Clean Transcript

The Perfect Community

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• Deuteronomy chapter 11 and verse 21. The message today is going to be an extremely practical message. And the title of this message is "The Perfect Community" or "How to Live with Others." Look in Deuteronomy 11, we will come back to the rest of this chapter, but look, if you would please, at verse 21, where God says, "That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth." The perfect community. The perfect community has to be an oxymoron. If it is a community of people, it cannot be perfect. If it is perfect, there must not be any people in it.

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• I've often said to Christians as they were looking for the perfect church, "If you find it, don't join it. You'll mess it up." There have been several programs and, I should say, socialistic utopias that began as a perfect community. Each one failed miserably, except one did indeed last for 100 years. First of all, there was the Brook Farm, which was a transcendentalist utopian settlement close to Boston, Massachusetts, that attracted many of the intellectuals who were curious about forming an agrarian society. The community was founded by George Ripley. He was a former Unitarian Universalist minister, along with his wife and 15 other members, and it did not last very long. Then there was Vermonter John Humphrey Noyes, who started the Oneida community in 1848.

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• And this was to be a haven for the perfectionist. Now, I want you to listen to this. The perfectionist embraced communalism, free love, and equality. The commune shared pretty much everything, including incomes and partners. Noyes initiated what he called complex marriages where every man was married to every woman in that particular community. So they were encouraged to reject monogamy and, of course, have multiple partners. And they believed that these practices would shape what they called a man-made Eden.

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• However, I can share with you that there must have been a multitude of problems outside of biblical problems as well. And then thirdly, there was the Harmony Society formed by a Catholic separatist, George Rapp. And he formed a community in Pennsylvania and in Indiana as well. He immigrated from Germany. And the Harmonists then started this community that centered on piety, shared ownership, and celibacy. And so when you joined the community, you gave everything you had to the community.

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• And in exchange, they took care of you until you died. And this is the community that lasted from 1805 to 1905. It lasted 100 years. And then fourthly, there was the Fruitlands, which was founded near Harvard, Massachusetts, which was supposed to be a self-sufficient farming society. It was begun by Charles Lane and Bronson Alcott. Neither one of them knew anything about farming or self-sufficiency. And so Lane advocated, listen to this, a far more rigorous lifestyle.

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• Settlers were forbidden to eat meat, consume stimulants, use any form of animal labor—in other words, you had to do everything by hand—create artificial light, enjoy hot baths. Neither could they drink anything but water. Later, Lane's ideas evolved to include celibacy within marriage. So obviously, Mr. Bronson had his wife and his daughters there. One of those daughters was Louisa May Alcott, who of course wrote the book "Little Women." And when this community failed, which it did, she wrote a very scathing report on Fruitlands called "Transcendental Wild Oats."

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• I think it only lasted about four or five months. Then fifthly, there was the New Harmony, which was noted as the "boatload of knowledge," which began in New Harmony, Indiana. And the interesting thing is, the founder of this society or community, Robert Owen, talked to a lot of scientists and intellectuals and persuaded them to come and form this community. And since a lot of them came via boat, it was called a boatload of knowledge because these men, some of them were indeed involved in founding the National Academy of Sciences. But the interesting thing is, it didn't last four or five months because there was a big division over money and a lot of other things. So you'll find a lot of these utopias certainly did not exist. The interesting thing is when you look at Deuteronomy chapter 11, Israel is about to enter into the promised land.

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• They were going to be enjoying the liberty and the freedom and the blessings that God had given upon them. And he said, in verse 21, that they should indeed be obedient. He said, "That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."

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• Now, the interesting thing is this: men have always wanted a perfect society. However, they did not want that society based upon God or his law. They wanted a society that was basically man-made. Such a society, such a community does not exist, nor will it ever exist, nor can it exist, because men by nature are in rebellion to God and His law. I've often laughed over the word "utopia." We've often heard of what is known as a communistic utopia or socialistic utopia. And the truth of the matter is, it does not even exist. And it cannot exist. Our English word "utopia" comes from the Greek. It's made up of two Greek words. First of all is the word "topos," which means place. And "u," which precedes "topos"—utopia—is a negative, which means no. So actually the word "utopia" means no place. It really doesn't exist. It's just in someone's perverted brain and someone's perverted mind, because obviously it could not exist because man is indeed a sinner. But God's community is not a utopia. It's a community that is based on a theocracy.

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• And a theocracy is nothing more than the rule and reign of God. You know, it seems to me like everyone gets upset over the term "theocracy." Well, it just simply means "theos" is the Greek word for God. "Kratos" is the Greek word for power. And all theocracy means is the rule of God by his power. Interestingly, you mention the word "theocracy," everyone gets bent out of shape. But no one gets bent out of shape over the word "autocracy." Or "plutocracy." Or "democracy." Autocracy is the rule of self. Plutocracy would be the rule of the elite and democracy would be the rule of the mob.

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• It's what it amounts to where 51% rules over the other 49%. So each one of those words deals with power. And everyone is quite comfortable with autocracy or plutocracy or democracy. But you begin to talk about theocracy, where God's power is involved and God's law is involved, and then everyone goes bonkers on that. And the truth of the matter is it's only God who has the absolute right to rule and to reign because He alone is sovereign.

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• Now let me just tell you what, I kind of look into my little mind and see what is forming. The truth is this, I believe that you and I are facing, and are going to be facing, a societal collapse. Man's efforts, man's politics, man's attempts at playing God are quickly coming to an end. Our economic system is at the breaking point, the judicial system is corrupt, the legislative system is anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Bible, anti-constitution, and our executive branch of government is epitomized in Joe Biden, who is a demented, corrupt, immoral fool who has consistently betrayed America and Americans.

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• We've been sold out to China. Bio warfare is being waged against us and we're being divided, scandalized, and demonized. And anyone, just listen to the news, anyone who challenges the last election or the gene therapy shot is now known as a domestic terrorist. So what is happening is this. It's no longer just Republicans against Democrats or whites against blacks or Christians against Muslims. Now it's going to be the vaccinated against the unvaccinated. And the unvaccinated are going to be the current bubonic plague. It's what it amounts to now. So the point I'm trying to make is when we think about community, we're going to have to think from a biblical standpoint.

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• There was a little 12-minute video that I watched recently and I sent it to some of you. I don't know if you watched it or not, but the title of it, I think, was "The Way Forward." And it was dealing with the fact of an escape from a totalitarian regime or totalitarian society. And in the 12 minutes or so, he compared the way of escape with what you and I normally think about of several other ways to get out of a totalitarian regime. The first way he talked about was the backward escape, where people actually give in to drugs, alcohol, games, TV, anything that will dull their minds and keep them from thinking about the situation that they're in. He also mentioned in this, as far as this way of escape, the people who think that just simply by submitting or acquiescing to the demands of the tyrant somehow is going to make it easier on them and get everybody back to normal.

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• You hear this constantly today. "The only way back to normal is do what we say," you know, this kind of thing. And he points out that that is utter ridiculousness. It just simply will not work because the more you bow and the more you acquiesce, the more you give in, the deeper you're digging your own grave is what it amounts to. And then he talked about a forward escape.

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• And that is where some people move from one state to another state or from one country to another country. And he pointed out the fact that there are two major problems with that. Number one, not everybody can move. Not everybody can pick up and leave. And number two, even if you do leave and go to one state or go to a different country, if the totalitarianism is global, the state or the country to which you flee may soon be enveloped in the same tyranny and now you're up against it.

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• And of course then he came out with this, that the only answer is to form basically an alternative community or an alternative society where you are living together completely independent of the totalitarian regime and you're able to function as a community and you're able to function as a group. And so here is the point. I want you to understand this, that we will not survive on our own. Years ago, I took a course from Selco, who, of course, was in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was an EMT.

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• And they went to bed free and happy, woke up the next morning surrounded by armies. And, of course, for a year, they had no electricity, no running water. They cut down every tree. They pulled the molding off their houses to use for firewood and to cook with. They had to run at night and try to avoid the snipers. It was just absolutely horrendous. But the point I'm trying to make is this.

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• He survived in his family because there were 15 of them living in one house. And it's just absolutely impossible for one man to remain up 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So the point I'm trying to make is this. We need community. We need each other. We need to learn to be independent, but at the same time, we need to also learn to be dependent upon each other as well as the Lord. So we have to learn to live together. We have to learn to work together.

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• So people place their trust in many different things. So if you want to place your trust in yourself, autocracy, have at it. If you want to place your trust in a plutocracy where a small elite is ruling over you, you may do so. If you want to trust in our democracy, have at it. Personally, I prefer a theocracy, I prefer the rule and the reign of God. So here's a question, and I want you to think about this.

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• What is it that will hold a community together? Let me even rephrase that question. What is it that will keep a Christian community together? Simply because someone is a Christian, and I'm not talking about just a professor, I'm talking about someone who is a real genuine Christian. So simply because someone is a Christian does not mean that he has his act together, does not mean that he understands truth. It does not mean that he knows how to apply truth. You look around it.

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• There are a number of Christians that have royally messed up their lives. They've messed up their families. They have failed health and they have empty pockets. And you have to ask why. And the answer comes back because they basically fail to obey God's word, God's law. They fail to keep the principles and the precepts that he has enunciated. I think it'd be wise for everyone to read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 every day for a number of months until all of those principles sink in. So I want you to notice in Deuteronomy chapter 11, look at the warning that he gives beginning there in verse 26. Deuteronomy 11 verse 26. He says, "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known."

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• Wow! Note, if you would please, he's talking about a blessing and a curse. That is, the curse is going to be on you if you go after other gods. Now, when we think about other gods, we think about fake gods, we think about false gods, we think about idols. But have you ever noticed how the Bible talks about self-will and self-worship? And did you note that the Bible even says that we can make gods out of our own bellies?

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• Now, that doesn't mean that we just love food. What it does mean is that we love our flesh. Listen to what the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3, verses 18 and 19. He said, "For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." So a false god can be your own belly, could be your own flesh, could be your own desires, can be your own will, and God is placing a curse on anyone who follows these false gods. So the flesh, fleshly desires, or self-will, or self-pleasing will worship, disobedience, rebellion will tear any society apart. Look what has happened to our society. You see, now let me remind you of Galatians 5, verses 15 through 17. God said, "But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

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• For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." But notice what he said, "But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." So the biting and the devouring one another stems from the works of the flesh. Our flesh cries out for satisfaction. It cries out for fulfillment, and it will destroy any and everything in order just to have its own way.

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• Now, the Lord understood this, and that's why in Deuteronomy chapter 11, he laid down the law for these people who were about to go in and live on the land that he had promised and have a community and have an organized society. Now, let me remind you of something. When we think of the nation Israel, we also, we always think of the 12 tribes. Well, there were 12 tribes. But may I remind you that there were families, there were clans.

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• If you just take the Levites, there were the Kohathites, the Merarites, all kind of Levites. Same thing with Judah. I mean, once you got all of these families that are broken down. So now you not only have the tribal society, you have family societies as well. So the point I'm trying to make is this. We may be a family of faith. We may even be related to each other by blood, but we still have to learn to work together and live together and follow God's word.

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• or we're going to have absolutely nothing but problems. Now, the interesting thing is this, what I'm sharing with you this afternoon is actually a picture of the church. How can I say that? Well, let me read to you the book of Ephesians chapter 4 and listen to verse 16. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 16. Here's what he said. "From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." So he's actually talking about the church in Ephesians chapter 4, but he's talking about the whole body being fitly joined together and how every part has to work together in order to increase. My hand and my arm has to work with my mouth in order to eat.

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• I mean, it's just that simple. So, if my hand and my arm refuse to work, well, I have to find some other way to eat or I die. It's just that simple.

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• Now, the community that is a little bit of heaven on earth, the society that's a little bit of heaven on earth, is one that operates based upon God's Word, God's will, and God's way. What kind of community, what kind of society will be a little bit of heaven on earth? Well, if you look in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 11 and verse 1 and verse 8, here's the first point. The community or the society that's a little bit of heaven on earth is a community where the law of God is observed and kept. Look in verse 1. "Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway." Now skip down to verse 8. "Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it." Now, I must point out at this point a well-known truth and press it home. Listen carefully: love is obedience. I do not care what you profess. I do not care where you go to church. I do not care how often you testify. The truth of the matter is this:

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• if you do not obey God, you do not love him. Look what he said in verse 1. "Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God." How do you love the Lord thy God? By keeping His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. Let me remind you of Romans chapter 13, verses 8 through 10. God says, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another." Now listen carefully. "For this," He said, "for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law."

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• Let me go back and say that again. "For he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." So love is not a feeling. Love is not some abstract thing. Love is not sentimentality. Love is obedience. Going back to Galatians chapter 5, he says, "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And when you get to James 2 in verse 8, he said, "If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well." Now, if you really want a definition of love, I can give you one based upon the Bible.

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• First John 5 and verse 3. Listen carefully, if you would. "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." So what is the love of God? It's keeping His commandments. It is obedience. Love is the fulfilling of the law. So when someone says, "Well, I love Him, but I just live contrary to Him." No, you don't love Him. You know what the Bible says in 1 John 2, verses 3 and 4. "And hereby we do know that we know him." Let me back up. Listen now. "Hereby we do know that we know him." How do I know that I know God? "Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments." That's verse 3. Verse 4: "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Love is obedience. God's law is the law of love. It is not legalism. It is not pharisaism. Legalism is pharisaism. It is man's law. But it's not God's law.

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• God has the absolute right to lay down his law for his creatures. Now, if you go back to verse 8 in Deuteronomy chapter 11, the Bible also makes it clear that there is strength in keeping God's law. He says, "Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it." Well, if we wish to be strong, we must be obedient.

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• Now, let me give you a good illustration. In 1 John chapter 3, verses 18 through 20, listen to what the scripture says. "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight."

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• So if I want to be strong in the Lord, the way to be strong in the Lord is through obedience. Now, you know, David said it like this in Psalm 119 in verse 96. He said, "I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad." So when we talk about God's law, when we talk about God's commandments, we have to understand the breadth of those commandments and what all they entail and include. So in order to flesh out what the commandments really and truly mean, we have to study all aspects of the law. And we cannot be like the Pharisees and try to limit the law of God to something just physical. So the Pharisees believed if they had not taken a knife and plunged it in a man's heart, then they were not a murderer. If they had not physically committed adultery, they believed that they were not adulterers. No. What they did, they limited God's law to a mere physical act. So let me try to explain what I'm talking about.

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• Most professing Christians would never take a pistol and go stick it between someone's eyes and say, "Give me all your money." Everybody knows that's theft, that's wicked, that's wrong, that's vile. No real Christian would ever do anything like that. But many Christians will lie, cheat, defraud, use false weights and measures, which is another way of stealing. There are a multitude of ways to violate the eighth commandment. There are a multitude of ways to steal. You don't have to stick a gun in someone's face and demand their money in order to be a thief.

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• So what I'm trying to point out is this. Can you imagine just in your own mind a community that wants to obey God and keep God's law in every area? And if there is a question, they're more than willing to give God the benefit of the doubt. They're more than willing to do without than to sin against God. Wow. Can you imagine a community? Can you imagine a society? Can you imagine a family or a church where they had rather suffer than to sin? Can you imagine a group of believers that are living together, working together, cooperating with each other, that are willing to give God the benefit of the doubt in every area and do that which is right and holy? Can you even conceive in your mind what it would be like to live in a society or community where God's law is really honored, observed, and kept? And the truth is, no, we cannot keep it perfectly, but that does not hinder us from seeking to keep it perfectly. It does not hinder us from seeking to obey it in every area that we can understand.

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• So the perfect community, first of all, is the community that understands God's law. Secondly, I want you to look in verse 13. Here's the community that is indeed a little bit of heaven on earth. It is a community where God is honored, worshipped, and served. Look, if you would, in verse 13. He said, "And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."

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• Now, let me tell you something. You must absolutely see the connection between the first point and this point. We serve God through obedience to his word. We do not serve God simply by giving to him. Who in the world can give to God first? No one. The truth of the matter is the only thing that we give to God is out of that which he's given to us. We serve him by serving each other.

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• In Hebrews 6 and verse 10, the Bible says this, "For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister." So how in the world do we serve God? How do we worship God? And the answer is by ministering to each other. You must remember that a king rules by his law, and the same is true of the King of Kings. His law word is His will for His people.

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• Let me give you an illustration. I want you to hold Deuteronomy 11, but I want you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And as you're turning to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, I could ask you, what is the seventh commandment? And of course you know that the seventh commandment is "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Well, let me ask you this question. What is involved in that commandment? How would we apply that commandment to our lives? I want you to see how the Apostle Paul applies it. Look in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 3. He says, "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour."

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• Here's a negative, "Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit." Now, I want you to note that there is a positive and a negative. The positive side of the seventh commandment is this: that we know how to possess our vessel, that is our body, in sanctification and honor. And that is, we walk in purity, we walk in obedience to the Lord. The negative side is that we're not to do that which the wicked, which the unsaved do in their own fleshly lusts. Because he says in verse 6, we know that the Lord is the avenger of all such who violate his law. And then he says this, "For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness."

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• And then he said, "He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit." So when we're talking about the law of God, we're talking about making application to every area. Usually there's a positive and there's a negative to it. So he is indeed the avenger of all such. Let me ask you this question. I want you to think about this. What does obedience have to do with the worship of God and serving him?

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• I told you earlier you cannot overlook the connection between point one and point two. Let me explain this. I'm sure that you remember Psalm 66 and verse 18, where David said, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."

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• Now, the interesting thing is the word "regard" is a Hebrew word "ra'ah," and it means to regard, to respect, to consider and look upon with delight and joy. So he said, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, if I look upon it with delight, if I look upon it with joy, if I say, 'Yes, I'd like to engage in that, yes, I'd like to do this,' if I have respect to it, the Lord will not hear me."

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• Now, if just regarding it, if just counting it highly and something that is to be desired, if that is sufficient to stop God from hearing your prayers, how much worse is it to commit the acts and do that which God has forbidden? Let me show you. I want you to turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 12. 2 Samuel chapter 12. Everyone knows about the sin of David with Bathsheba. What you may not know or may not remember happens to be the implications of that sin. So if you look in 2 Samuel 12, beginning there with verse 9, look what the Bible says.

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• "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon." Now watch this. Verse 9, "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord?" Okay. He despised the 7th commandment. He despised the 6th commandment. He despised the 10th commandment. He despised the 1st commandment. He despised the 2nd commandment. Now watch verse 10, "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife."

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• Despising God's commandments is despising God. It is impossible to separate God from His law. It is impossible to separate obedience from worship. It is impossible to maintain one attitude toward God and His law and a different attitude toward God. Now, it's impossible to say, "I am here now, and I'm willingly, deliberately, premeditatingly planning on violating the law of God, but I really, really love Him." No, you do not. "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Love is the fulfillment of the law.

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• Now, I want you to turn very quickly to Isaiah chapter 1. I want you to see how this is epitomized in Scripture. Look at Isaiah 1. Watch this. I'm just pointing out the fact it is impossible to worship God aright without obedience. Isaiah 1, beginning there with verse 10. Look what God says. And He's talking to Judah and Jerusalem. "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah." He's not talking to Sodom and Gomorrah. He's talking to Judah and Jerusalem.

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• That's what he calls them. "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting."

  #51 | 40:21 to 40:51 | cleaned

• "Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."

  #52 | 40:52 to 41:23 | cleaned

• "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord." Note what God is saying. God said all of your sacrifices, all of your offerings are worthless. Why? Because you're disobedient. Worship without obedience. Worship without righteousness is worthless. If we're going to serve and honor God, we must be obedient to him. Now I want you to go back to Deuteronomy chapter 11, because I want you to see the perfect community. It's not only where the law of God is honored and where God is worshiped, but thirdly, it is a community that experiences and recognizes the blessings of God on a regular basis. Look in verses 14 and 15. Deuteronomy 11, verse 14. Note, if you would please, what the scripture says.

  #53 | 41:24 to 42:15 | cleaned

• "That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full." Please mark this down in your mind. Blessings always follow obedience. And the truth is the family, the church, the community, the society that obeys the word of God and serves and honors and worships him in spirit and truth will always be blessed.

  #54 | 42:18 to 42:54 | cleaned

• Now, let me point something out. One of our biggest problems is not a lack of blessings. One of our biggest problems is a failure to recognize those blessings because we're blessed with such abundance and so regularly that we often take all of these blessings for granted. Think about the rain. Think about your garden. Think about fruits. Think about your animals. Think about life. Think about health. Think about your family.

  #55 | 42:56 to 43:37 | cleaned

• You know what the Bible says in Acts chapter 14 and verse 17, listen to this. "Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." When's the last time you thanked God just for the ability to enjoy your food? I'm just simply pointing out the fact we have an abundance of blessings. We just fail to realize them. The common, ordinary, everyday blessings are witnesses to God's goodness. And you will have an abundance of those blessings in any society, any family, any church, any community that obeys God's law and worships him.

  #56 | 43:38 to 44:32 | cleaned

• Now, I want you to look fourthly very quickly in verses 16 through 21, Deuteronomy 11. Here's the fourth thing. The community, the society, the church, the family, this little bit of heaven on earth is a community where emotions, feelings, and dispositions are subservient to the word of God. Look in Deuteronomy 11, verse 16. "Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you."

  #57 | 44:33 to 45:22 | cleaned

• "Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth." In other words, God's Word was to be constantly and continually before them. They were to hide His words in their hearts, keep them in plain sight, teach them, recite them, place them on the walls of their homes, and instruct their children in His law.

  #58 | 45:23 to 46:21 | cleaned

• His precepts, His principles were to be the joy of their lives, the director of their steps, the path for their feet, the controller of their thoughts and emotions and dispositions. Let me give you an illustration. Every one of us, each one of us has been hurt at one time, and usually it's by another Christian. We get our feelings hurt. We get angry, we get mad, we get bitter, we get resentful, which are all sins. So if Steve says something that I do not like, and it's not that I just don't like it, I think he's slamming me.

  #59 | 46:21 to 47:17 | cleaned

• What am I to do? Am I to sit here and say, "Mm-hmm, yeah, I know what he means. I'll bet you a nickel that's what he means," and I'm just building up something in my mind. You know what the Bible says in Matthew chapter 5. He said, listen carefully. "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." So in this passage in Matthew chapter 5, verses 23 and 24, I don't have anything against Steve. Steve has something against me. And I just remember it.

  #60 | 47:19 to 48:01 | cleaned

• What does God tell me to do? Go and be reconciled to him. And then come back and offer my gift. When you get to Matthew chapter 18, he says, "Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother." So now Steve doesn't have anything against me. I've got something against him. What do I do?

  #61 | 48:02 to 48:30 | cleaned

• I go and confront him. I say, "Steve, did you mean this? This is the way I interpreted it. Is that how you meant?" Let me tell you something, folks. I can say many things and so can you. And everything that we say can be misinterpreted. And the only way that I know what Steve means when he says something is to ask him. "Did you mean it as a slam?"

  #62 | 48:31 to 49:01 | cleaned

• "No, I was joking with you." Why in the world will we not confront each other? This is the point I'm trying to make. If you're going to have a church, if you're going to have a family, if you're going to have a society, if you're going to have a community that's going to be a little bit of heaven on earth, you better make sure that your emotions, your dispositions, your feelings are subservient to the Word of God.

  #63 | 49:02 to 49:27 | cleaned

• Instead of me building up enmity in my mind against Steve, I go to him. He comes to me. We reconcile. We work it out. It's just that simple. May I remind you of something? Ephesians 4, 26 and 27. Listen to this. God says, "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath." That is, get it settled before the day is over. The next verse, verse 27, says this, "Neither give place to the devil." So when we let our feelings and our emotions and our dispositions get in the way of obedience to God, we're giving place to the devil. If you want a family, if you want a church, if you want a community where envy, bitterness, resentment and anger do not abide, then you must learn to subjugate your feelings, your emotions and your dispositions to the word of God. Because when you fail to work things out on a daily basis, you're just allowing the enemy to have room in your life and you're building up bitterness and resentment in your life.

  #64 | 49:27 to 50:40 | cleaned

• Now, this is just one illustration. There could be hundreds of them. So let me give you another one. You see, anytime you are living close to people, there's always going to be someone that'll rub you the wrong way. And you have to learn to settle it. Here's another thing. If you want a church, if you want a community, if you want a society that is free from fornication, adultery, and sins of the flesh, you have to learn to be content with the spouse that God gave you.

  #65 | 50:40 to 51:25 | cleaned

• That's what he said in the book of Proverbs chapter 5, he said, "Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love." In other words, you're not going shopping, you're not looking around. I've often said to Alice, "Why would you go shopping when you can't afford one? Why would you go looking around?"

  #66 | 51:28 to 51:58 | cleaned

• We have to learn to be content with that which God has given us. And when you have a community, a society where people are living together, you better make sure those emotions, those feelings, are brought in subjection to the Word of God, or else you will have trouble, period. One last thing, I want you to look in Deuteronomy 11, if you would, verses 22 through 25. It is a community that experiences not only the providential protection, but it also exhibits a dominion attitude in subduing all things for Jesus Christ. So Deuteronomy 11 verse 22.

  #67 | 52:02 to 52:50 | cleaned

• He says, "For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; then will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours."

  #68 | 52:50 to 53:14 | cleaned

• "From the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be. There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you."

  #69 | 53:15 to 53:35 | cleaned

• Now, here is a very important point. The perfect community is the community not only that experiences the providential protection of God, but has a dominion attitude in subduing all things to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen carefully. Before we can exercise dominion over others, before we can conquer anyone else or anything else, we must first learn to conquer ourselves. You can't jump to point five and leave out the first four points. You're never, ever going to have a dominion attitude, nor are you ever going to conquer for Jesus Christ unless you learn to have mastery over your flesh, your feelings, your emotions, and you learn how to bring every thought into captivity to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you've never learned the truth of Romans chapter 6, I would encourage you to learn that truth.

  #70 | 53:36 to 54:49 | cleaned

• Where the Bible teaches that we are free from the dominion of sin doesn't mean that we're not sinners. He says, "Let not sin have dominion over you." In other words, sin may be in us, but it does not dominate us. And if you read Romans chapter 6, you will find out that Jesus Christ freed us from the dominion of sin, we're no longer under the dominion of sin, we're now under the dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ. While we are sinners, that is a truth, there's another truth, and that is we do not have to sin. Sin cannot command me to jump and I ask how high. No, no, no. Sin has no mastery over me. The Bible says in 1 John 2 and verse 1, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." So I have an absolute right to say to sin, "I refuse that thought. I refuse those sensations and those feelings."

  #71 | 54:51 to 55:55 | cleaned

• "I will not do this. My allegiance is to Jesus Christ, and it's not to sin."

  #72 | 55:55 to 56:02 | cleaned

• Now, I want to make some applications, try to tie all of this together. The first one is this. Do not dismiss this message as the ramblings and rantings of an aged pastor. The truth is every family, every church, every community, every society must be ruled by some law. So the question is not, "Will you have a law for your family? Will you have a law for your church? Will you have a law for your community or your society?" That's not the question. The question is, "Whose law will you have?"

  #73 | 56:04 to 56:45 | cleaned

• And you only have two alternatives. You either have God's law or you have man's law. You're not going to run a community. You're not going to run a society. You're not going to run a church and you're not going to run a family on good ideas and altruistic feelings. No, no, no, no. You're going to have a law. And it's either going to be God's law or it's going to be man's law and no community, no society, no church will ever, ever succeed apart from God's law. Here's the second application. Listen carefully.

  #74 | 56:47 to 57:24 | cleaned

• If you cannot govern yourself, you will never be used of God to govern others. It's just that simple. Self-rule, self-control, and self-dominion are absolutely basic requirements for ruling over others. If you cannot do the lesser, what makes you think you can do the greater? Our Lord said through the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 3, talking about pastors, he said, "For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?" In other words, if you can't do the lesser, what makes you think you're going to do the greater? It's impossible. So the very first thing that you and I must do is learn to control our thoughts, our emotions, our lives and bring our lives in obedience, in submission, in subjection to the totality of the word of God.

  #75 | 57:26 to 58:32 | cleaned

• We can only work together and live together and help each other as long as we obey God's law. And he told Israel as they were about to go in the land, "If you'll keep my law. If you'll worship me. If you will receive my blessings. If you will submit and subjugate your feelings and your emotions to my law. I'll give you dominion. And you will have a little bit of heaven on earth." The perfect community or how to live with others is by living in obedience to the word of God.

  #76 | 58:35 to 59:33 | cleaned

• Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to thee. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your truth. We ask, Lord, that you'd prepare our hearts, that you would teach us, that you'd build us up in the most holy faith, and give us Your grace and Your mercy. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen.

  #77 | 59:35 to 59:55 | cleaned

• so

  #78 | 1:00:25 to 1:00:25 | cleaned

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-05T22:01:09Z