[0:00] Good morning. Good morning. Just so that you are aware, this coming Wednesday, there is going to be a vigil that takes place! starting at the Mason County Courthouse and then going down toward Stearns Park Beach where it will finish.
[0:23] And that starts this Wednesday, is it at 7? 6 p.m. So this Wednesday at 6 p.m. starting at the Courthouse. So if you are interested in joining us for that, you are welcome to do that.
[0:42] I want to start this morning by talking about the reasons why this, what's happening, hits so hard.
[1:01] Someone accused us in the last few days of idolatry because we're expressing some grief and some pain over what has happened with Charlie Kirk and his assassination.
[1:23] And so I thought it would be appropriate for us to, in a sense, look at why are we grieving? Why are we hurting? Why does this well up within us such pain and heartache?
[1:39] And frankly, it's not just what happened with Charlie Kirk. It's also some other recent events that we will be talking about as we go along.
[1:50] But, and I've got a list of 10 reasons. This is from a pastor in Arizona, Ryan Visconti.
[2:02] And I thought his list was spot on. Number one was the idea that good versus evil, the spiritual war that is taking place all around us, that for the most part we don't notice, undeniably has spilled into our real life.
[2:24] That spiritual war, we saw it take place with our own eyes in a couple of instances. It's not just a theory for us anymore.
[2:37] It's, there's a reality behind it that maybe we didn't notice before. Number two, that Charlie was killed for holding the same beliefs that every Bible-believing Christian Christian holds to.
[2:56] That's important. That means that any one of us would have been killed for the same reasons. And we recognize that with, with Charlie.
[3:07] The third reason, Charlie was uniquely gifted. I don't think there's any question about that. His ability to speak into the lives, particularly of young people, was quite remarkable.
[3:19] And yes, he was a political figure. Yes, he spoke into the world of politics. But what gave him hope, what he spoke of so often was his faith in Christ, his relationship with Christ.
[3:36] That's what emboldened him. And that's what he spoke of so much. And that's why we have seen in our nation in the last few years, a resurgence among young people to come back to faith in Christ.
[3:54] And he's like one of the captains of the team, if you will. And when you lose someone like that, it's, you know, there's going to be an impact with that.
[4:07] His murder was gruesome and it was public. Some of you saw the footage. It's degrading for someone who is an image bearer of God to be subjected to the way that he was killed in that way and in that manner.
[4:30] In a sense, death is humiliating for everyone because we are image bearers and we were created for immortality and death reminds us that we are sinful.
[4:45] And that sin that we all are guilty of is the cause of our death. That's true for all of us. One of the things that's been very disturbing is the evildoers among us that are delighting in the evil, celebrating his death.
[5:07] Progressive leftists and their demons are celebrating. It is offensive. It is wicked. We'll talk more about that as well. We sympathize with his wife and children, his family.
[5:27] We cannot imagine his wife's horror, her pain, the children, all of it.
[5:41] It is heartbreaking. Many of you feel like you knew him because of how many videos you watched of him.
[5:52] Scrolling through your feed, he was a master at social media and at debate. He did it in a kind way.
[6:04] He did it in a fun way. He did it in a way that was very persuasive. And that's a part of why he's now gone. They didn't have an answer for much of what he said.
[6:19] And so rather than try to debate him, they killed him. He represents the American dream, right? I mean, even as a teenager, he had this dream of building this movement that he was successful at building.
[6:38] And wow, that speaks to the promise of that American dream. He was a self-made guy. And from a young age, he went into it collecting resources and wanting to change the world.
[6:56] And in large part, he did that. He was young, he was healthy, he was strong, and his life was cut short. It reminds us that our lives, too, are fragile.
[7:12] There is no guarantee of old age. There is no guarantee that we will finish this life the way that we think. Tomorrow is not promised for any of us.
[7:25] And then finally, there's nothing that we can do to bring him back. There's nothing that we can do to fix it. And we want to fix it. We want to do something to address what's going on.
[7:38] And so I believe that you are allowed to mourn the death of someone like Charlie Kirk. And even if you've never met him, you personally don't know him, I think it's justifiable for us to mourn.
[7:55] I think it's justifiable for us to feel a righteous anger over what has happened. And so we will talk further about not just what happened with him, but also what's been happening the last few weeks, really the last few years, what has been happening in our country.
[8:19] And it's been something that's been heading this way for probably a few decades. Seeing a picture like this is heartbreaking.
[8:32] Knowing what Erica, his wife, is going through and his children, it's hard to imagine.
[8:44] This was another incident that happened a little over a week and a half ago. Irina Zarutska, Ukrainian immigrant, came to this country to escape the war and was brutally stabbed in the neck, seemingly at random.
[9:02] Why would something like this happen? The man who perpetrated this crime had been arrested 14 other times with violent crimes, not jaywalking or shoplifting, but violent crimes.
[9:22] And continually he was let out, let back into the streets to do this again and again. We saw what happened in Minnesota recently with the person who was caught up in the confusion and the radicalness of the trans movement who shot up a school, killed two students.
[9:49] Why? Why does something like this happen? In Chicago and other large cities, there's rampant crime and violence and murder that goes on seemingly over and over and over again and nobody cares.
[10:13] In Chicago in particular, it is black on black crime and nobody seems to care. Why is this happening?
[10:24] Why is it going on like this? Also, you see it in the responses to things that are happening. Here is a picture of what happens when Charlie Kirk is assassinated.
[10:38] People are gathering to pray, to have vigils, to mourn. But if you remember five years ago when George Floyd died, this was the response of people, again, on the progressive left.
[10:58] And many of our leaders justified this violence. Why? What's the difference between the two?
[11:12] We'll talk about that. Black Lives Matter, which came into existence a while ago, but it became popular in 2020 during the response to George Floyd's death.
[11:31] And his death was tragic. It was not murder. He was overdosed and died from that overdose. The outcry, the scapegoating was part of that movement.
[11:48] The official Black Lives Matter account put out a statement concerning the murder of Irina Zerutska by saying that black people have a right to violence.
[12:06] Why? Why is that acceptable? You have to understand that when critical race theory, which is a part of the Marxist movement, Marxism has an impact in our culture in ways that sometimes we don't realize.
[12:27] We often think of Marxism as an economic system that has failed, but there is a cultural aspect to Marxism as well. Part of that impact has to do with critical theory, critical race theory.
[12:43] And critical theory, they believe that there are not just right and wrong. In a Christian worldview, we believe that there is a right and a wrong and a good and an evil, and there is a way to address that, to question that, to debate that.
[13:01] which is what Charlie Kirk was doing. That's what he was guilty of. He was guilty of debate, of having conversations with people, that he was open to dialogue and open to people questioning him and challenging him.
[13:17] But with critical race theory, it's not right versus wrong. It's oppressors versus the oppressed. And in that mindset, people aren't just wrong.
[13:33] They're evil oppressors who must be stopped. And so anyone who has been indoctrinated with this kind of mindset, this critical theory that teaches that, no, your enemy is an oppressor.
[13:47] They're the ones that are holding you down. And it's appropriate. It is a right response to use violence to silence your oppressors.
[13:59] We have been seeing this in the last number of years as people have been calling their political opponents Nazis, fascists, threats to democracy, all of these kinds of things.
[14:16] And it's coming from one side. The idea that, well, we have to play both sides of this and both sides are guilty. That's not a correct view of the facts on the ground of what we've been seeing.
[14:31] There are some progressive, hardcore liberals, they're Marxists who absolutely refuse to stop saying that their political enemies are Nazis, are fascists.
[14:52] Let me ask you a question. If you were in the Netherlands or Holland in the 1930s and you knew someone who was going to come in and be a Nazi and oppress and kill you and put you down, would you take up arms against the Nazis?
[15:14] That would have been an appropriate response, wouldn't it? And so from their worldview, from their perspective, when they call a political opponent a Nazi, it is an appropriate response to take up arms against that.
[15:31] It's exactly what we have seen and it's exactly what we're seeing. Charlie Kirk wasn't the first. I don't know if he will be the last. Even in response to Charlie Kirk's murder, people have been coming out of the woodwork online.
[15:52] social media is in itself a sickness. It identifies things in us that would otherwise go unnoticed.
[16:06] And there are so many people now, and it's not a tiny fraction of people. Be aware of that. So many people who have come out and celebrated, cheered on his murder, his assassination, his death.
[16:25] T-shirts being made up with his image and a wound in his neck, a cartoon image of Charlie Kirk with a wound in his neck celebrating his murder.
[16:38] You may have noticed even some of your friends or acquaintances online, on social media, saying things as a way to celebrate his death.
[16:49] Here, this person, this is on X, what used to be Twitter. This is me liking every tweet making fun of Charlie Kirk and his death.
[17:01] And it has well over half a million likes. This is no small movement. This is no small, tiny, deranged group of people who are sick, because of their glee and their celebration.
[17:23] This is a significant portion of the people around us. A lot of them, a lot of what they're finding is that it's teachers and professors and educators, people involved in education, medical professionals.
[17:43] professionals. This is what we're dealing with. This is the reality of the world that we live in now.
[17:57] And so, when we look at all of this, there's two questions that we've got to work through in all of this. And the first question has to do with this.
[18:13] Why would these horrible things happen? Why? And there is an easy answer to this, but we're not going to just stop with the easy answer.
[18:28] We're going to delve into this a bit more. But the easy answer goes all the way back in the beginning. Genesis chapter 2. God created Adam and Eve, and he put them in this perfect place, and he gave them just the one rule, the one law, and they couldn't do it.
[18:47] The Lord God commanded the man, saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
[19:00] And our world and our society has been dying ever since. We live in a world that has been corrupted by sin in unimaginable ways.
[19:14] We will be so blown away when we get to see the new heavens and the new earth as to not even recognizing it's the same world.
[19:26] God has recreated the same world, but it will be so different because we're used to this sin-sick, sin-impacted world, our own selves impacted by our own sin and all around us, all of creation impacted by that.
[19:46] And then the second question is this, how should we respond? What do we do with this? Where do we go from here? anger? Because many of us, including myself, I mean, there's shock, there's horror, there's grief, there's anger there too.
[20:04] What do you do with that? What do you do with that anger? And I'm concerned that some people will do some not so good things with that anger.
[20:19] We have to channel that in a godly way. The Bible tells us that it's right for us to feel anger in a situation like this.
[20:30] But then it also tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger. We need to make sure that we take this righteous anger that we have and bring it back to the Lord.
[20:43] And we'll talk about that as well. But first, the question of when a society goes bad, God. And that's basically what we have seen in our world.
[20:56] Why would things like this happen? It's because there's a society around us that has abandoned God. And we'll start with this, the danger of moral confusion.
[21:09] We certainly have that in our society, in our world, in our culture, a moral confusion versus a right and wrong understanding of morality.
[21:21] And this has been going on for decades. We see an extreme representation of that in our world today, but it's been going on for some time.
[21:33] Romans 1, verse 21, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. There's the abandoning of God. And then the consequence, they became futile in their thinking.
[21:45] the way that they think is futile. Their foolish hearts were darkened. They're not led by, they're not able to follow the truth of God's word because they've abandoned God.
[21:59] And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. Understand that God is not saying here that he is directly punishing people for their immorality.
[22:15] He's just letting them go. Allowing them to reap the consequences of their actions and of their mindset. That's what we've seen happening in our country, in our world.
[22:29] They were filled with all, and I'm just highlighting a few of these in the context of what we're talking about today. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness and evil and covetousness and malice, full of envy, murder.
[22:46] Yeah, we've seen that. Strife, deceit. It's interesting that for someone who is a Marxist, lying and deceit is part of the game.
[23:02] Understand that. That much of what you will see in media and from politicians is just bold-faced lying.
[23:15] They know it. They don't care. If they can lie to get their agenda passed, if they can lie to get their way, they will absolutely lie right to your face.
[23:30] That's part of their strategy. It's part of their tactics. Matter of fact, Islam is the same way. I can't, if I was an Islamic, if I were a Muslim, I could not lie to another Muslim.
[23:44] I could not deceive them. But if this person is not Muslim, I can lie to them, I can beat them, I can rape them, I can do whatever I want to them. It's perfectly fine in a Muslim point of view.
[24:02] This is what we're dealing with. As a nation, why are we allowing the people to come into our nation who want to do these things to us? Why would we do that?
[24:18] There's something behind that too. Again, in Romans 1, they're gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil.
[24:29] Have you seen some evil? What in the world is that? That's what they do. Find new ways. Disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
[24:45] We've seen that on display. All of that. So in our country, we see it in a number of ways. The first way is when people invert good and evil.
[24:55] Excusing the guilty while condemning the innocent. This is again on display in your nightly news or your news feed or whatever.
[25:09] And again, God's word speaks to this. What are those who call evil good and good evil? They switch the two, right? Wasn't that long ago that what was evil, we considered evil?
[25:23] evil? Well, now in our culture, it's perfectly acceptable to say something that was once considered evil to now say, oh, no, this is wonderful. So, butchering a 12-year-old or a 14-year-old kid for the sake of transgender ideology would have been considered evil not that long ago.
[25:45] but now it's celebrated and pushed and profited from. Who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
[25:59] We see this over and over in our world. When justice is perverted by corruption or with bias, and we see this in our justice system today in our country.
[26:19] Isaiah 5-23 again, what are those who acquit the guilty for a bribe, deprive the innocent of his right? We have been seeing this happen more and more and more in recent years.
[26:34] And there is corruption at hand. the murderer in Charlotte on the train station was arrested and convicted 14 times.
[26:50] Why do we have prosecutors, why do we have judges who come up with brilliant ideas like cashless bail and just putting people back out on the streets, just candidates for the mayor of New York.
[27:06] He wants to empty the prisons. It's like a Batman movie where they're opening the asylum and just dumping them on the streets. And you got people that are like, yeah, that's a good thing.
[27:19] Come and murder me. What is wrong with us? And where is this corruption coming from?
[27:30] Or people, if it's a good idea, but the other side proposed it, no, can't do that. I want to show you something from, this is from 2018.
[27:42] From the AP, no bastion of conservatism, right? George Soros funds movements to disrupt communities. How is it that highly organized protests against President Trump keep popping up across the country?
[27:57] This is in Trump's first term. I don't know if you remember that. These protests would pop up seemingly overnight, and they'd have all these professionally made signs, and they'd have blocks that they could use to throw, and other weapons and protective gear, and the article says follow the money.
[28:18] Why is it that the traditional definition of marriage was suddenly discarded after years of citizens voting for it to be preserved? Again, follow the money. The whole article is about follow the money.
[28:29] This was seven years ago. Let me ask you a question. Do you think it's gotten better or worse? These prosecutors and these judges are getting money funded by the likes of George Soros and that element whose purpose is to destroy our country through chaos.
[28:56] And so you have, again, once again, celebrated judges and prosecutors and a legal system that is designed to just set people free.
[29:07] So I can commit a crime against Eric here in the morning, and then I can come back in the afternoon after I've been let out, because I don't have any cash, I can't make bail.
[29:19] Well, we're not going to require bail for you. So even though I beat the tar out of Eric earlier, I can come over here and beat the tar out of Dave in the afternoon, and that's actually happening.
[29:33] Why? Why? Why? That's not justice. When violence is excused, justified, and even celebrated, and that's what's happening today.
[30:00] Well, they've got a mental problem, they're mentally disabled, or what, okay, that's fine, why are they on the street?
[30:13] Especially if it's a mental instability that leads them to violence. That doesn't make sense. again, Romans 1, verse 32 this time, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.
[30:36] Yay! This is what happens when a society abandons God. will be will be will be will be will be and we have seen and witnesses of this for too long.
[30:55] Here's another element of this, the consequences of delayed justice. Even when we see justice happen, but it takes years, sometimes decades to happen, what is the point of that?
[31:09] People have forgotten why this, you know, every once in a while you see something come across about some criminal out some state somewhere who got put to death for some crime back in 1979. What?
[31:23] Nobody even remembers that. How does that serve any purpose? So when the sentence, this is Ecclesiastes 8.11, when the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people's hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong.
[31:39] I mean, it should be obvious to us that this is what happens. And yet, over and over again, our society says, no, God's word is wrong. God's word is wrong.
[31:52] We can't follow God's word, because that's separation of church and state and all this other stuff. No, that's a misunderstanding, misapplication of all of it.
[32:07] And so when justice is delayed, it emboldens further evil and violence. And yes, we have seen the consequence of that as well. Thirdly, the outcome of abandoning God's design, and we see this in, again, Isaiah 59, their deeds are evil deeds and acts of violence are in their hands.
[32:37] Their feet rush to sin. They're swift to shed innocent blood. This is a description of what's happening in our culture. And understand, we live in Little Mason County, right?
[32:52] So we don't see some of this. We don't see much of this. And frankly, sometimes criminals, criminals, they're not so mentally disabled that they haven't figured out that a lot of you have guns, which is a good thing.
[33:12] It's part of why we haven't seen it in a place like this and in other places like this across the country. They know they can go to big cities and find helpless victims all over the place.
[33:26] And that's what they do. they're swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes, acts of violence mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know.
[33:37] There is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads. No one who walks them will know peace. Even those who want to choose to live according to God's plan, according to God's design.
[33:53] We too will not know peace in this kind of society. We can't. So justice is far from us. Righteousness does not reach us.
[34:05] Anybody feel that way today? We look for light, but all is darkness for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. And that's how it feels.
[34:20] so again, when violence and crime runs rampant, it reveals a breakdown in God's divine mandate. we'll look at that mandate momentarily.
[34:36] So now the question is where do we go from here? What do we do? What do we do with this? It's now three, four days after what happened with Charlie Kirk.
[34:51] It's been a week and a half since Charlotte light train murder. couple of weeks since Minnesota, Chicago violence. That's kind of in the back burner right now because of everything going on, but it's still happening.
[35:06] All of this violence, we got to remember who we serve. And we got to remember that God is sovereign. God is absolutely in charge of this world.
[35:19] who has spoken and it came to pass unless the Lord has commanded it. Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
[35:30] Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? You and I, we're all guilty too.
[35:46] And it's only by God's grace that we have been forgiven and we have been brought into right relationship with the Lord. And we can rejoice in that.
[36:01] But we need to understand that the world is broken. But none of this is shocking to God. God was not shocked by what happened this past Wednesday.
[36:13] It did not catch him by surprise. God was not in heaven. Oh, no. No. He is sovereign.
[36:25] And he will bring in his righteousness, and this is key, in due time. And we don't like that.
[36:42] But this is often what the scriptures counsel us to do. But as for me, I will look to the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation.
[36:52] We sang about that this morning. I will wait for you. I will wait for you. We struggle with this. We lack patience.
[37:05] But God in his timing is always perfect. Psalm 37, in just a little while, I like that, in just a little while. Understand, from the viewpoint of eternity, it is.
[37:20] Right? Does that make sense? From the viewpoint of eternity, it's just a little while. The wicked will be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
[37:31] But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. this is coming. This is absolutely coming. We know this. It is his promise.
[37:43] Everything that he has promised up to this point has come to pass just as he declared. This too is coming. But it's going to be a little while.
[37:56] We have to wait. Again, this is from 2 Peter in the New Testament, but according to his promise, we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
[38:09] We may not see righteousness in this age, but in the next we absolutely will. We will dwell in it. We don't have a clue what that's going to look like, but it's coming, and we can look forward to that.
[38:25] Secondly, we must continue to champion justice. Now, sometimes this word gets a bad rap, in our culture, and I understand why, but justice from a biblical perspective is absolutely needed and necessary and something that we should champion, but not justice from what is so-called social justice, the idea of equity, that everything has to be even, that kind of a mindset.
[38:57] That is not a biblical perspective. objective. The idea that justice should be carried out based on a skin color, instead of a merit or what is deserved.
[39:12] So we must continue to champion justice, kindness, and humility. Do these three things go together? Justice, kindness, and humility?
[39:26] We pretty much better say that they do, because there's a pretty famous passage of scripture, Micah 6, 8, that talks about this. He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.
[39:44] So we need to continue to be kind, absolutely. And actually when you look at the way that Charlie Kirk interacted with people, he gave them an open microphone, encouraged them to come up and challenge him and question him and allowed them to berate him and name call and all kinds of things, and he did it with a smile.
[40:08] No animus. We need to carry that. We need to follow through with that kind of mindset. To love kindness, to walk humbly, we need to be humble, because who we might consider our enemies, we need to remember that they are but victims of the evil one, caught in his trap, blinded, and that if not for God's grace, where would we be?
[40:44] We'd be in the same place. how dare we think that there's something within me that would be like, oh yeah, even if I wasn't a follower of Christ, I would still be a righteous person.
[41:00] Where does that mindset come from? I don't know. We must boldly proclaim the gospel.
[41:13] Charlie did this. I wish there were pastors who had the boldness to proclaim the gospel the way Charlie Kirk did. But we have pastors today of churches all over this country that don't do that.
[41:32] And that blows my mind. How is that possible? Again, this is a passage we looked at last week, Romans 1.16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
[41:45] And let me say this, I'm not ashamed of all of the gospel. There are some out there who are like, well, we have to share the gospel, but for them the gospel is all the good news.
[41:57] It's all the, well, Jesus loves you and he died for you and you just have to have faith in him. And there's no mention of sin. There's no mention of why you would need one of those.
[42:10] as in need a savior. Why is there, why would I need a savior? Because you're dead in your trespasses and sins.
[42:24] And we need to be willing to name the sin and not be ambiguous, not try to hide it, not try to play nice with the culture.
[42:37] If there's one thing that this young generation that Charlie Kirk reached, if there's one thing that they should teach us is that they want to know the truth. Don't sugarcoat it for me.
[42:50] Don't hide it from me. Don't beat around the bush. Tell me what is sinful. Tell me what is wrong. I will repent of it and trust Christ as my savior. But be willing to tell me.
[43:01] we have whole generations of preachers who are oh no we got a soft pedal.
[43:13] We don't want to offend anybody. It's not offensive to give people a message that will save them. We save We for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.
[43:39] But to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Jesus went to the cross to pay the penalty for my sin. For your sin. Let's be bold enough to proclaim that.
[43:55] We must boldly proclaim the gospel not compromise its truth or shrink back in fear or shame. I've mentioned this before and sometimes I wonder why I should even bring it up again but if you haven't heard there are some publications groups who wear a Christian label whole denominations some preachers that you may know that have just they're gone and they're not worth trying to save or Christianity today is one of them when
[44:59] George Floyd died this was the title of their article George Floyd left a gospel legacy in Houston did you guys know that drug addict there's a picture of George Floyd holding a Bible but the guy died in the midst of committing a crime and being arrested for it and yet this is how Christianity today wants to couch his death Christianity today with Charlie Kirk he's just an activist who championed MAGA doctrine which they may as well have said Nazi doctrine because in many circles MAGA equals Nazi or fascist or the enemy nothing about him being a
[46:02] Christian nothing about him being a preacher of the gospel even though he preached the gospel over and over and over if you watch his social media feed it's so much of what you see there is his declaration of his faith in Christ and his encouragement for you the reader to trust Christ as savior it's gone Russell Moore is the editor of Christianity today Russell Moore used to be the head of the ethics and religion commission something or other for the Southern Baptist Convention I remember when Russell Moore was considered a legitimate preacher of the gospel and something broke him and this is what he has become this is what he stands for now in his own social media posts referring to
[47:12] Charlie Kirk this is the kind of stuff that you'll find from his news feed the gospel coalition there are still some elements some preachers that are involved with the gospel coalition who are faithful preachers of the gospel but much of it has now been given over to this wishy washy we can't speak up too boldly we can't say sin out loud kind of mindset that doesn't do anybody any good I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation behold I have not restrained my lips as you know oh Lord I want this to be my testimony I would hope that you would feel the same I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart
[48:16] I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation!
[48:26] number four we must demonstrate love for our enemies we must to God I have had discussions in recent days about something that is known as the imprecatory Psalms how many of you know have you heard the phrase or the term imprecatory Psalms only a few imprecatory Psalms are laments from David in the book of Psalms Psalms where it's basically him wanting God to destroy his enemies the people that were battling against people who were coming up against Israel people who were enemies of David and
[49:27] David would cry out to God let me give you a little taste of this Psalm 510 make them bear their guilt O God let them fall by their own counsels!
[49:37] Because of the abundance! of their transgressions cast them out for they have rebelled against you gets worse than this Psalm 79 pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you and my question is okay for a New Testament believer is it okay for me to think this way hold on and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation understand that when you read Psalms like this and if you look up imprecatory just spell it like it sounds the hard K is the C letter imprecatory if you look up the imprecatory Psalms you'll see a lot of very violent language and response and it is absolutely acceptable for us to bring the anger that we have over this circumstance to God if there's one thing about these particular
[50:42] Psalms these imprecatory Psalms it is crying out to God for God to act not me because it is the justice of God that will execute correct justice over what is going on in our world today not me so we cry out to God perfectly appropriate for you to cry out to God in anger cry out to God in depression cry out to God because you're going to the one who can solve it you're bringing it to him and laying it at his feet and that's appropriate but you and I we have been called to love love our enemies we need to remember this from Luke 18 and will not God give justice to his elect to those who are saved that's what that's saying who cry out to him day and night will he delay long over them
[51:44] I tell you he will give justice to them speedily again in God's economy in God's eternal economy his justice is swift! love for our enemies to the point of even praying for their well being this is what we've been called to Matthew 5 but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven let me give you a scenario that I find fascinating this young man who shot Charlie Kirk in a violent way has been arrested and he's going to have an opportunity to hear the gospel is it possible for this young man to come to faith in
[52:51] Christ absolutely and it may be an appropriate so that he is executed for his crime that would be a just punishment and if he is after having put his faith in Christ Charlie and this man would be arm in arm together around the throne of God praising the one who saved them how does that sit with you you and I we deserve hell and it's only by God's grace that any of us that are saved so the idea of these two men in heaven rejoicing!
[53:46] together around the throne if that's possible it's what makes our own faith our own eternal destination of heaven possible it's his grace and his goodness and yes we ought to be praying for the salvation of Charlie Kirk's killer it's what Jesus taught us and I believe it's what Charlie Kirk would be asking us to do to pray that he would come to faith in Christ absolutely we must support and vote for candidates who will uphold expressions of the rule of law from a biblical worldview as our founders established I talked about this biblical worldview of the rule of law that because we've abandoned
[54:49] God we've experienced the opposite of that but this is what God has in mind for the rule of law for us as a nation let every person be subject to the governing authorities that's you and I for there is no authority except from God and that those exist have been instituted by God whether you like them or you don't God is the one who says!
[55:16] For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad would you have no fear of the one who is in authority and do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is God's servant for your good we've twisted this in our culture right we've twisted this would you have no fear of the one who is in authority then do what is wrong do what is evil and you too will be celebrated and lifted up and set free that's what our culture is receiving now but if you do wrong be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is a servant of God an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrong doer we were confronted this week again online by someone who was arguing that now is not the time for accountability and judgment that we have been called to love our neighbor and in their mindset and again understand it's oppressed!
[56:24] versus oppressor kind of mindset loving your neighbor and the government executing judgment are two diametrically! opposed things and I'm going to choose love your neighbor so the man who was guilty of the crime in Charlotte we need to show him love and understanding and let him go not carry out justice because now is not the time for justice it's a perverse view of love your neighbor as yourself and that's what I said before I deleted it if any of you follow this stuff online I will give someone a chance or two and have a conversation with them but once they start to go crazy I let it go and delete it and block it they don't need it we don't need it how can
[57:29] I love my neighbor if I set my neighbor loose in a community where someone could do that to them just sit behind them on a train and slit their throat how is that demonstrating love for my neighbor no understand showing love for my neighbor would be to lock up when someone commits a violent crime the first time we lock them up and put them in a place where they cannot do that to my neighbor that's how we show love for our neighbor and I don't have to agree with them this was another part of you you don't have to agree no I don't have to agree with my neighbor to show love I don't want my neighbor to be put to death our confession what we believe that's what our confession is what it is that we believe that we hold dear to don't let it be shaken because
[59:38] God is our foundation secondly let us consider how to stir up one another to love and to good works that's why we need each other so that when we meet together like this we're stirring up these ideas of love and good works good deeds we're encouraging each other to love and to do good we need that this lone ranger mentality in christianity just doesn't work and not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some we again we need each other this is why this command is given and when we do all of these things we will encourage one another all the more as you see the day drawing near yes Jesus coming back praise the lord for that some of us this week have said come lord jesus come we need you now and we want that to happen we look for that day when he will break through the clouds and all will be made right once again lord our hearts are broken i pray that our resolve would not be yes it is appropriate for us to grieve it is right for us to hurt i don't know that any of us ever met charlie kirk but we've seen so much and he has stood so faithfully let it let us not fall to the to the so many lies that are out there about who he who he was and and and what he represented and what he stood for help us to remember that the enemy is free to lie and we'll use that regularly as a tactic to discourage those of us who are followers of
[62:00] Christ but we keep our focus on what is true we keep our focus on your word lord we pray that we would be bold in our faith that we would not shrink back from sharing our faith the gospel of Jesus Christ all of it it's what people need to hear and it's what we need to be faithful in carrying out I pray that you would bring comfort I pray that you would bring peace especially for Charlie's wife and his family Lord for all of the people who worked with him Lord we pray for the family of this young lady that was killed in
[63:01] Charlotte Lord that that we would and that they would turn to you to explain to to to to find hope in the midst of such horror for the ones that are grieving the lost children we rejoice that the children are with you but Lord we have families friends that are left behind that are hurting and I pray Lord that you would bring them to the true gospel of Jesus Christ help us to reject religion to reject a rules based religiosity but to remember that it is only by faith through grace that we are saved we need you
[64:06] Lord we love you and we don't understand even now we've heard some of the the answers on paper spoken here today but Lord it doesn't it doesn't mean that oh we're all just going to be fine now but let us continue day after day to look to you to come to you to bring our anger to you to bring our grief to you and let us look forward with faith stand firm for what we believe for what we know is true let us honor you with the way that we live our lives and carry our testimony from this day forward so we love you we praise you and we ask all of this now in
[65:11] Jesus name amen you