to double check some of this. I don't even want to pronounce it. Something like the Herbies, H-E-R-I-B-E-S. Probably didn't pronounce it right. But they're off the coast of Scotland, 1940s, 1950s. And these islands experienced miraculous revival. 75% of the conversions were not even in the church. 10 years later, a handful of people, that was it, weren't still following the Lord. I mean, this was a genuine move of God. Bars were closed down, all this stuff. And Duncan Campbell was one of the leaders of this movement. If you ever want to read his biography on church history, on this period of church history, it's important. But it was fascinating. I've read a few different books, and I've read his own words, too. He had a dream one night, and he was walking down the street and he heard the preaching of God's word. He even heard, there's some trues in there, and he's getting closer, and he realized, he said, you're not a preacher, you're the devil. And the devil said to him, oh, Duncan, don't you realize that the greatest weapon I have is the preaching of God's word without the anointing of the Holy Spirit? Now, whatever you want to do with that, that's totally up to you, but I truly believe, one of the greatest weapons the devil has is the preaching of God's word without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because then you fashion it into whatever you want. Has God really said, well, let's take out that part. We sure don't want that part either. Who wrote Romans? We might as well cut out most of that. I mean, it's God's word without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Book of Mormon, they'll take from the Bible. Now, I'm not trying to beat up different, I'm just telling you, they'll take parts from the Bible. Jehovah's Witness will take parts of the Bible. Other religions will take parts of the Bible. Well, why doesn't it work? Because the anointing of the Holy Spirit's not there. It's air. They're bringing in air with truth. Has God really said yet? And they twist it. You have to have the undiluted word of God. That's why I love that verse. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord will stand forever. This is not negotiable. This is not debatable. It doesn't matter what your opinion is. I'm sorry to tell you that. It doesn't matter. And that's why I talk to people and they're so sincere. And I want to remind them, you can be sincerely wrong. It doesn't matter how sincere you are. I love sincerity. We need a more sincere person, people. But you can be sincerely wrong. So what is Matthew 14? What is a practical application on this? And there are so many different directions you could take with this. Looking at commentaries. Look, when I've taught on this at different places before. But what I want to do, and what I feel the Lord has prompted me to do, and we'll only know if that's the case when both services are over and see what the fruit is. But here's the practical application that I'd like to draw from this. Herod, like many of us today, says, I don't care what's lawful, I want it. That's really what he said. This is not your wife, John the Baptist said, that you can't do this. I don't care what's lawful, I want it. And many of us do the same thing. I don't care what God's word says, I want it. Leonard Ravenhill said, the world has lost the power to blush over its vice, and the church has lost her power to weep over it. Isn't that true? We used to weep over our sin. We used to weep over certain things, now we embrace them. And the real title of this message should have been, and it actually is, it's gonna be on the video, but I didn't want to put it in the bulletin or have any notes, because then people start running for the door as soon as they saw the bulletin. The title was, and is, the dangers of sexual sin, what is legal is not lawful. And as I started to just unpack all this, it's amazing how many things we look at, the area where we're drifting is in sexual sin. Look at adultery, it's not lawful, but it's legal. This is destroying more homes. If you could see a glimpse of the churches, and what I hear, what's going on, this is not just a little problem. This is wrecking homes and marriages by, just off the top of my head, I know of a dozen. Christians, just know that where this is destroying their marriage and their family, it's not lawful. And it's a good time to remind us of some of these verses. You shall not commit adultery, Exodus 20, 14. But here's what's also happening, mental adultery, mental adultery is doing just as much harm as the physical act. Mental, if a man or woman thinketh in their heart, so are they, if they even lust after another, something that's not lawful. Hey, Shane, it's legal, I don't care if it's legal, it's not lawful. I mean, the worst thing this nation ever did, one of the worst things we ever did is legalize pornography, legalized. What does God's word say? I don't care what God, do we realize, sometimes, yeah, I know it's bad, but we actually legalize what God says is an abomination. We actually legalize what the Bible says will take you to hell. Well, Shane, if I looked, no, what I'm saying is, the Bible says, and we're gonna get to that, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God. So we're making something legal that God says is not lawful, it will destroy your soul, it will destroy your marriage. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery within her heart, and I know these are tough things, but I think sometimes it's good to bring out the gloves again. Because without the warnings, people don't change. Without the, hey, hello, that's why I'm glad I got this book on defying gravity, and that's why it makes you wake up and say, oh, hold on, planes are going down, churches are going down, ministries are going down, you better get grounded, you better pull back, we have to be warned, and we have to get back on track. So we have adultery, we have pornography, what about abortion? It's lawful, it's lawful, no, it's not lawful. I misspoke, see, I caught a few of you. It's legal, it's legal, not lawful. Before I formed you in the womb, I called you. So see how something can be legal but not lawful, and how it's pulling the church apart, it's pulling our nation apart? I mean, when you can, I don't even want to talk about what, you know, on this whole topic of abortions, it's horrific, and the nation has the blood of innocent children on our hands because of sexual sin. Are you catching this? Adultery, pornography, abortion, the majority of it is the result of running a stoplight or sexual sin. I didn't pay my taxes, sexual sin. This destroys in all different areas. That's why it's a sin against our own body. We are excusing our actions by eliminating the evidence. That's really what abortion does. I'm going to eliminate the evidence and excuse my actions. Even though it's not lawful, it's legal, and I'm good. And so many times I think, and I see Christians, they live in this legal side. Well, it's legal, well, it's legal, but you better check God's law. You better check the conviction of the Holy Spirit because it's not lawful. And then what happens because of the danger of sexual sin? The next thing that's legal but it's not lawful, what about divorce? I mean, let's just be honest on this point. Matthew 19, and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. That's pretty, yeah, that's pretty plain. Now, no fault divorce comes in, legal. You know what no fault divorce is? I don't know how long it's been, 30, 40 years. Some of you might know the no fault divorce. You're reconciled, but the difference is we just don't get along. And I want to say, welcome to marriage. It's two sinners saying, I don't like to do it this way. Yeah, you don't get along, of course. If that's your excuse, every marriage would fail. But they said it's legal for any reason, any reason at all. God says, that's not lawful, that's not good. And what happens is if we know what we're getting into, I think young adults would seriously consider their decision a little bit more if they knew, hey, there's no way out of this. This is for life. I better make sure I like this person. I better make sure this is God's will. I better make sure that we are both following Christ with all of our heart. And I'll tell young adults, I tell them all the time, follow Christ with all of your heart and see if they catch up. Don't buy into the, oh, I'll go to church with ya, and we can go to time from time. Yeah, I'm a Christian, I just never go to church, I never read my Bible, I never pray. But I'm a Christian, well, I don't know, they just might be dead on the vine. They need some spiritual resuscitation. But watch them closely, watch their walk very closely, because once you get married, according to God, that's a covenant relationship that only sexual immorality can break. And even on that point, there's division in the church. You've got somebody like John Piper, who I believe, I love his podcast and listen to all the time. I believe he believes that he, they would say that only in the death of a spouse you can remarry. And then John MacArthur would say, you know, they're friends, and he would say, no, it's sexual immorality here, it's at least every couple months, I've told you this before, that I get emails, you know, people say, I'm in sin, I need to repent to my congregation, because I had a divorce in the early 1990s, and I'm fooling everybody, and God's on it. I'm like, oh, wow, thanks for that. By the way, where's the love in that? You know, where's the, and the whole thing is on this, because I was released because of this reason, 1990s, I was fully released biblically, but they say, no, you can never remarry again, ever. Even though, but I think they're reading into this text, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery, you must stay single forever, if your spouse does that, is what they add in there. And to me, I just, I don't see that. But divorce is devastating. What it does to the kids is, well, they're resilient, they'll get over it, no, they don't, they don't. But Shane, it's legal, right? You don't understand. Don't stop, stop saying it's legal and stop saying what's lawful, what does God want? And I'm also amazed on this point, let me just throw it out there since it came to my mind, is how many people hold tight to this verse and say, well, you know, we're married forever, I don't like them, but I gotta stay married to them, right? So what God's word says, yeah, but you ignore 20 other verses. Well, okay, we're not getting divorced because the Bible says it, but I'm gonna be bitter, I'm gonna be angry, I'm gonna be mean, I'm gonna be nasty, I'm gonna be this, I'm gonna be spiteful, I'm not gonna love you like Christ loved the church, no way, and you know what? Well, I'm not gonna respect you, I'm not gonna cherish you, I'm gonna bad mouth you, I'm not gonna, and hold on, you obey this one verse not to divorce, but you ignore all these 20 others, it could repair the marriage. If you just obey the truth, it could repair the marriage. So don't hang on this one verse as if, you know, God is so pleased because we're not divorcing, no, he's not pleased because your attitude stinks. Wherever there's bitter and anger and jealousy and rage, and you hate that other person, that's not good, you can't hold on the scripture and say, God's pleased, he's really pleased because we're not divorcing. And I see it a lot of time. I mean, the majority of couples who are miserable, they're saying, well, look at the Bible, so they can't divorce, and I'm stuck, and well, I'm not gonna do this, I'm not gonna do this. So how do we justify? I just like to know how we justify obeying one scripture, but ignoring 10 other. I just can't see that anywhere. And of course, the one I talked about recently, same-sex marriage is not lawful. Leviticus 18.22, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman, it is an abomination. The truth that was truth 3,000 years ago is truth today. And there's other passages in Corinthians, there's other passages in Romans that talks about, Paul says, this is not lawful. It's not lawful, yeah, but shame, but it's legal. No, it's legal, but not lawful. When you drift from truth, you drift from God. Here's what's happening, many are drifting from truth, so they're drifting from God, and they're drifting from what is lawful. They're drifting to what is legal. And what's the new thing now? Bruce Jenner, sometimes, he was on Weebies, he was my hero when I was a kid. What happened? Bruce, now you wanna be a girl after all this? What happened? Here's what happens, folks. It can happen to anybody. The human mind, apart from God, is depraved. It's depraved. It will be drawn to all different kinds of perversions of truth everywhere. That's why I don't know why this whole thing about gay marriage, people get so upset. A person struggling with, were they born this way? Well, I was born to cheat. I was born to lie. I was born a sinner. We're all born sinners. He'll just get you in that area, this person, some other area, this person. What'd you do with the cross? What have you done with Christ? That's the answer. So that's the answer for Bruce Jenner. That's the answer for the alcoholic. That's the answer for the fornicator. Everything is Christ. That's the answer. So they're not hate-mongeted, bigoted, hate. I love gay people. I love them so much I'd say the truth. I love people, alcoholics, I love people who are addicted to pornography. We wanna help them. We love them all, but we can't say it's good. It's not good. It's not legal. It's not lawful. But this transgender thing's gonna be huge. Laws are being passed. Tell my daughter, oh, go to the used restroom. I'll stay out here. There's this big guy. Why are you going in that girl's bed? Well, I feel like a woman today. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in Looney Tunes. And it's like, what happened? The Twilight Zone. I mean, are we honestly to that point? Yes, human mind left to itself is depraved. It will drift from God. Without that anchor, it will drift and do all kinds of bizarre things because the devil takes over. He's already got them and he plants and changes. And it was interesting. My cousin pastors a church and he had a transgender come to him. It's a big, big, well, I don't know if it was a woman or man, but whatever the side was. And again, I wanna be anybody. Well, I've talked to people struggle with that thing. And I love to talk. Let me show you the, I'm a sinner too. I struggle with lying or cheating or whatever it is. And we're all the same. Here's the hope. Here's the hope. Well, we love you enough to share the truth. So this has nothing to do with hate or being mean. It's actually telling people the truth so they can get help. But he asked, could he go to their church? And he was, well, are you willing to repent? And no, I'm enjoying this lifestyle. I just wanna, you know, in your face kind of thing. And he said, well, the church is really for believers who are working on the relationship with the Lord. So that was a whole different discussion. But he started to say, it's coming down. It's gonna be more and more prevalent, more and more, they'll wanna work for the church. You can't discriminate against that. Why? Why? Why couldn't we have a transgender usher? What's wrong with you folks? It's legal. It's legal, but it's not lawful. See, and here's the problem. The hard part for the church would be, when you allow a person to serve or, you're basically saying, I agree with your lifestyle. That's why church has to draw the line. We say, you know what, you can come all you want, sit right there and hear the word of God and want to change. But if you're not gonna want to change that lifestyle, it's no different from a man who's cheating on his wife, says, I don't care, I'm still gonna come to your church. Oh, no, you're not. We better read Matthew 18 really quick. Church, you can't allow, because God, this is holy worship. Sinners coming together with the holy righteous God we have. This is believers coming together. So we have, I believe we have to be careful in this area. So could you let a transgender be an usher? Why? It's legal. What's wrong with you guys? Because it's not lawful. And it's getting hard where it becomes lawful, then churches would have to lose their 503 C3 status or the 501 C3 status, nonprofit exempt status from the government and just be, I mean, that would probably hurt a lot of churches. And that's why we're trying to stay set up for that case. Our offerings dropped 30, 40%. We'd still be able to maintain. We're trying to plan ahead because there's no, once you start doing that, you might as well say, well, I'm just going to go back to being a real estate agent, a motivational speaker. I'm done here. I'm not going to proclaim this and just as if God doesn't care, as if he'll just look the other way. You know, these are serious issues. In children's ministry, if you guys have to go, you can go, that's what the McKims were heading out and what you think he got offended. Because I do, when people leave now, I look at the clock and like, okay, that was a prompted one. But in all seriousness, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? And maybe this is where it's just my passion, you know, my calling, you know, we have different callings and my passion is that's why I get fired up about these issues is because I see hope for these people. You know, if I could, if they would let me preach a sermon in Palm Springs and invite the whole homosexual community in a big open, I'd say, listen, here you go. I wouldn't make it home though, I know that. But if I could say, listen, the Bible says, and not only you, why don't you invite people struggling with drugs and alcohol and pornography, all of you lost, why don't you all come together and hear the glorious gospel? Because here's what it says, don't be deceived. Sexually immoral, the immoral, the idolaters, are you worshiping things other than God? Are you committing adultery, homosexuality, thieves, greedy, drunkards, covetous, swindlers, nobody will inherit the kingdom of God, nobody. Why? Because that lifestyle is not conducive with the believer of Jesus Christ. That's what this is all about. That's why people say, well, look at this, I can't even, if I got drunk once, I'm in trouble. No, if there's a lifestyle that says, I don't care what is lawful, I'm gonna continue in this. I don't care what the Bible says, I'm gonna continue. That's why it says, no thieves. If somebody's stealing and stealing and stealing or fornicating or pornography, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I'm not convicted, I'm just gonna enjoy it. I don't care, I don't care. God says, you're not in the right relationship with me, don't be deceived. There's a huge difference I've talked about before. I'm not going to get between a struggle and a lifestyle that people don't seem to differentiate. All of us are gonna struggle with sin. If you don't, talk to me afterwards and tell me how you do that, because it's hard. Struggle, right, you get upset, you get irritated. Baseball practice, the umpire was calling very bad pitches. I said, what are you doing? That was this high. I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm a pastor. I'm ashamed, oh man, this guy. But I was getting mad, I mean, I was getting mad. Probably because my son was the one that struck out. And I was, I could feel it, I could feel it, you know, and just, okay, okay, this is all about having fun. They're only seven, eight-year-old kids. But we struggle with that, I struggle with getting upset. And the honest truth is our sex-saturated culture is on their way to hell, and many in the church. And at some point, you have to sound the alarm. You have to say, hey guys, listen, this is an area we need to be careful in. James 1.13, let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil. And he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. Here's what I found just at this verse. I'm gonna close here shortly. But we've got to eliminate the excuses. See, this person was saying, well, God's tempting me. There's nothing I can do. I was born this way. My genetic predisposition, my father was Irish, and my mother was German. So was mine. I wish I could use that excuse. But if you want help in this area, we've got to eliminate the excuses. It was, Lord, I'm a sinner, I need you. Okay, now I can work with that. So we see eliminating the excuses. And then we see that temptation is acted upon. So see, Christ was tempted. Jesus was tempted. You'll be tempted. But what you do with that temptation is what tilts the scale. But those who act upon that temptation and feed it, then it starts to grow. And it grows. And what I love about God, I think he gives so many different warning calls. Hello, conviction, conviction, sermons like this. He's, come on, I don't want to reveal it. I don't want to reveal it. It's bringing forth death. It's bringing forth death. Hey, I'm calling you back to me. Wake up, wake up. And it's not some angry father, oh, one time you're done. There's a warning process many times, many times. When somebody falls into something, they didn't just fall, they weren't walking great with God and they fell tomorrow. There was many warnings, many challenges, many calls to get back on the right path. And nothing good comes from it. It brings forth death. And something I tried to get away from, I took this out of the sermon, I kept putting it back and taking it out. But I want to just throw in this phrase that really stood out to me. This woman who asked for John the Baptist's head, she was prompted by her mother. And I thought, how many parents are encouraging sexual sin by their silence or what they allow into their homes? See, we can think we're being really good parents, but we allow tons of garbage. Huh, I said that. Oh, everybody's doing it. I don't want to be that kind of weird parent. You know, and we're allowing these things. We're prompting. We're fostering this type of environment. Come on, 12-year-old daughter, let's go watch Fifty Shades of Grey. Oh my goodness. There's moms taking their daughters to watch this movie. Now, if I saw that, I might have to say something. There's a lot of times I'm quiet, but that would be right up there with what are you doing? They're prompted by their parents. And dad's mom, what are you bringing into your homes? What do you, well, it's just my little vice. No, it'll filter into your family. It will. Sin is sent to kill, steal, and destroy everything. The enemy works through that. It's interesting. Sexual sin resulted in John's physical death. And John didn't do anything, but sexual sin resulted in his physical death, but it also results in many other types of death. When the Bible says, when sin fully grown brings forth death, death is the sensation of life in something. So it will bring forth death in a marriage. It will bring forth death in your relationship with God. It will bring forth death in other areas. It will, it's not just, oh, somebody just died. It's, there's death there. There's a sense of loss. There's a sense of something is happening. And you know, like General Petraeus and all these guys, five-star generals to presidents, from pastors to CEOs, and from loyal moms and loyal fathers, it will take you down. And that's what I really wanna get to this whole point of this message that I feel God has put on my heart. For me, for all of us, for me too. This isn't, that's why I love books like that. They help keep us, but if you're caught in this type of, it will, hear me good. It will take you down. It will result in death. I've been getting away with it. It will, that's the end result.