[0:00] Sunny California. If you have your Bible, please turn to 2 Peter 2. We're going to be there in a moment. 2 Peter 2. We are taking our pilgrimage down to Southern California.
[0:20] And in spite of the fact that your weather has not totally obliged, we did enjoy some couple days that was in the low 60s or whatever, and that was quite a contrast to being in the low 30s back home.
[0:34] And then we're looking for the 20s this coming week when we get back. So this is great. I know it's cool for you. It's pleasant for us. We enjoy it. So we're not complaining, though I do enjoy seeing the sun every now and then, obviously.
[0:51] We're going to be looking today at a, I know we're, you know, we've got, this is the Christmas season. I see the decorations behind me and throughout Toby and Carla's house.
[1:02] Trees everywhere and lights and all that. And I love it. I enjoy it. Things progressing and getting closer to Christmas. But I'm not bringing you a Christmas message this morning in the least.
[1:13] It's going to be quite a bit different in that sense. And we're going to see some things I hope will be insightful for you and reveal some things to you about what we see in the world around us and also what we see possibly, unfortunately, in our own individual lives.
[1:30] Before we get started, I'm going to ask Brother Pfeffer if you'd lead us in a word of prayer this morning. Amen. Amen.
[2:02] Amen. Amen. So I'm in 2 Peter chapter 2, please. We'll start in verse 5. Read on down a few verses. The Bible says this, And spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, you can see this is not a Christmas message right off the bat, into ashes, condemning them with an overflow, making them an example unto those that should live ungodly.
[2:34] Those that should after or after should live ungodly. And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, for that righteous man dwelling among them, and seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.
[2:51] The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. What I want to talk about this morning has to do with the tragedy of tolerance.
[3:06] That's the title of the message, the tragedy of tolerance. It's a message to try to see how Lot, in these verses 7 and 8, those are really our text verses, how he came to accept an unacceptable situation, and how he came to tolerate an intolerable situation.
[3:26] And tolerance is the buzzword. And by the way, I want to bring something up right at the beginning, so you understand where this message is coming from. So, I preached this message.
[3:38] I resurrected it just maybe two years ago, I guess it was. But I preached it about, this summer will be 30 years ago. That's when I preached it. I preached it one time in our home church.
[3:50] Your pastor would have been a young lad at the time. Their teenager, I guess, at the time that I preached it. And I never preached it again until it just coming through.
[4:01] I was going to preach someplace, and it came up, and I brought it up, and I decided to use it, and I did. Since then, I've preached it a couple of times. But I want you to know this.
[4:13] Everything that I'm going to say are in my notes. These are my old notes from 30 years ago. And everything I'm going to say, I don't understand. I mean, we read this, and this is a lot older than 30 years old.
[4:24] Okay? These are just my notes. But it's based on things that we see in this word. So, the things that God showed me 30 years ago are things that we see around us today.
[4:36] Magnified, that much more so. In our face, that much more so. Some illustrations, obviously, will be more up to date than they were 30 years ago.
[4:50] But all the truths are just there. Tolerance. As I said, that's the buzzword for today, right? And it's been the buzzword for decades, obviously. It has to do in the circles of social restructuring.
[5:03] To be politically correct, you need to be tolerant of things. You know, different opinions, different viewpoints. Not to be open-minded, not to be narrow-minded, not to be so dogmatic.
[5:14] And typically speaking, the people that are asked or required to be tolerant nowadays are those that have some standards.
[5:27] And they've gotten those standards from this book. Now, whether they know it or not, they've gotten the standards from the book. But they're told to be tolerant of some other points of view that aren't necessarily what they agree with.
[5:40] So what is tolerance? When you look up Webster's Dictionary definition, you get this. You get an objective attitude towards those whose opinions, practices, etc., differ from your own.
[5:54] In other words, open-mindedness. Putting up with something that's not exactly approved. Accepting something that you don't necessarily approve of. Now, on one side, we all understand tolerance is a positive thing.
[6:08] On one side. I mean, those of you that are married, you learn tolerance. Because your spouse didn't grow up in the same home that you grew up in.
[6:21] So you learn different things. You learn her way of cooking. Or you learn his likes or dislikes. Or vice, you know, anything like that. You have to learn how to be tolerant.
[6:31] You have to learn how to be patient with some things. Gracious. Tolerate things. Not be so stubborn. Sometimes, you know, long-suffering is a good word. Forbearance is a good word along that line as well.
[6:45] And if you were, you know, because you live in this area, for instance, you might have somebody in this congregation that's an Angels fan. Maybe. But then you might have somebody else that's a Dodgers fan.
[6:58] Well, you have to learn to tolerate one another. In our household, we came from Chicago. There's also two teams there. And there's the White Sox fans that I grew up in a household, my brother.
[7:11] And due to our uncle, we were White Sox fans. Well, I married into a family that my wife's mother in her kitchen, you open up a door and there's a picture of Ernie Banks.
[7:22] They're Cub fans. And my wife has, in the last latter years, has resurrected that fondness. So I have allowed, she, somebody gave me, when the Cubs won the World Series a few years back, somebody gave me, a friend of mine, and I'm not so sure about how friendly it is, but he gave me a Cubs T-shirt because they won it.
[7:44] Well, I let her have it. And she wears it around the house. And I put up with that because I'm tolerant. She puts up with my White Sox hat because she's tolerant.
[7:55] So tolerance is a good thing. Now, nowadays, a way that tolerance is fed or taught or a way that tolerance is to be accepted is by changing definitions or changing wordings for things.
[8:10] It helps tolerance smooth it in. It helps, you redefine the terms. It helps to promote tolerance. So what the Bible calls something like fornication, ooh, you know, ugly word, fornication.
[8:24] Well, but that's not what the world calls it, right? I mean, you can't tolerate that. But if you just call it like living together, sexually active, well, that's more tolerable.
[8:37] You can put up with that. And then when you think of, you know, like adultery, you know, adultery, you know, the big A word, adultery, even going back to the one Hawthorne's book, if I recall, you know, the big A, adulterous.
[8:52] Well, but no, that's not what you say nowadays. It's just, you know, having an affair. That almost sounds palatable. Just having an affair. It's like having a cocktail.
[9:03] Well, I want to say cocktail. Shrimp cocktail. Having an hors d'oeuvre. That type of a thing. I listen to Sunday school, and I don't practice moderation in drinking.
[9:15] I abstain, though I will drink some water. So if you're going to have an abortion, no, no, no, no. I wouldn't have an abortion. But it's my choice.
[9:27] It's simply a woman's choice. That type of thing. Or, you know, again, if they're Bible words, sodomites or queers, well, no, no. You can't deal with those kind of words nowadays.
[9:38] It's just, you know, it's just an alternate lifestyle. It's just sexual preferences and things like that. And nowadays, with what we've seen in the last couple of years, you know, kids, and kids, and I don't have only kids, go out and steal stuff.
[9:52] And it's not stealing anymore. It's just reparations. Or it's just evening out the evils of capitalism. That they're ripping us off anyway.
[10:03] They're making a, you know, they're making a big profit out of it. So we're just equalizing things. So we're just taking what really belongs to us anyway. So you just tone down things. But listen, this is years ago.
[10:16] If you know the man, Lester Roloff. He used to have, you know, preacher, Southern Baptist preacher in, well, I guess he wasn't just Southern Baptist. He was an independent Baptist preacher in Texas back in the 60s, 70s, 80s.
[10:32] And he had some homes for boys and girls, et cetera, et cetera. And he really came up against the state and real problems. And he said this about the state of America.
[10:42] He said, it's become an insane asylum run by the inmates. How many have heard that before? Yeah, you know that. It's been around.
[10:52] An insane asylum run by the inmates. And I tell you what, when we walk out these doors, that is what we're walking into. It's an insane asylum out there today run by the inmates by all means.
[11:07] We've got a generation today in America and around the world that has just traded God's absolute standards of morality for relativism.
[11:20] Relativism. If it feels good, do it. If it's right for you, don't worry about what somebody, you can't judge me for what my, it's truth. It's my truth. And you have your truth.
[11:31] Relativism. And it's just, you know, it's a situation ethics. Live and let live. You know, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. All those types of things.
[11:42] Listen, Dr. Ruckman said it this way about this nation, believes toleration of sin. Listen, toleration of sin is a mark.
[11:55] It's not weakness. But he said, this nation, it's a mark of maturity and progress. That's what the world thinks. That's what America thinks.
[12:05] Toleration of sin isn't any kind of a weakness. It's just a mark of maturity and progress. Years ago, again, going back to the, when I penned this message, I remember back in York County, Pennsylvania, going down and going towards from where we were in Red Line, going up to the hospital on 74 into York.
[12:27] I remember billboards being there. That's where I picture them. You know, this lady in black velvet, whatever, laying out there. And she's, it's got, you've come a long way, baby. What was she doing?
[12:39] She was smoking. I don't remember the name of the cigarette or whatever it was, but the advertisement was, you've come a long way, baby. Yeah, you've come a long way.
[12:50] Now you can get cancer, lung cancer, just like anybody else. Emphysema and whatever else the case is, you've come a long way. But that's the idea, is it's maturity, cosmopolitan, it's advancement, it's being sophisticated, it's being modern, it's being tolerant.
[13:07] That's what's going on. But you know, sin is never a progression. It's a transgression. And sin is never maturity, but it's iniquity.
[13:19] And sin is never liberation. Bible calls it an abomination. We're never to get to the place where we become tolerant of things that God calls sin. And what we're going to be dealing with here is a specific sin because of Lot and what he gets involved in, and because of the city that he ends up being in, Sodom.
[13:39] And again, where we get the word Sodomites and Sodomy from today. Listen, Jesus said, he that commits sin is the servant of sin.
[13:50] You don't become free and modern cosmopolitan because you can tolerate sin whatsoever. No, you become the servant of sin. In our text here, there's something that's really interesting, I think.
[14:02] In light of where Lot ends up is what God calls Lot. Three times, God uses the word either just or righteous in verses 7 and 8.
[14:14] Look at the verses with me for a second. Three times, God refers to Lot as a just man, a righteous man.
[14:46] A righteous man. How did that man who left with his uncle Abram and left his homeland because God called Abram to a promised land, to another land, and he decided to live a life of faith, and he got up and he went with Abram.
[15:07] How did he get, when he started out on a pilgrimage of faith, how did he end up like we see in the book of Genesis where he lost everything?
[15:19] He lost most of his family. He lost his wife. He lost many of his children. He lost his home, his job, his reputation, testimony, everything out the door.
[15:30] How did that happen? Because what we see, it's a tragedy of tolerance. We're going to see two things that lead to tolerance. Two seeds, I call them. And then we're going to see two fruits of tolerance.
[15:43] And so I want you to look, though, again with me in verse 8. And it says here at the end of verse 8, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.
[15:55] He was vexed by the conversation, by the lifestyle, by the conduct that he saw in Sodom and in Gomorrah. And obviously the idea of the word vexed has to do with trouble, distressed, frustrated, afflicted, irritated.
[16:11] But a root of the word also gives across the idea to wear down with toil, to exhaust with labor. And the bottom line is what Lot saw about him and heard about him, troubled him, frustrated him, and just wore him down.
[16:34] And it wore him to the down, to the place where he was, there was that progression to where he started to accept it. Look with me now in Genesis.
[16:45] Let's go back. We're going to stay in Genesis. We might revisit our text for a second, but we're going to be in Genesis chapter 13. Thirteens in your Bible have an interesting take.
[17:03] So we're in Genesis chapter 13. I want to start in verse 8 to get the context. Obviously, Abram and Lot, they both have servants and they have herds.
[17:15] And of course, we know the story that their herdmen were fighting with each other. They were just too close. There wasn't enough land where they're trying to live together. So Abram tells them, you know, hey, separate.
[17:26] We're going to separate. You pick whichever side you want to go to. You go there and I'll go the other direction. So we're in verse 8. And Abram said unto Lot, let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee and between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we be brethren.
[17:42] Is not the whole land before thee separate thyself, I pray thee, from me? If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right. If thou wilt depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.
[17:54] So Lot says, all right, he's giving me first choice. I'm going to check it out. Lot lifted up his eyes, verse 10, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, that is, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.
[18:17] So it's a well watered area. You know what that's like around here. You get a well watered area. Things can be lush and grow. And if it doesn't have the water, it's going to be starched and nothing there at all.
[18:31] So now we're in verse 11. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east, and they separated themselves the one from the other.
[18:42] Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan west, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent, where? Toward Sodom.
[18:52] But now look what God says in chapter 13 and verse 13. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.
[19:06] So, brother, what's the first seed? What's your first seed that's leading towards tolerance? Simply this. It's exposure. Exposure. Lot left the man that was his stabilizing force.
[19:21] The stability in his life. He left Abram, and he went to a place, because it was well watered, it looked like a place that he could earn a living.
[19:32] I mean, he had excuses. Whether he heard the stories about Sodom and Gomorrah or not beforehand, whether it was known to him, what the character of the people were like, what the involvement was in that city, whether he was aware of it or not beforehand, he became aware of it.
[19:51] Why? Because of exposure. He pulled himself away from stability to go to instability, from what was acceptable to what was unacceptable.
[20:02] Let that be a lesson for us. You know, if you have a good place in your life, if you have a good church to come to, don't leave because of a job opportunity someplace else, and you say, yeah, but I can make more money there.
[20:20] But is there a good church? Well, I don't know. I haven't checked it out. Well, you better check it out. You say, why? Well, because of you and because of your family. I mean, if you have kids growing up, and they're looking up to mom and dad, and you pull them out of a place that you can be fed and grow and be used of the Lord and serve the Lord, and you say, well, because of money's sake, because I'm looking for the good, you know, the almighty dollar, I'm going to move over there.
[20:46] I'm going to go over there. Is there a good church? Well, I don't know. Well, you ought to find out before you would do something like that. You don't, if you're in a place of God's blessing, and God's blessing in your life, don't just opt out because of something that comes up.
[21:02] That's just not, that's not how God works. What we see in Lot's case, Lot left the man that was his stabilizing force because he saw the possibilities that were there in Sodom.
[21:16] He had his excuses. He had his justifications. You know, again, like I said before, it's a great opportunity. You know, you got to make a living, right? Great opportunity for him.
[21:28] But listen, what we have to be careful of is what we allow ourselves to get exposed to, whether it's in television, whether it's computers, whether it's these almighty things that we buy down to, whether it's friends, whatever it is, whether it's the books you read, the music you listen to, whatever it is, whatever you allow yourself to get exposed to, the places that you frequent, the friends that you might have, whatever you allow yourself, the exposure that you get, it's going to have an influence on you.
[22:05] And it had an influence on Lot. Now, I want you to, we're going to move, try to move quickly if we can. Listen, we understand one thing. We understand that exposure in and of itself is just inescapable.
[22:21] It's going to happen. You're going to see things, hear things, just because they just happen. They happen in front of you. You're not planning on it. You're walking someplace and you see something, or you hear something.
[22:34] But that's one thing. But to continually go back to that same place where you were exposed to it, that's another thing. All together. You know, exposure itself is unavoidable, just like this.
[22:47] You can have a temptation come through your mind. That is, you can have a thought. Let me put it back up. You can have a thought go through your mind. That thought in and of itself is not sin.
[22:59] It's how you act upon it. Whether that's going to lead you to sin, or whether you're going to say no to it. It's that crossroads that you're at. Am I going to go follow it? And then you start thinking about it, now it becomes sin.
[23:12] Forget about acting upon it. You've already sinned inside your heart. It's what Jesus said about adultery, right? It's not just the act, it's the thoughts, because you looked on somebody.
[23:24] So, but again, it's not the temptation itself, or rather the thought itself, in and of itself is not sin. It's what you do with that thought. So you can get exposed to different things, and see different things, or hear different things.
[23:39] And that in and of itself is going to lead you into toleration, but it depends on where you keep going back to it or not. Look with me now in chapter 14.
[23:49] I want to see a second point here. There's a progression. Look at chapter 14, and look, now we have a different story. This is where we have the, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah, and there's five other cities there, but they've been paying tribute to this fellow named Chetaliramir.
[24:05] And they decide to rebel against him, and they're not going to pay tribute anymore, so Chetaliramir comes down, and there's four kings, and they battle against them, and they defeat him in all for temporarily.
[24:15] But look with me at verse 11. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son.
[24:29] And look what it says now. Who what? Dwelt in Sodom, and his goods and departed. Now wait a minute. Didn't we read in chapter 13 that he pitched, in verse 12, he pitched his tent toward Sodom.
[24:44] But in the next chapter, where's he living now? He's living in Sodom. He's made a move, hasn't he? In other words, he allowed himself to get close to Sodom, and there was exposure.
[24:57] He exposed himself. He exposed his family, his kids, to the sin of what was happening and going on in Sodom. But not only that, he didn't just stay out there, and just briefly, once in a while, buy himself, go into town to buy and sell.
[25:14] All of a sudden, now he's plopped down, and he's living inside Sodom. What's happened? Well, undoubtedly, my take is, and undoubtedly, as he's there, and if he's growing crops, he goes to Sodom to sell them.
[25:29] Or if he's going to, you know, building something, he goes to Sodom to get materials to bring back. And so he's going back and forth, back and forth. And at first, no doubt, he was shocked by what he saw.
[25:43] It's kind of like being at the place we were at yesterday, at the farmer's market. And here's two guys holding hands, walking by. And I'm thinking, oh, man, get me out of here. I don't want to see this stuff.
[25:55] And on and on, you could go. And it, you know, he saw it, but maybe at first, he was shocked, he was repulsed, but guess what? He kept going back. He didn't just say to his family, listen, we're getting out of here.
[26:09] We're not staying here, because if we do, God's going to bring judgment on that place. We're getting out of this place. We're leaving here. He didn't do that. He stayed close by Sodom, kept doing his business to where he finally figured out it'd be better for me to live in Sodom.
[26:28] His exposure brought forth familiarity. Familiarity. That's the second point. All of a sudden now, it wasn't just as strange as it was at first.
[26:40] All of a sudden now, he wasn't as repulsed by what he saw as he was at first. Right now, he's no longer shocked anymore by what he's seeing like he was at the beginning.
[26:52] He's becoming more and more familiar with it. He's becoming desensitized to what he's seeing about him. He's become familiar with it.
[27:06] Now, there's a progression that's going on here. You don't need to turn there, but I want to just look at one place in the book of Psalms, chapter 1, not chapter, but Psalm 1, because there's a progression in Psalm 1 that I think we're all aware of already.
[27:22] And it says this, Blessed is the man that one walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor, number two, standeth in the way of sinners, nor, number three, sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
[27:38] Listen, you can walk with somebody. I mean, in other words, somebody can come up to you as you're walking and you weren't pals with them or whatever. They just kind of came up to you walking. Oh, hey, I saw you.
[27:49] Remember you from high school? Blah, blah, blah. But it's another thing if you stand around with them someplace. Now you're standing. Now you're talking. Now you're engaged in conversation.
[28:00] And then it's a whole other thing and all of a sudden now you're sitting down and say, hey, let's go out and get some coffee together. Let's go out and really get into it, get to know each other that much more. See, there's that progression or digression.
[28:14] You're walking, you're standing, and now you're sitting. And that's what he's done here. You say, well, is Lot, all of a sudden, is he a sodomite?
[28:27] No, that doesn't mean he's a sodomite like what he's around, but he's getting used to seeing it around. He's taking a different look at it.
[28:39] He's starting to listen to their arguments. He's starting to laugh at some things. I have a quote from years ago. It was a lesbian comedian on a talk show.
[28:49] She said, laughter will change the world. He said, what you laugh at, you cannot hate. Isn't that why we have the sitcoms?
[29:03] I mean, it's one thing to go back to Andy Griffith sitcoms and Dick Van Dyke, which were ones that my wife and I enjoyed watching when we were first married. I think they might have come right after each other around dinner time or something like that and we, so we watched them for a little bit.
[29:21] Hey, where it's at altogether is a different story now because now sitcoms are preaching to you and they get you to laugh over a situation. But it's a sinful situation.
[29:33] I'm not saying it's even a dirty joke, but it's a sinful situation. I remember, I won't tell you the, you know, give you the name of the show, but if I remember and then somebody saying about, you know, you're gay, you're queer.
[29:48] Oh, I'm not gay. Oh, well, not that there's anything wrong with that. So there's the punchline. There's the joke. Yeah, there is something wrong with it, but they get you laughing and you can't hate what you can laugh at.
[30:05] If sinners entice thee, what does the Bible say? Consent thou not. Flee also youthful lusts. That's what the Bible says. Listen, now let's go to chapter 19, please.
[30:16] Skip a couple of chapters. Go to chapter 19, please. Now we want to get to the third point. Those are the two seeds exposure and familiarity and they're going to end you up at tolerance.
[30:33] You say, well, how are we going to see that in this? Well, look at me, look with me in chapter 19, verse 1. There were two, there came two angels to Sodom and Eve and you remember this story here.
[30:44] God's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, et cetera, et cetera, if he doesn't find what? If he finds how many righteous? Ten righteous. We're going to get to that figure later on. Ten righteous.
[30:54] I'll spare it. Okay? If I don't, I'm going to destroy it. So the angels are coming to Sodom and even Lot sat in the gate of Sodom and Lot rose up to meet them.
[31:08] He said, what's it got to do with anything? How does this got to do with toleration? Well, wait a minute. Don't, if you read about the gate of the city in the Old Testament, that's where business affairs took place.
[31:20] You remember in the book of Ruth where Boaz is going to figure out a way that he's going to end up marrying Ruth? Or, yeah, Ruth, what do you do? You have to do, take off his shoe and, you know, there's a transaction involved there.
[31:35] But it's at the gate of the city. That's where business transactions were. That's where the civic life was discussed. Lot is no longer outside of Sodom looking in.
[31:49] He's not just inside one of the citizens, one of the business. he's all of a sudden now a businessman or somebody that's been moved up to become one of the fathers of the city.
[32:02] He's now looked up to. Now his advice is being asked and required. All of a sudden he's one of them. You say, well, is he queer?
[32:13] No, he's not. But he's one. He can schmooze with them, as you might say. He's arrived. He's mature. He's liberal. It's not his lifestyle, but he's broad-minded.
[32:26] Live and let live. We can coexist. We can do business together. We can figure out how to run this city the best way we possibly can. I can put up with it.
[32:37] They have their rights too. Got to go with the flow. Here's Lot saying, hey, listen, it's not the dark ages. It's modern times. How do we get to the place where we tolerate sin?
[32:51] How do we, you know, as I said, you expose yourself enough to it, you become familiar to it, and all of a sudden you tolerate it. You get to the place, I want you to listen to this, you get to the place where you're no longer alert to its danger.
[33:07] You get to the place where you're no longer sensitive to God's hatred of it, and you're no longer concerned with where it's going to lead you. Did you get that?
[33:18] Let me just repeat it. Repetition is necessary for the learning process. We're no longer alert to its danger.
[33:33] We've become desensitized. We're no longer sensitive to God's hatred of it, and we're no longer concerned where it's going to lead us. We won't turn back there, but in 2 Peter chapter 2, talking about Lot, he said, dwelling among them in seeing and hearing.
[33:54] And then he said, from day to day, day to day, he saw and he heard. Why is it? Why is it that now, in the last couple of years, why is it now you can turn a TV set on, and if you see the commercials that come up, why is it now that we've got the guys with the guys or the gals with the gals over and over and over again?
[34:26] Desensitized. Why do you have this? I don't, I don't want you to go into the company. It's been on for the last several weeks, month, whatever, maybe more. and two guys, well, they're, they're, you know, good-looking guys.
[34:40] They're not ugly. They're good-looking guys. And, you know, they're, you know, lib and glib and whatever else. And, but you can tell without them saying anything, you know what their lifestyle is.
[34:52] You can see it. Whether it's a holding of hands, whether it's the actions, whatever else. Why is that? And why do you have commercials where you've got, you know, again, same-sex couples and there's a kiss or whatever in the commercial.
[35:05] It's like, what is that? Why is that being pushed? It's preached on you and me. Why do they today, why, and they've had it for a long time, why is it that kindergarten kids need to be indoctrinated on sexual matters?
[35:24] Why is it that they want to bring into at least minimum second grade, if not earlier, gender identity? Why? It's the insane asylum run by the inmates.
[35:39] That's the way it is. It's, why, this is, if you're familiar with the man, Victor Davis Hanson, conservative author, I've, I know, I've seen clips and all videos on YouTube or on, I guess, Fox News, that kind of a thing, he said this, he said, the LGBTQ plus crowd has not won the masses.
[36:07] Okay, they promoted, pushed forth their issues, they haven't won the masses, and he said this, he said, their only hope is the children. So it's got to start with the children.
[36:19] And if you expose the children to that stuff, to where all, they get familiar with that stuff, they'll become tolerant. It doesn't end there.
[36:31] Because that's just, this is what's leading us to tolerance, and then we're going to see the fruits of tolerance. Even somebody like, now, not Chris Cuomo, but it was a couple, two years ago, Chris Cuomo, and what's the guy's name, is it Bill Mayer, something like that?
[36:48] They're both liberals, rank liberals, but even the Bill Mayer said something like this, in regards to this discussion about transvestites. And he said, three-year-olds should not be confronted with this.
[37:01] Well, good for him. But I mean, anybody with any common sense would surely have known that. You didn't have to go on TV or radio or whatever to voice that opinion. Anybody with any common sense would know that.
[37:15] You know what kids are supposed to be doing when they're kids? It's what, when we were here last year, around Thanksgiving, I think we were here, and Samuel had a ball game, had a baseball game, the fall league and all that.
[37:28] Well, before his game started, there was another game on the other, just to the left of it a little bit, another field, little kids, I mean, little goobers, little guys. You know, it's just cutest thing as anything, see them in their, all their uniforms and carrying a bat around and trying to hit the ball and whatnot.
[37:46] That's what the kids ought to be doing at that age. Running around, getting some energy out, and playing around and not this stuff of, well, you may be a he, but do you really want to be a he?
[37:59] You could be a she. Do you really want to wear, you could wear, I mean, this stuff is just unbelievable garbage that's going on. Now, move on. Chapter 19, looking down at verse 7.
[38:11] What's the next point? So we've gotten to tolerance, we've gotten to the place where a lot is saying, hey, you know, I mean, it's just, everybody's different. That's their truth. I have my truth, that's their truth.
[38:22] No, you know what? As we heard this morning, there's the truth. I am the way, the truth, and the life. There's no man, no man on the face of this earth through all the millennium will come to the Father but by me, Jesus said.
[38:37] That's the truth. There's not a matter of your truth and my truth, there's the truth. There may be your perspective, my perspective, there may be, you know, your, just your habits and whatever else, your point of view, that's okay, but not truth.
[38:54] It's not truth. Now we're in chapter 19. I want you to slip down with me to verse 7. Lot makes this comment and said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
[39:09] Brethren, how can two walk together except they be agreed? How do you call somebody brethren? It's one thing to work with them. It's one thing to even be involved in civic life but now you're starting to call them brothers?
[39:25] You've not only gotten, you've gone far from just being exposed to them and familiar with them to tolerating them. Now you've come to the fourth point and this is one of the fruits of tolerance and that's acceptance.
[39:38] See, toleration of queers was never the issue when that was coming out before. It was never the issue just tolerate us because that was just a means to a goal and the goal was accept us.
[39:53] We don't want simple toleration. We want and demand acceptance. That's the fruit. You get to that place when those little kids are being indoctrinated and the prop, we don't have a news network anymore out there.
[40:09] Maybe Fox to some degree but we don't. All we have is a propaganda news network. It's just propaganda. It's just spiels just put out to tell you know what you're supposed to believe and what you're supposed to know.
[40:24] When those kids get indoctrinated, they'll get to the place where they tolerate that but that's not the goal. The goal is to accept it.
[40:36] Accept it as their own lifestyle. You know, years ago, the military said, they said they had a policy that don't ask, don't tell. Right?
[40:47] You remember that? Don't ask, don't tell. So if you're lesbian, queer, whatever, don't ask them and don't volunteer because they'll let you in as long as they don't know.
[41:04] If they know, they might have to make, you know, do something else about it. But today, my, have we come a long way, baby. Now today, you can not only accept transgenders, but the military pays for the operation.
[41:21] We're progressive, haven't we? We're really moving. We're really cosmopolitan. We've really advanced. We're really mature and all. I've got something I pulled off the internet.
[41:32] Again, this goes back two years. But since we're in California, this is the San Francisco Gay Men's Choir. This is a backlash to what they considered some ironic humor.
[41:46] And the backlash came after a choir posted a video in which they sang about indoctrinated children into being more concerned about fairness and justice. They said this, you think that we'll corrupt your kids.
[41:59] This is their quote. You think we'll corrupt your kids. That if our agenda goes unchecked. Funny, just this once, you're correct. We'll convert your children.
[42:10] Happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly. You will barely notice it. You can keep them from disco. Warn them about San Francisco. Make them wear pleated pants.
[42:22] I'm going to pleat on my pants right there. We don't care. We'll convert your children. We'll make them tolerant and fair. Goes on to say, somebody commenting about this, the LGBT in 2010 said, no, we aren't interested in kids, you bigot.
[42:43] We just want to get married like you. You don't want the tax breaks. Well, that's not where they're at today by any means. The video also said was obviously tongue-in-cheek humor.
[42:56] And then it said this, after decades of children being indoctrinated and taught intolerance for anyone who is other from using the Bible as a weapon of reparative therapy, it's our turn.
[43:11] We have dedicated ourselves to the being role models, teaching, spreading the message of love, tolerance, and celebration through our music.
[43:25] Be tolerant. But if you are, keep in mind, their goal is acceptance. And that's all there is to it. And the last thing is simply this.
[43:35] Look down in verse 8. The last thing is imitation. So you've accepted that, not only tolerant of it, okay, live and let live, but now you've accepted it, and then you imitate it.
[43:47] You say, well, did the lot become a queer? No, but look at the fruit in his family. Look at verse 8. Behold, now I have two daughters which have not known man. Let me, I pray, that you bring them out unto you and do ye to them as is good in your eyes.
[44:07] Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that as a dad? That you would say, well, no, these two men that have come into my household, you can't abuse them, but I have two kids, two girls, young girls.
[44:21] They're not married. They haven't known any man, and I'll let them out to you and you can abuse them. Why? How is that possible that this is in his mindset? This is a young fella that left with Abram on a journey of faith, going to where God called Abram, and now he's in a situation where he's pushing his little girls on him.
[44:43] Not only that, look with me in verse 12. Here's what the angels say. And the men, these are the two men, the angels, the men said unto Lot, now listen to the, listen, what did they say?
[44:54] Hast thou here any besides? One group, son-in-law, two groups, thy sons, three groups, thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place.
[45:08] Well, look down with me in verse 14. And Lot went out and spake unto his, what, sons-in-law which married his daughters. Well, they mock him, whatever.
[45:19] So we know that there's these two girls at home that are unmarried, right? Two. We know there's, we know there's Lot and his wife, four.
[45:32] We know there's at least two sons-in-law because it says, plural, sons-in-law married his daughter, so at least two sons-in-law, two daughters, right?
[45:43] So what are we up to now? Lot, his wife, two daughters at home, two sons-in-law, two daughters, we've got eight. But look back at what the angel said.
[45:56] Hast thou here any besides son-in-law and thy sons? Now, you know, the angel got it correct, didn't he? The angel knew he had children, girls married, sons-in-law, son-in-law, but the angel also mentioned son.
[46:13] Lot didn't go to his sons, did he? Evidently, according to the angels, Lot had sons. He didn't go to them. Why? He knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with them.
[46:24] They were already under the imitation. They came, they went right through that progression. They were exposed to it, became familiar with it, they tolerated it, they accepted it, and they, no doubt, imitated it, right in his own family.
[46:40] You say, can I prove it? Well, I can't prove it beyond what we have here. But the angels said sons, and he didn't go to any sons, but he went to the sons-in-law.
[46:51] And you know what? If you add two sons to that other eight, you have ten. And Abraham said, if there's ten righteous in the land, will you spare it?
[47:02] He said, I know there's this, this, this, this. Honey, how many? Well, at least ten. There might even have been more sons than that. And God says, okay, I'll spare it if there's ten.
[47:13] And Lot thought, I've got good, I've got a good thing. I mean, I mean, Abram thought, I've got a good thing. I got Lot and his whole family, if they're righteous, God will spare the place.
[47:24] Whew! Because he didn't go down to five. And even if he'd gone down to five, he would only had Abram, his wife, and the two girls. It'd only been four.
[47:38] Imitation. That's the goal. That's the fulfillment. And then we see what happened later on when Lot's daughters thought there's no men around here whatsoever and they get his father drunk and have incestuous affairs with their own dad.
[47:54] And queers don't reproduce. They recruit. And that's what you have around you today. You say, well, how does this thing go? How does this thing happen? Let me just wrap it up with this.
[48:06] You know, you could, anything out there that when you first see it, it kind of shocks you. It could be hair thing. You know, something about the hair. I mean, nowadays, again, what shocks us anymore? Right?
[48:18] What shocks us anymore? I mean, yesterday when we were out, there was a fella that had his hair pretty much, well, kind of like mine. I guess. Had a short all over, but he had a, he had a big spike down the middle of his hair.
[48:29] It stood up about this tall. You know, it's probably within an eighth or a quarter, maybe a quarter inch thick green. Just this thing right across there, his own hair green.
[48:39] It's like, oh, okay, seen that before. But man, when you see things, whether it's, when I grew up and I'm in the 60s and long hair started coming down with the hippies and whatever else, I'm like, whoa, that's a guy?
[48:51] Well, nowadays, you know, it depends on, you know, it's the attitude, the way they comport themselves, whether it's, that's a guy? Saw one of them yesterday too. It's like, is he or isn't he?
[49:03] Is she or isn't she? Who knows? Only her hairdresser knows for sure. But listen, the first time you see, whether it's the tats all over the place, whether it's a certain type of clothing and all that, whether it's, you know, again, forgive me for this, but, you know, whether it's, I mean, when you first see it coming out and you see, you know, used to be tights on a lady, a girl or whatever else, they were something that was underneath to keep the legs warm or maybe for coloring or whatever as far as, you know, the lower legs, but they'd have a skirt of dress on, right?
[49:35] In tights. Oh, not anymore. Now it's just tights. At least they got something on top for a while. So whatever it is that you see that your first time you're shocked at it, that's what it is.
[49:51] You're exposed to it, you're shocked, but as you continually get exposed to it, whether it's on television, the internet, whether it's just being out and about in the crowd, all of a sudden then it's like, well, I've seen that before.
[50:05] You know, it's just, you know, it's not for me, but, and then later on it becomes, after a while you see it so much or it becomes, well, that's not so bad. Well, that kind of looks good on them.
[50:18] And then after a while it's, well, you know, I kind of like it. And then after a while it's, I want to imitate it. I want to be like that. I want to have that. And that's the way it works.
[50:29] How are you going to avoid it? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Avoid the exposure. Abstain from all appearance of evil. Keep thy heart with all diligence.
[50:41] Be sober, be vigilant, et cetera. Walk in the spirit, you'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Look for God's way out. Flee also youthful lust.
[50:52] God says he has a way out of temptation and we need to seek it when it comes. Listen, this is the problem and the tragedy of tolerance. Poor old Lot.
[51:05] Poor old Lot. He messed up when he stayed, got close to Sodom and he stayed there. That's where he messed up. Where are we in our lives?
[51:16] What do we allow? What do we allow ourselves to get exposed to? Whether it be via the phone, the internet, the television, whether it be friends or places we go to or whatever the case is.
[51:27] What do we allow ourselves to get exposed to? If you allow it, you'll become familiar. And in time, you say, not now, but in time, you'll become tolerant of it.
[51:41] Habits, speech habits, the things you see on the television and allow yourself all of a sudden at some point in your life or in the life of your children will become their habit.
[51:56] Our Father and our God, Lord, I thank you for what you outlined in your word. But Lord, I'm sorry that it's there at the same time, but it's a truth and it's what we see in our own lives to what we see in the world around us.
[52:16] And Lord, we have to be aware of it and alert and turn from it to not walk in it and become just like it or to see it replicate itself in our own families and in our own children.
[52:31] God, help us to be aware of what we see in the life of Lot that we would not replicate it or see it replicated within our church, within our friends, within our families.
[52:43] And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.