I Owe You - Part 3 (Romans 13:8-14)

We're back in Romans chapter 13, and uh, we've been studying verses 8 to 14. And uh, we've been looking at a message series titled "I Owe You." And uh, in this study, you've learned by now that not only do I owe you, but you owe me, and you owe one another the love and the respect that is native among brothers and sisters in Christ, in Paul's great treaty in the book of Romans, chapter 13.

And so, in verse eight, I'll read, and again, listen along. Uh, for time's sake, I'll read all the way through. Paul says, "Owe no one anything except to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet,' and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Verse 10, 'Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.'" Remarkable.

And do this knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.

Father, we pray for the Spirit of God, Your Holy Spirit, this morning, the very author of the Bible, the very one who dwells within we, the believer. Teach us Your word. And Father, we pray that in these last days, we would be people that are very useful in Your hands to acknowledge and to announce and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, that for God so loved the world, that He gifted His only begotten Son to us, that whosoever would believe on Him would not perish but have everlasting life. Thank You for the cross. Thank You for the empty tomb. And we thank You for Your presence in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, "Amen." You may be seated, church family.

And uh, I am going to trust you to be one who is a notetaker, and you can go back and review our previous studies, as today we are in part three of this section of scripture. We looked in part one, verses 8 to 10. I'm not going to go through the list of it again, but through 8 to 10. Those verses, we saw that you and I owe one another love. And then we saw in verses 11 to 12 that you and I owe one another our attention, that we are to invest in one another's lives.

And I know it sounds bizarre and strange, but you and I are in a church right now. This is one service. It's completely packed out, and there's people in overflow in other places outside. And you say, "Well, it's just too big." I understand that. Listen, I want you to know something. I'm not joking. I am not a fan of big churches. I got saved at a big church, but thank God, in that big church I got saved in, there was about 10 or 12 of us that communicated with each other our names and phone numbers. And the big church became very little for all of those years that Lisa and I were there. And that's a key, by the way. Don't look at this church as being too big that you can't experience love. What you need to do is do, uh, like how you eat an elephant, which I don't ever intend to eat, but they tell us that you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Uh, how about this for you and I to have just this group that you, I know you guys know each other because you all sit in the same spot all the time. And that you would get one another's names and phone numbers and begin to create a little text thread among the 10 or 12 or 15 of you. And you make this church get real small, real quick. Amen. And it keeps it, it keeps it small.

And uh, you want, you're going to want to do that because we've got to activate our love for one another in real practical ways. And again, we've been looking at that in detail. And uh, we pick it up in the closing arguments. You guys, at the end of verse 12, it is this, that you and I owe one another our attention. And in verse 12, it says at the end, it says, "The day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light." Please make note of that. This was the last, uh, installment, uh, in, in our meeting together last time, and that is helping you and I, uh, to be looking up. You and I should be encouraging each other to look up.

I find it interesting in light of all this Middle East news, even CNN is asking questions about looking up, so to speak. "Is this Armageddon?" They don't have a clue about the Bible. But when anything happens in the Middle East, they always ask the question, "Is this Armageddon?" Like they care. Because if they really cared, they would tell, they would start telling the truth. No. Um, if they really cared, they'd want to know who Jesus is. Uh, but no. Listen, in all that's going on in the world around us, the bottom line is this: As believers, we need to be very, very, uh, in tune with the time in which we live in. And the whole thrust there is that the day is at hand. And that's a sense of urgency.

And when Paul says, "Therefore," that means in light of all that's been said, recognize this. We need to cast off the works of darkness. This is a very militant declaration by the apostle. He's saying, "Christian, take inventory of what's in your life and around your life. And if it's dark in any way, if there is these sins or these avenues of temptation, shut them down. Go after them." Jesus put it this way. He said, "If your right hand offends you, cut it off." Now, he was speaking symbolically. I want to say to you, "Do not cut your hand off." Jesus is saying, "It's better for you to enter into the kingdom of heaven with missing a hand than it is to let your hand go grab all that it wants to grab and wind up in hell." He says, "If your eye offends you, pluck it out." He's not saying, "Pluck out your eye." He's saying, "Be single-eyed toward Christ, not divided in your vision about following God and being in the world." In other words, Elijah put it this way, "Choose today at this Mount Carmel experience." Joshua said it regarding myself and my family. He said, "You guys pick, but we will serve the Lord." It's a great moment of decision. And every single one of us as believers have got to come to that place. And by the way, even if you're an atheist or an unbeliever today, or maybe you're a religionist, you still have to come to that point. You either choose to follow Christ in reality or not. The choice is yours. But just know this: God provides the opportunity of choice, but you choosing is on you. And we want you to choose. And God wants you to choose light and life.

In 1 Peter chapter 4, 7 and 8, the Bible says, "But the end of all things is at hand." Another declaration of urgency. "Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers and above all things have fervent love for one another." You see that, church? That's what we should be doing. What do we do in light of these end-time events in the world in which we live in? We are to love one another. And here's the fun thing about that. The crazier the world gets, the more that you and I need to apply the effort to love one another. Listen, the temptation to pull back when things get scary is a sin. If Satan can scare you by saying "boo" and you recoil, he wins. But when the world shows its darkness, the believers to stand up because listen, we are wrapped in light. We worship a God that is light, and God has given us the light of the world, the answer that the world needs.

And so, this casting off of the darkness, I, before we leave this final point here and move on, uh, to the third installment today, it's this. How do you cast off these works of darkness? And I made mention of it in closing last time, and it's simply this. Will you write it down? You pray them off. Thank you. God bless you. Lee, you pray them off. Pray them off. Darkness comes. How do you fight it? You fight it in the realm of the spirit. Friend, listen. When darkness comes into your life, you can't go to a 12-step program for that. The Bible tells us, and Jesus made it very clear, that evil will attack us. Temptation will come. Satan is out to destroy your life, and he'll lie to you. He will cheat you. He'll deceive you. He hates you. I think it's pretty easy to make this conclusion that whatever God loves, Satan hates. And the Bible says that God loves you. And I find it always remarkable that God loves you, the believer. But doesn't God love the lost as well? Of course he does. But here's what's fascinating to me. If God loves all, then don't all get to go to heaven? No. God extends His love basically saying, "Make peace with me through my Son Jesus," but not all take the offer. And I'm sure that breaks the heart of God. But in our own lives privately, when darkness comes knocking on the door, we are to pray that darkness off. It's a discipline that we must do. And when you and I pray these dark things off, we do that until they're no longer holding any power over our lives.

In Matthew chapter 26:41, the Bible says, "Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." I love how honest the Bible is. God is saying, "Your flesh is weak." Can somebody say, "Amen?" Amen. Your flesh is weak. You pastor, you don't know me. You don't know how strong I am. You're weak. You can be as strong as a mountain, and you can fall like a feather to temptation. You can bench 400 lb, but you can't handle the woman who just winks at you, and you turn into a babbling idiot, and you just follow her like an ox to the slaughter. And your physical strength means nothing to the things of the spirit. Those are dark things, and they've got to be confronted with spiritual warfare. And you cast off the works of darkness. And we all know that the age in which we live in may be darker than any other time that we've ever seen before.

I wrote in my notes, it's in page three if you're tracking along. Satan is a master at talking us out of praying, is he not? He loves to talk us out of praying. "God's not listening." He tells me things like this. "Hey, Jack." By the way, you would think, you mean, what? Satan speaks to you? Satan speaks to all of us, but he's, he's quite effective because he uses our voice. And you would think if Satan speaks to you, he's going to say things like, "So, check." He doesn't do that. He speaks beautifully. I bet you when he spoke to Eve, it was very seductive. His voice. Have you ever heard somebody who's got a radio voice? What does it mean? Oh, you've got a radio voice. I don't. Some people do where they open up their mouth. It's like, I just want to listen to them. They should sell things. I think Satan has a radio voice. I think he can talk in such a way that he makes evil look good. He makes dark look light. And he'll speak. It's called temptation, and he's very powerful at it. But one of the great things that I think he trembles, as the old hymn goes, "Satan trembles when he sees the greatest or Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees." Because in our weakness, we cry out to our great and awesome, strong God. And I think Satan trembles when you and I take our issue before the Lord in prayer.

So, Satan's great move upon your life is to always push the moment of prayer down the road. Things like this. "Come on. I'm going to, I'm going to confess, but I'm going to confess for all of you. I'm just here to be a sacrificial animal in front of you here." So, Lisa and I are just like you. We say things like this. We get up in the morning and we'll say something like, "You know what we're going to do today? You know, before we get going, we got to go do that thing. But before, before we do, we're going to make sure that we pray and then we read this portion of Toer in his book, 'I Talk Back to the Devil,' and we're going to pray those things that are there, and then we're going to go and we're going to go do those chores we have to take care of." Does that sound familiar to any of you? Does that always happen? No. Oh, it always happens that we make the commitment. We don't always follow through. Why? Phone rings, something happens. Toilet overflows. No, you know what I'm talking about. Car won't start. Something happens. Or he'll convince you by saying, "You can pray all you want. God's not going to listen to you. Who do you think you are? There's 8 billion people on the planet. You think God is going to listen to you, Jack?" Yeah, absolutely. Because that's what Jesus said. And you listen, you pray the darkness away. "Satan, you may be right. God has no commitment to me except His Son has come and opened up that way of salvation for me, and the veil has been torn. So the truth is, I wouldn't listen to me either, Satan. But the truth of the matter is, God loves me, and God says He'll listen to me when I call out to Him. So the truth of the matter is, yes, I'm going to pray. Yes, I'm going to call out to God. And yes, I'm going to keep that communication open all day, all night long. And you pray."

The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man." Oh, but you don't know how bad my temptation is. Friends, all of our temptations are really, really bad. But they're very, very common. And God knows. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation will also make the way of escape. I love that. Always be looking for the way of escape out of the temptation. By the way, I can confess every temptation that has come to my life that I can recall, there's always been a way of escape. And I have to exercise the choice to give into the temptation or to look for the exit. It's true. And He says that you may be able to bear it. Isn't that amazing? Temptation will come to all of us, but you don't have to give into it.

In 1 John chapter 2, verse 15, 1 John 2:15 begins by saying, "Do not love the world." The word in Greek is "stop loving the world and the things in the world." "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And you and I, by the way, are in the middle of that. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever." And it's God's will that you and I abide with God in fellowship. And that is so often through, of course, prayer. That's our communication.

We often talk about the armor of light, putting off the darkness and putting on the light and the armor of that light. But how do you put it on? You pray the darkness away. But how do you put on the armor? Listen, you do the same thing. You pray the armor on. Prayer. Imagine. How about this? Can I ask you? Can I invite you to do this? Can I invite every single one of you, just in this first service alone today, if you would promise from this moment forward to give five minutes to prayer? Say, "Why don't make it more?" Look, I'm starting. We got to have to start somewhere. There's some people who are so defeated they can't even pray two minutes. How about five minutes? Let's stretch it out there. And you're going to set your timer and you're going to say, "For five minutes, I'm going to pray." You, and here's always the thing that comes to mind, "What am I going to pray about?" Amen. Take a deep breath and look around. You'll see something to pray. Look at your husband. Look at your wife. That'll cause prayer right there. Look at your kids. Do you have grandkids? Look at the economy. Look at the world. Look at your neighbors. Look at yourself and say, "Lord, I got to pray." Imagine. How about that? Can I ask you of that? Five minutes. I'm not saying 5:00 AM and joining us in the prayer group at 5:00 AM. I'll be happy to get five, just five minutes any time of the day. You'll start seeing. And let's look, let's, I know this sounds kind of silly, but maybe it's for illustration effect. I'm going to challenge second service and third service today to do the same thing. So which service is going to see the blessings of God? That's right. Now, don't tell second or third service I encouraged you like this, but we pray the armor on.

The proof is right here in the Bible. Do not miss this. Very familiar, very familiar passage, but don't miss it. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 11 says, "Put on the whole armor of God." All of it. We need all of it, "that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." Trickery, the deception of the devil. Verse 12, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood." That would be easy. "But against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." In other words, in our frail humanity, when we pray, we connect with eternity and we go to war against the invisible forces that are in the atmosphere that are waging war against us, against the truth, against the light. We fight in the heavenly realm.

Someone long ago said, "We need to be careful now, pastor, because we don't want to be so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good." I think that came from Satan. No, I'm serious. Well, my mom's got that poster on her wall. Tear it down. I think Satan would want to say, "Now, don't get too fanatical now about talking to God. You know, you don't want to be so heavenly minded that you know earthly good." Excuse me. Our problem is we're so earthly good, we're not heavenly, or we're so earthly minded, we're not heavenly good. How about this? If we're heavenly minded, we will be earthly good. That's very important.

But he goes on and he says this, "Therefore, take up the whole armor of God." Verse 13, "that you may be able to withstand in the evil day." I think it's now. "And having done all to stand, stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace." Verse 16, "Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." Amen. That's the Bible telling you, "Whatever Satan throws at you, pick up the shield of faith." Know your Bible. Watch. Don't have faith in faith. I know you hear this on Christian TV all the time. "Don't have faith in faith." That's insane. What is that? Nope. You're to have faith in the word of God and in the power of God. When you take up the shield of faith, the Bible says, "Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God." Amen. So hold up that shield. And the Bible tells us that we are to take now, uh, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. I love the fact that your salvation is referred to be as being, uh, protected, your protecting your head with a helmet. Um, that's important. And the sword of the Spirit, the Greek word *makaira*. *Makaira*. It's the 18-inch blade. The, the sword of the Spirit. It's not the Roman broadsword. That's the big one. You know, like Russell Crowe. You ever see that movie? What's it called? Gladiator. He's got that big sword. That's not the word. There is the word. The Bible uses that word, but not here. The sword of the Spirit, not the Roman broadsword. The sword of the Spirit is the *makaira*. It's got its handle and its blade. It's only 18 inches long. And the soldier put it on the, uh, so I'm right-handed. The soldier would put it on his left side because the moment he pulls it, it's in, it's in the, uh, attack mode. You grab it and you slice the throat or you go to war like this, and you never pull it out until you're in hand-to-hand combat with your enemy. God is saying right here, you're going to be in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. So, use the sword of the Spirit to destroy him. What does that mean? If you're under spiritual attack, temptation, whatever it might be, and you say, "Okay, I just, I remember that sermon. I'm supposed to use the word of God. Uh, Genesis 1:1, 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.'" Nothing's going to happen. You have to know the word of God to know what verse applies to the battle. Amen. That's the *makaira*, a specific verse for the specific temptation. And we're to know the Bible that way, which is able, uh, which is the word of God.

Verse 18, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication." This is verse 18. Verse 18 puts all of the armorament together. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end, and with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints." We are to love one another by praying for one another because we are to be, uh, giving one another that attention.

Number three, this is the third, and it's in verses 13 to 14. So I owe you devotion. I owe you devotion. You say, "Don't you? We owe God devotion, right?" Of course we do. That's first. But if I'm devoted to God, how are you going to know that? Let's, let's be very transparent here. If you're devoted to God, how am I going to know? If I'm devoted to God, how are you going to know? I, listen, I got news for you. It's not what I'm doing right now. It's not me teaching the Bible to you right now. It's what happens after we're done teaching the Bible here right now. Our devotion to one another lives out our devotion to God. If I'm devoted to God, then I'm going to give devotion to you. Meaning what? Meaning I'm going to put you first. You should be more important to me than I am important to me. I, the believer, you, the believer, we've been designed to give all the others our love, our devotion, our attention, our energy, our affection because God will do that to us in our private life with Him. Does that make sense? Oh, no, I need all the attention. I need all the affection. Listen, might I submit this to you? It's very possible that your spiritual well is dry. And you're thinking that what you need is that everybody else needs to focus on you, and so you'll feel better. You're not going to feel better. The only way the Christian works properly is that when the Christian pours themselves out on behalf of others. And when that happens, are you guys listening? Yes. Yes. When that happens, God pours into you the resources of His Holy Spirit. You want, listen, you want to be blessed, then empty yourself out. God will fill you up. Jesus said in John chapter 7 that "out of your innermost being will flow forth, gush forth rivers of living water," referring to the Holy Spirit. When you and I are weak, the Holy Spirit will be strong in our lives. And if we're going to be devoted to God, we need to be devoted to one another.

And notice this. It's without any disguise. It's not hidden. Look at verse 13. "Let us walk properly as in the day." This is tremendous truth. Family of God, watch this carefully. It's to be without any disguise. In other words, we are to be very public about our relationship and loving one another as a church, as a people. And obviously, when it says, "Let us walk properly as in the day," it's obvious here that we're not talking about light as in the physical light sense, as in particles of light. But the fact is, He's talking about spiritual light. We're talking about light, and the light of the truth, in the spiritual light. The Bible speaks of "let us walk properly as in the day," meaning spiritual illumination. And the word "properly" in the Greek language is this, and it's got an old English word we don't ever hear, and that is to be becomingly. That's a hard word. We've, we don't see this word. It's very, very old English. The best word that we know today is winsome. Winsome. What a beautiful thing. It's hard to fight against somebody who's winsome. Somebody can disagree with you, but they'll have a hard time hating you because you've even loved them even in the disagreement. That is winsome in a way, or upright in a manner, attractive, possessing quality characteristics. The Bible tells us that we're to walk properly like that. We are to be people of integrity and of quality as believers.

And the Bible warns us about false truth that will only increase in the last days. And as a culture, you and I have already been baptized, well, I think, into false truth. Every aspect of life, it seems that false truth has invaded. Look how many times your phone is your phone at home, like my phone at home. I'm about ready to just throw our phone away. But how many times do you get a phone call and it's, it's, it's 1-800, or it's 888, and thank God now our new phones, at least this phone we bought from Costco, says "Possible fraud." I really appreciate that. "Possible fraud." Are you getting things like this? Do you get texts and people say, "You need to pay this bill right away, or we're going to send you to collection"? Do you, you know not to open it up, right? Listen, our cyber team, and we have an internal and an external cyber team, they say, "Jack, tell everybody when you get that, don't even open it." How about this one? "Hey, we were supposed to meet up tonight. Are we still going to do that?" Do you guys get those? I get those. And I've never been to any weird site. I'm telling you right now, I'm as clean as the driven snow. Where did this stuff come from? See, and then listen, there's people I know well who are sending me texts, and it's not even them. Wow. And I'm being questioned now because I have a Facebook page with 40,000 followers on it. And I said something about something about something. It wasn't even me. It's fake. And there's 40,000 followers on the, it's fake. Fake. You watch commercials, it's fake. You watch movies, and it's fake. Except Tom Cruise. I guess he does all this stuff. Good for him. But these are times of deception.

You know, much of the Israeli Air Force and the US Air Force projected images to the Iranian satellite and U-missile systems of ghosts. We sent out ghosts. We had squadrons of planes in various areas. They weren't even there. They were detected by Iranian airspace, and there was nothing even there. That's the kind of deception that's fun, in my opinion, but not all of it's like that. Colossians chapter 2, verse 8 tells us, "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy." That's a good one. Yeah, a lot of kids have to take philosophy in college or in school these days because, uh, that's what Satan wants them to have. "And an empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." Deception on a scale never before seen. Listen. How do you know? Don't answer out loud. How do you know personally that you are not going to be deceived in the last days? How do you know? If you're not in the Bible, I promise you this, you will be deceived. And let me say it again. If you are not reading this book, you will be deceived. This is the only thing that can keep you from warding off the deception of incredibly powerful, invisible demonic forces that will make things look so real that you'll begin to believe they're real. How many times have you looked and you saw a news report or a video from somebody somewhere, and it was fake? Put your eyes to the screens for a second, would you? About deception. [Applause] What you are seeing is not real. How can you distinguish the truth from a lie? They used to say, "Seeing is believing." But you can't trust your eyes. I mean, what's going on? What if this artificial intelligence is leading us towards a very dark place? The world is about to be plunged into a time of deception unlike anything that has ever been seen before. And I don't think people realize it. If you ask me, this is the end. These are like the last days. And something big is coming. Humanity has just driven off the edge of a cliff, and we are now plummeting at a very high rate of speed towards certain destruction. I am not real. [Music] What do you think? [Music] [Music] [Applause] None of them were real. I don't know if this is a prediction or just history. I don't know if I'm thinking and looking into the future or looking back to the past, but in light of media platforms and even this broadcast being streamed or something being aired on TV from this, from this pulpit, how much longer will that be able to go on? Think about it. If things can be changed and manipulated, and you're, you are experiencing something that is not actually your experience, you are experiencing it through media. Is not the world addicted to media? So if you're not going to church, listen, this is not a pitch for church, but I guess it is. If you are not experiencing one another face to face, how do I know what I'm learning and what I'm hearing in that sermon is even true? How do you know? How do you know? I believe that we as a church in the future, maybe not far from now, we will have to meet face to face as Hebrews 10:25 says, because the media world, there may be millions of Christian broadcasting programs, and they're not even Christian, and the person speaking is not even real. Are you hearing me? We could easily be driven back to the days of home Bible studies, as it was in the book of Acts. All because we need to touch each other and see if this is real. Can I see if you're real? Can I pinch you? This is where it's coming. Because what you just saw was created by AI. And why in the world would we settle for artificial intelligence when God can give us divine intelligence by knowing Him and knowing one another? It's a remarkable time, church. It's a crazy time.

And then the Bible warns us about danger. Verse 13, He says, "Not in revelry and in drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, nor of strife and envy." If we do not pray off the darkness and pray on the light, where there is no light, darkness invades. This is true in physics, and it's true in the spiritual realm. Friend, if you are not investing in your own life spiritually, darkness will fill the void. I'm going to run through this quick. It's quite shocking, but we need to hear this. These are things that the Christian is not to engage in. Number one, and I wrote it down this way. Christians do not let other Christians get caught up in revelry. Revelry. What is that, simply? It's festival, festivity, carousing, partying. This is in a carnal sense. It's not having, it's not having a party because your kid just graduated from high school. That's not what we're talking about. Revelry is living to party. What kind of party? He's going to tell us. Notice this, everybody, in your notetaking. Watch what happens. Revelry is at the top. That's where you begin. Partying. And the list that he's going to give us, you might find it shocking. Please write it down because it took me a long time to find this. What you're going to see in this list is literally the worship service protocol to the worship of Bacchus. Bacchus. Let's see. Before I read it all, let's see Bacchus. Bacchus is the god of, frankly, he's the god, I'm not joking. He's the god of wine, women, and song. He is. Or really, he's the god of wine, whatever you sexually prefer at any given time, and song. And by the way, to worship Bacchus in these things, you had to do it outside. Most often in a paradise type of an oasis was the requirement. Some beautiful place. Have you noticed that crazy people are drawn to beautiful places? Have you noticed that? Some beautiful place. You'll be at Yosemite right there, and those, you'll, or you'll be, you know, at Yellowstone, and then there's somebody walks by with a crystal stuck in their navel and a pyramid on their head. Said, "What are you doing here?" Bacchus. Bacchus. And they got their little wine. You know, he's all about you partying. Next picture. Oh, yikes. That's later on in the night from partying. That ought to scare you, in my opinion. Man. Next, uh, next, uh, image. There you go. This is a painting regarding Bacchus, the god of revelry. Let's party. Think about how much partying is the culture of the world. Partying. In Romans chapter 1, verse 22, the Bible says, "Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man." And birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Revelry. Revelry.

The next word is drunkenness. Christians do not let other Christians get caught up in drunkenness. The word drunkenness here means to be under the influence of another, to be under the control of, or to be possessed by. Isn't this interesting? For I'm not talking about alcohol, wine, beer, liquor, uh, whiskey, whatever it's called. I'm talking about anything that causes you to be under the influence of something else other than God. Everybody knows that when you become under the influence of something else, the first thing that goes, I heard this in a case. I was on a, I was sitting on a jury, a murder trial, and the, the man that was given expert, uh, witness because drinking was involved in this murder. The scientist said, "The first thing that goes out the window when somebody becomes inebriated is their moral discernment." And I was a Christian sitting on that jury, and I thought, "Wow, that guy hit the nail on the head." The first thing when you get in, you begin to loosen up your morals, which opens up other doors. The Bible says drunkenness right here in your Bible. Avoid partying. Drunkenness. Watch the descent.

Christians do not let Christians get caught up in lewdness. Listen. After you party, or during the party, you start to get drunk. When you start to get drunk, you start to get loose. When you get loose, you get into lewdness. Lewdness simply means to bed. To, I'm sorry it's blunt like this. It's the meaning of the word to bed someone. It's not love. It's who can I get to bed? Hey, I'm going to go to a party. We're going to have Bacchus there, and it's going to be all about drunkenness so I can bed somebody. That's pagan worship. God's not your god. Bacchus is your god. Well, you know, I believe in Christian liberty. You don't even know what you're talking about. Lewdness. The word suggests, by the way, to go after unauthorized flesh. Strange flesh. What? What is strange flesh? Flesh that you're not supposed to have. Friends, listen. Flesh. Flesh. Not fresh. Flesh that you're not supposed to have. It's in the context of what he was saying earlier here in Romans chapter 13. You're not to have your neighbor's wife or husband. You're not to commit adultery. You're not to fornicate. God made you, and He knows how your body works. And He says, "Nope." And lewdness is a result of this digression downward. Ephesians 5:3 says, "But fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, that's dirty jokes, which are not fitting, but rather giving thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words." This is what the Bible says. So why? What's the deal? Because these things that you live for, they're your passions, not God. And notice the worship of Bacchus. From revelry to drunkenness to lewdness to lust.

Christians do not let other Christians get caught up into lust. And the word lust means this: licentiousness, wantingness, the burning desire to have the controlling passion of one's life. You must put the fire out, you think, in desire by obtaining that thing that you're hungering for. And it's a trap. God's word says, "Can a man take fire to his chest and not be burned?" Lust. Have you noticed that lust burns? Now, I cannot speak for the women in the house. I, I'm a guy, and I don't ever plan to go to the other team. I'm a guy, and I can tell, I can say this on behalf of all the men. Lust is something that actually physically burns somewhere just below the chest and just below, or just above the belly button. It's right here. I, you could point to it with a man. A man's got this burning thing when there's lust going on. It's strange, but yet when you open up my guts, there's no little fatty tissue over here and it's labeled the lust department or the lust. This is the lust, you know. No, it's something spiritual that begins to affect the physical. Lust. And then strife. Notice the decline. All these things are in order. You want to start partying, you're going to get drunk. You're going to get drunk, you're going to get lewd. Lewd's going to lead to lust. You're going to have to satisfy that stuff, and that creates strife. Notice, think about the homes where there's infidelity, the strife that's in that home. Strife. The word strife means quarreling, divisive atmosphere, tension in the air, arguments, wars. The atmosphere, the home, the life is emotionally toxic. And then finally, in this section right here, the Christian does not let other Christians get caught up into envy. And this is the worst. This is the, this is the death knell. Envy. Envy means jealousy, fury, rage. Envy is the root, by the way, of such acts as violence, hatred, abuse, and even murder. Did you know that? Did you know that murder is first preempted by envy? You know, the Bible says they killed Jesus because of envy. Envy. And so if you believe in YOLO, right? You only live once. Y-O-L-O. All of these things, you're susceptible to because you've been told that you got to live your life to the fullest because that's all there is. But if you believe and understand that the Bible says, "No, no, no. Real life is after this life." That's going to change the way that you live.

Listen, for time's sake, I got to end this final thing, and you can look at the notes later on. It's in verse 14, and it's this. I owe you this dedication without any design. See, what do you mean design? Without any plotting or plan. In verse 14, it says, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no, no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts." Put it to you this way. If you and I independently, yet together, independently as Christians, together as a church, if we decide to pursue God, I'm going to be a joy to be around, and you're going to be a joy to be around because we are all targeted on the same mission. And that is, how close can we get to Jesus? And you see, you've seen those little chipmunks in the cartoon trying to, after you? No, no, after you, and after you. Listen, I'm like, I see myself getting into that cartoon, knocking both of those squirrels out of the way and walking into the door to see Jesus first. You say, "Well, you know, you know, come on in. Come to, come to, come to the kingdom. Come to heaven, everybody." Hey, I'm like this. You, you want to come? You coming? We're going. You coming? No, I don't. I'm going. And you, you, you go. Imagine if we all decide, "I'm going." I'm going to do everything I can to follow the Lord who bought me with His own blood, who gave His life for me. He loved me so much. I'm going to recklessly go after Him. There's no holding back. You think of that.

And I'm going to end with this quote. You can stand. That's how ended we are. This is a quote by the great reformer, Martin Luther. Is this awesome? You say it like this before I read it out loud. You people will say something like this, "Well, I want to follow God, pastor." Oh, really? Do it. "Pastor Jack, will you pray for me? I don't know why, but I keep gravitating towards pornography." It's because you love it. "Well, Pastor Jack, I don't know what the deal is. Every time I get a catalog, I just buy everything." Stop your mail service. Throw your computer away. Listen, we need to, we need to go to God with this stuff. Stop talking to people about it. Go to God and say, "Listen, God, I, I apparently love something more than You do. And it's that I love this thing more than I love You, God. And I'm sorry for that, and I'm repentant of it." Amen. The Bible says that we can be, and we should be, because God has positioned us to be more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

Listen to this. Martin Luther said, "I cannot keep birds from flying near my head, but I can prevent them from building a nest in my hair." That is awesome. Well, you know, pastor, I was really thirsty. It was a hot day, and I used to be a drunk, and I needed a glass of water. So I pulled into Joe's Barn Grill. Bad move. That's letting the bird build a nest in your hair. Well, you know, I know that old girlfriend lived on that street, but I just thought I'd go down that street one more time because, uh, that guy's got nice landscaping on the other side of the street. No, that's not it. Don't go down the street. You can't prevent birds from flying around your head, but you can't prevent them from building a nest.

Father God, in Jesus' name, we we give ourselves to You today. We dedicate ourselves to You today, Lord. We owe You everything. And Lord, because You've been so good to us and we owe You so much, You turn around and say, "Well, here's how you can pay me back. You can love my children. You can love your brothers and sisters." So Lord, give us the ability and the desire, the passion, and the commitment to be loving, starting right now, and even in the parking lot leaving this place in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, "Amen." God bless you, church.